@@ -87,13 +87,13 @@ !!Conclusion
Barring some idiot blowing us - or at least our civilization - to hell, or some natural disaster having the same effect, it appears that computers will be much more competent than humans within the next 80 years. Possibly even within the next 20 years. And it is not impossible that this will occur within the next 10 years. That means that spirothetic life is likely to arise within our life-times and it is almost unarguable that it will not arise during the livetimes of our children.
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!!!Spirothetes: Collaborater, Successor or Threat?
-All life we know of, with very few domesticated exceptions, got to where it has by a process of "Natural Selection". "Natural Selection", which
occurs when lifeforms clash both within and across species. The competion is caused by challenges, most usually restricted resources. Often the challenges were too great and too rapid for most
existing life forms to adapt. In the aeons since life began, very few species have succeeded in surviving more than a few millions of years. At each stage, older life forms have been surpassed by newer that were, for one reason or another, slightly advantaged, in the evolutionary battles of that moment. Not
necessarily a better life form, just a
better suited to the moment - and sometimes luckier, life form.
+All life we know of, with very few domesticated exceptions, got to where it has by a process of "Natural Selection". "Natural Selection", occurs when lifeforms clash both within and across species. The competion is caused by challenges, most usually restricted resources. Often the challenges were too great and too rapid for existing life forms to adapt. In the aeons since life began, very few species have succeeded in surviving more than a few millions of years. At each stage, older life forms have been surpassed by newer that were, for one reason or another, slightly advantaged, in the evolutionary battles of that moment. It is important to realise that a "more evolved" lifeform is not
necessarily a better life form, just that it is
better suited to the moment - and sometimes a
luckier, life form.
Where these clashes occurred, the fitter species (for that time, in that environment) would survive and usually, but not always, thrive. For example, Homo Sapiens Sapiens replaced Neanderthal man. For a short while, Neanderthal shared the planet with his successor, but a little while later, Neanderthal was gone. Perhaps, for some small time while Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens Sapiens overlapped, Neanderthal could have eliminated Homo Sapiens Sapiens. And we would then not be here. Perhaps.Whatever the reasons, this did not happen. And an instant or two later, in geological time, it was too late. Neanderthal was extinct. And we are here. Intelligence appears to have bestowed an evolutionary advantage upon us, making us "better fitted" than Neanderthal.
This "dance of the species" has been driven by competition. If the competion were not there, no particular biological advantages (or disadvantages) would exist. For example, the mosquito, with few competitors, has been preying on sanguine species since the lower Cretaceous, some 100 million years ago, with little or no change. If spirothetes are developed (and we have see how likely this it happen) then they will be much more competent at thinking (and probably at implementing their thoughts) than man. Rather than the difference in competence being like the difference between Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens Sapiens, it will quite likely be like the difference between protozoa and Homo Sapiens Sapiens, with us playing the part of the protozoa.
@@ -105,9 +105,9 @@ Yet no change means no development, and man is far from perfect.
A third issue would be the likelihood that
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[1] Self-awareness. Measured using the "mirror test". Gordon Gallup, Jr. began development of the mirror test in 1969. The mirror test involves marking the faces of animals or other parts which the animals cannot see with red dye, and determining whether the animals touch the marks on themselves or those appearing in a reflection in a mirror. Most animals treat mirror images as they would peers. Humans generally behave much the same way until 18 to 24 months, after which they start to recognize themselves in a reflection and also begin to use personal pronouns. Gallup proposes that the self-awareness demonstrated by this test might indicate the ability to empathize with other animals. [ "What an Elephant Sees in the Mirror", Jessica Clark, Brittanica.com, 2000-08-30 | http://www.mindspring.com/~samizdata/britannica/elephant.htm ] It should be noted that in [ "Self-Awareness" in the Pigeon", SCIENCE, VOL. 212, 1981-05-08, Robert Epstein, Robert P Lanza, BF Skinner | http://www.k.tsukuba-tech.ac.jp/ge/people/katoh/katohJ.html ], produced a nonmentalistic model of this test which perhaps reduces the value of this test. However a great deal more work based on the "mirror-test for self awareness" is in the literature subsequent to the publication of "Self-Awareness" in the Pigeon" suggesting that the "mirror-test" is still consider a valid test.
[2] Spirothete: noun. A word coined to describe a living being, initially created as an artifact, from Latin, spiro -are; intransit., to breathe, blow, draw breath; to be alive; to have inspiration; be inspired; transit., to breath out, expire (also L/Gk spiros the breath of life) and synthetic adj 1: (chemistry) not of natural origin; prepared or made artificially 2: involving or of the nature of synthesis (combining separate elements to form a coherent whole) as opposed to analysis.
