We know what humans are, and we know what machines are. This thread is a thread of a philosophy forum. So each ILP member who intends to post in this thread should know what humans and machines are and should know what life / biology and technique / technology are. If humans and machines were the same (and of course: they are not the same!), then we would not have (for example) words like “cyborg” and “android”. Humans are biological beings with cells, and a cell is the smallest independently viable unit. Machines are not biological beings. Although the human organisms work similarly as machines work - so that we can speak of a similarity between the organismic “machine” and the technical machine -, each human organism is based on life (biology), whereas each machine is based on technique (technology). Human beings are living beings, machines are technical resp. artificial beings.
Do we really know what humans are? When we walk down the street we only see skin. We presume to know what is underneath, but if we had X Ray eyes, we would see the following : Bones, cartridges, circuitry made of arteries , a heart in the middle beating eighty times a minute circulating it like a car’s water pump, feeding the organs, fueling the guts, and getting rid of waste through an exhaust system. This is what we would see. But we don’t see that. we know it, because that is what we were thought. Some actually see it, doctors, but through a dissection of non moving parts. So what we know, is what we see and what we do not see. But do we really know what makes it work, what holds a body together in its totally machine like apparatus?
the biology of it is mechanistic, and technical. We can only learn of it by reading of it in technical books.
The similarity between a human body, and a machine is vastly more similar than imagined. metal is composed of molecules, and so is the human body. The inorganic and the organic differs only in the existence of carbon elements . The difference between organic and inorganic is the addition of differing types of elements to carbon. The difference is zero in an inductive analysis, but different in a deductive one. that’s because deduction is a product of post inorganic evolution of inorganic compounds.
man and machine started from the same pool, and destined to evolve similarly , as machine and man reform into a the basic unity of the pool.
Do you remember my last post or did you not read it? All we need to know in order to post in this thread is that humans are living beings and machines are no living beings, thus that humans and machines are not the same. Additionally we know e.g. that humans created, create, and will create machines, including the first of those machines that created, create, and will create machines. There are similarities and analogies between humans and machines, of course, but these similarities and analogies do not change the fact that humans and machines are different. If humans and machines were the same (and of course: they are not the same!), then we would not have (for example) words like “cyborg” and “android”, we also would not need any difference in the meaning of the words “human” and “machine”, thus one of both words or even both words could - and would (!) - vanish. Saying “humans and machines are the same” is similar to the wording “humans and gods are the same” - both statements are false. But this falsity does not change the fact that humans want to be gods and to create something that is better than humans are.
Of course I read it, I would do You a disservice if I tried to answer something unread. Not only that, it would border on fraud.
My point is philosophical, and will try to in a roundabout way desribe what I mean.
What has happened to our way of thinking since the dawn of civilization, and I do not mean this as a lecture, only to lay a foundation to my blog up above,
Is, that is that the structural integrity of it has gone through changes of assimilated ideas which drew heavily on the similarity of constructions based on human models. there was a turnaround, whereby these models started to be deconstructed, to accommodate machine modeling based on data. The perfect model, even suggested through this forum is one which is more machine based, destined to overcome the human one. In and through this process, a dehumanizations is taking place, whereby the differences between machine and man are narrowing. The cyborg is such a model.
I was not suggesting that machines and human beings are identical, only that the modeling, of reality itself, is becoming more machine like and less human like.
Even though in the original vote I held that machines will not be able to overcome reality by a total human/machine integration, the fact remains, that even to be able to hold such a concept. The idea of
constructing on basis of such a model, implies that the systems are very similar in the first place, and will become nearer and nearer for them to be able to become identical. In this sense, machines and human beings are both nearing identical systems.
I disagree with the suggestion that Al will turn evil and eliminate humans, because man still retains the element of invention, and they will be aware, that is the humans, when Al will reach a point in its development, when it will pose a danger, in terms of
resisting human control. Once a feedback system develops, when power sharing becomes a control issue, various checks and balances will be established
to assure, that proper overflow will be grounded into alternative systems, which can modify and change these types of process.
The new models are only different in kind, but not in the type of systems necessary to function as a machine. That is what was meant, and not the literal way of interpreting human beings and machines as being identical.
humans are mostly digital, DNA is digital.
a bird solved this puzzle faster than most humans would have. most humans are inferior to birds. wallythekat.tripod.com/A_Pages/A … stein.html
living or non-living does not determine if something is a machine. if an AI can self-regulate and reproduce you don’t say it ceases to be a machine. If a woman goes through menopause and is sterile we don’t have a funeral and say she is no longer among the living.
Arminus,
It is still not clear what you are suggesting. What do you eaxtly mean by life or living organism? What would be the difference between a human and an android according to you? Is inclusion of any pure mechanical device in the humans is enough call them andriods? Is a human having his knee joint replaced by an artificial one worthy enough to be called an android? Or, he should has something else?
With love,
Sanjay
Science has accepted that a “human” or “homosapian” is anything founded on an RNA/DNA sequencing that can mate with a homosapian and reproduce (bear an offspring).
Even if artificially produced, if anything, mechanical or not, can do the above, it is “human”. Otherwise it is merely machine, artificial, incongruent, or a different species.
Okay.
Is the definition of the LIFE the same?
With love,
Sanjay
Of course not. Ants are “alive”.
The definition of “life” still varies but basically encompasses self-preservation and reproduction. Reproduction is actually a method of self-preservation, not independent of it. The inherent intent of reproduction is to form harmonious surroundings. Reproducing nanobots serve that function, but seldom (if ever yet) enact self-preservation, although it wouldn’t take all that much to include it.
Some military drones enact self-preservation but can’t reproduce … yet. Combine the two of those and you have a truly living machine; “Replicators” (as displayed in sci-fi films).
James,
Does your definition not suggest that plants are also Live?
Or not!
With love,
Sanjay
Yes. How is that an issue?
Do they have mind or consciousness too?
With love,
Sanjay
No.
Consciousness requires remote recognition. Plants don’t do that.
But some drones do.
If plants do not have ether consciousness or mind, how they make decisions?
With love,
Sanjay
Plants dont make decisions and neither do humans. Plants just “do” things.
Well, that is neither a philosophical nor scientific explanation. It is like saying that the God created this universe, just because he does that. No further deduction is required.
By the way, have you ever seen sunflower plant moving the face of its flower towards the sun all the time?
Is that not a conscious decision, taken collectively by the whole of the plant?
If sunflower plant does not has any collective and conscious decision making portion, how could it ever be do such act?
And, remember also, unlike animals and humans, plants do not have any central nervous system. So, how its different portions cummunicate and synchronise with each other?
With love,
Sanjay
dude its just some chemicals moving down the vine causing it to rotate for the photoreceptors
GWT,
I do not think that you are able to understand the issue.
With love,
Sanjay
I think it is quite clear what I mean by “life” and “living organism”. And as I also said several times: androids belong to the machines, cyborgs belong to the humans. So if humans wanted to become machines, they could only become cyborgs; and if machines wanted to become humans, they could only become androids. So cyborgs are humans, although with some or many features, properties, characters of machines, and androids are machines, although with some or many features, properties, characters of humans.
Machines do not have cells. A cell is the smallest independently viable unit. Machines are not living beings. Androids are machines. Cyborgs are humans. Humans are living beings. Living beings are not machines.
Arminius,
Zinnat has a point, thou maybe we are overlooking it. development per evolution of organisms is very gradual over a long time. There are no gaps within the continuum. So the problem is, of defining at what point can we say of a lower order organism, that it has no function in decision making? At what point, for instance the actions of a fly eating plant, can it be said, that there is a certain amount of understanding in terms of deciding to open its mouth and swallow a fly? Between the machine and man, there also exist a long developmental continuum, and if only a few human devices/traits/organs are left within its body, when is it, that it can be said to have
become a machine?
In other words on the cellular level there is a noticeable distinction, but on the molecular level, no such distinction pervades. It’s a structural and systemic arrangement .