From: "TheHermit" <carlw@hermit.net> To: <virus@lucifer.com> Subject: virus: Darwinism and unintentional electronics. Date sent: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 19:30:34 -0500 Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
> Joe said "Circuits which have not been designed and/or manufactured by an
> intentional self-conscious awareness do not exist."
>
> Sorry Joe. They do so, too! Let Darwinism loose in an electronics lab and
> just watch what it creates. A lean, mean machine that nobody understands.
>
Right you are (and wrong you are, for we still mediately manufactured them using the process of evolution as a tool; we're just not sure how the blind little troll under our thrall accomplishes the task to which we have set it, or what the structure of its product may be). In fact, I had read about this and it had slipped my mind. Much of the work at the Santa Fe Institute has involved the use of evolved cybersystems for modelling complex processes. What is interesting about this is that it shows that a blind and purposeless process may be intentionally employed to perform constructive tasks set by those who define both the ground conditions and the niche into which they desire a solution to evolve. This should not be mistaken, however, for the deluded belief that evolution, in and of itself, possesses any purpose or intention; it merely means that the process may be used by us as a means by which we may realize our intended purposes. Evolution in and of itself is not a tool, but we may make a tool of it. One wonders how much efficiency or economy would be lost if one of the ground conditions set was that the evolved entity be permeable to our understanding, or if/how such a ground condition could even be stipulated?