Re: Laws of Intelligence Re Creative Activity


"Inez" <savagemouse123@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1146370431.687263.66030@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Cubist wanted clarification on "changes that build on themselves" and
also "start-stop commands." Okay.

From what I've observed here in my sandbox, start-stop actions can be
found in both mental and non-mental situations. So start-stop
actions, alone, are insufficient to provide any information on mental
activity. The start-stop actions must reflect a command.

For example, a piece of chalk might be pushed off a shelf by a gust of
wind (start action) and fall to the ground, coming to a rest there
(stop action). In the process of falling, the chalk happens to scrape
along the surface of the wall, leaving a straight line behind it. If
we were to come along and see that straight line, all we could
justifiably extract as information from that line is that it started
at the top of the wall and stopped at the floor. There is
insufficient information to determine if someone pulled the chalk
deliberately along the wall, or if it fell and traced a line as a
result of natural causes and laws.

All we have here so far, then, is a start-stop action. What is
missing is evidence for a command. We do not yet have a clear
start-stop COMMAND.

The term "Command" implies intelligence. Everything must have some
sort of shape, so how do you know any outline was the result of
"commands" or just random chance?

But what if the chalk's fall got diverted by a second gust of wind
that pushed it to the right, causing it to form an L-shape, before
lifting the chalk and carrying it away to a far corner of the room.
If we were to come along and see this L-shaped figure on the wall, we
might be tempted to conclude that someone wrote the letter L
deliberately. But there is still insufficient information to exclude
natural causes and/or laws from making the L shape. Therefore, the
L-shaped figure gets thrown into category 4, the waste can. It is not
a good sample for studying mental activity.

Now, what if the chalk were to start falling, turned to the right,
turned again, this time to the left, at 90 degrees, turned again to
the left at 90 degrees, joining the point of its first turn precisely
where it started, and if, in the middle of this box, the chalk traced
a perfect circle, with no trail marks in the space between the sides
of the box and the circle, is there now sufficient information to
allow us to recognize start-stop commands?

I submit, yes. For every additional turn that builds on the last,
there is increasing evidence that there was a mental command to change
direction.

I agree, but it seems to me that what you're really getting at here is
that if we know how something is made, it goes a long way towards
determining if something is intelligently designed. We know that
humans draw with chalk. Similarly, we know that humans spot weld metal
together into cars. Thus, cars and drawings are easy to identify as
human artifacts, except perhaps the work of Franz Klien.

Far across the galaxy, however, the Schnot people have developed a form
or writing whereby concepts that would take us an entire page of
writing are conveyed using one splotch-like character, with different
angles and stringers of goo adding different meanings to the whole. To
us, their writing looks quite a bit like something icky that has
dropped from a great height onto a bit of bark, which is the Schnot
people's perferred writing medium.

You mean that we may think it's mucous, but it's Schnot?

<snip>

Deadrat

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Laws of Intelligence Re Creative Activity
    ... From what I've observed here in my sandbox, start-stop actions can be ... The start-stop actions must reflect a command. ... the chalk happens to scrape ... natural causes and/or laws from making the L shape. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Laws of Intelligence Re Creative Activity
    ... The start-stop actions must reflect a command. ... the chalk happens to scrape ... along the surface of the wall, leaving a straight line behind it. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Laws of Intelligence Re Creative Activity
    ... The start-stop actions must reflect a command. ... the chalk happens to scrape ... along the surface of the wall, leaving a straight line behind it. ...
    (talk.origins)