I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 10/07/2025 9:38 am, Joe Gwinn wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkins' Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Of course it is. Dawkins is a biologists and Simon Herbert is a
professor of computer science.

Dawkins wants to know how something evolved. Herbert wants to know how something that exists and survives happens to work.

Both have an interest in the fine detail of the processes that keep
organisms alive, but Dawkin wants to know how the processes have changed
as the organism have evolved, while Herbert is primarily interested in
how they work now

Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Despite being published by the MIT Press, Herbert is at Carnegie-Mellon.
This shouldn't come as a surprise. MIT press also published my wife's
textbook, even though she was only at MIT briefly in the 1970s as a
post-doc.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe

Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and
pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some
sort.

The book sounds cool.

It is. It was and to some degree still is very influential thirty
years later.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

Yes. Dawkins may have drawn on The Sciences of the Artificial, but
they differ. Don't recall if he cites it.

Joe

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and
pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some
sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is
Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously instrumented.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:16:48 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and >>>>often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>>>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people >>>suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and
pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some
sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Sure they do, from everything near. But a god is better, but it was
getting crowded.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is
Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I know of that book, but from a book review if I recall. Made perfect
sense. There is all kinds of horse trading going on between species,
no matter the size or kind.

What I always tell people is that if you can see a critter, it's not
actually important, being far outweighed by all the microscopic stuff.

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously >instrumented.

I recall seeing that. There is a kind of clam that has calcite fibers
embedded in its shell, and so has a crude form of vision even when
closed tight.

Joe

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/07/2025 8:16 am, john larkin wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and
simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and
pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some
sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is
Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously instrumented.

The charm of fibre-optics is that they move information at the speed of
light. Fungi networks don't seem to be even as fast as human nerve cells.

There are probably biologists who have instrumented a fungal network in
a forest somewhere. Nothing elaborate or expensive - those networks are
big - so they'd confine themselves to sparse sampling. I've no idea what chemicals they'd be sampling for - when I did first year biology back
in 1960, chemical signalling wasn't covered.

The most likely reason we haven't heard about is that the results are
tedious and unsurprising.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2025-07-10 14:04, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and
simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

That's just moving the goal posts. One gets people nowadays talking
about different people's gut biomes 'communicating' with each other. If
all they mean is that there's some poorly-qnantified mauual influence,
okay, but I get the impression they often mean more than that.

I think it's unhelpful to conflate mere mutual influence with intelligence---even calling it "information exchange" imports the idea
of meaning, which requires actual intelligence.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/07/2025 4:04 am, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and
simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

Actually, he is a biologist above everything else. Creationists -
proponents of "intelligent design" - pretend to have all sort of ides
about how living beings are more complicated than Darwinian evolution
requires, but it is all nonsense.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:49:03 -0400, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2025-07-10 14:04, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and
simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

That's just moving the goal posts. One gets people nowadays talking
about different people's gut biomes 'communicating' with each other. If
all they mean is that there's some poorly-qnantified mauual influence,
okay, but I get the impression they often mean more than that.

I think it's unhelpful to conflate mere mutual influence with >intelligence---even calling it "information exchange" imports the idea
of meaning, which requires actual intelligence.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Even single-cell critters (including our own cells) have
extraordinarily complex behavior. And nobody understands how our
brains work.

What I'm suggesting is that we not exclude thinking about possible
biological mechanisms for theological reasons.

What's your definition of "actual intelligence" ? I know that most of
what I do (and invent) is done unconsiously.

Is an oyster intelligent?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 7/11/2025 11:37 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:

On 11/07/2025 4:04 am, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything.  The driver is efficiency and
simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there.  This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref:  "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity.  New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

Actually, he is a biologist above everything else. Creationists -
proponents of "intelligent design" - pretend to have all sort of ides
about how living beings are more complicated than Darwinian evolution requires, but it is all nonsense.

He's decided "transgenderism" is the New Religion and gone off into JK
Rowling la la land.

Maybe him and Morrissey can start a shoegaze band together they seem to
have a lot in common

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:49:03 -0400, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2025-07-10 14:04, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and
simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

That's just moving the goal posts. One gets people nowadays talking
about different people's gut biomes 'communicating' with each other. If
all they mean is that there's some poorly-qnantified mauual influence,
okay, but I get the impression they often mean more than that.

I think it's unhelpful to conflate mere mutual influence with
intelligence---even calling it "information exchange" imports the idea
of meaning, which requires actual intelligence.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Even single-cell critters (including our own cells) have
extraordinarily complex behavior. And nobody understands how our
brains work.

What I'm suggesting is that we not exclude thinking about possible
biological mechanisms for theological reasons.

What's your definition of "actual intelligence" ? I know that most of
what I do (and invent) is done unconsiously.

Is an oyster intelligent?

An intelligent being, properly speaking, is one with a *nous*.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/07/2025 2:04 am, john larkin wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:49:03 -0400, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2025-07-10 14:04, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and
simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

That's just moving the goal posts. One gets people nowadays talking
about different people's gut biomes 'communicating' with each other. If
all they mean is that there's some poorly-qnantified mauual influence,
okay, but I get the impression they often mean more than that.

I think it's unhelpful to conflate mere mutual influence with
intelligence---even calling it "information exchange" imports the idea
of meaning, which requires actual intelligence.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Even single-cell critters (including our own cells) have
extraordinarily complex behavior. And nobody understands how our
brains work.

But we are working on it. And "large language models" produce a pretty
coherent approximation to real speech, though nobody can spell out
exactly why.

What I'm suggesting is that we not exclude thinking about possible
biological mechanisms for theological reasons.

Nobody sane does. Creationists - the "intelligent design" crew - want
added extra mystery so they can import god via the back door.

What's your definition of "actual intelligence" ? I know that most of
what I do (and invent) is done unconsiously.

But people who do it better than you do think harder about what they
give their sub-conscious processing to chew on.

Intelligence is one of those things that is hard to define, but
tolerably easy to recognise, rather like beauty.

Is an oyster intelligent?

Barely. But Donald Trump is quite intelligent, but not intelligent
enough to acquire all the background knowledge he needs to make sound decisions. Imposing tariffs on the non-existent exports from Heard
Island - which is only inhabited by penguins and seals - wasn't all that clever.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 7/11/2025 11:49 AM, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2025-07-10 14:04, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into
why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass
of tissue that somehow does everything.  The driver is efficiency and
simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there.  This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref:  "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity.  New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

That's just moving the goal posts.  One gets people nowadays talking
about different people's gut biomes 'communicating' with each other.  If
all they mean is that there's some poorly-qnantified mauual influence,
okay, but I get the impression they often mean more than that.

I think it's unhelpful to conflate mere mutual influence with intelligence---even calling it "information exchange" imports the idea
of meaning, which requires actual intelligence.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I blame comp sci/software marketing who've has been calling anything
more sophisticated than a bubble sort an "intelligent algorithm" for
like 40 years.

Stuff like Bayesian inference and A* search should be in a data
structures and algorithms course but they put it in the "Artificial Intelligence" course cuz when you put course titles with the word
"algorithms" in it students are like "shit the homework's just going to
be a lot of irritating Big Oh runtime analysis questions", it unearths
past trauma, and they're not signing up for that.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 16:25:12 -0000 (UTC), Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:49:03 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2025-07-10 14:04, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>> why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>> of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>> simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press. >>>>

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkins says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

That's just moving the goal posts. One gets people nowadays talking
about different people's gut biomes 'communicating' with each other. If >>> all they mean is that there's some poorly-qnantified mauual influence,
okay, but I get the impression they often mean more than that.

I think it's unhelpful to conflate mere mutual influence with
intelligence---even calling it "information exchange" imports the idea
of meaning, which requires actual intelligence.

Lots of things exchange information but are not intelligent or
conscious. A classic biological example is a virus infecting a
critter by injecting some well-crafted bits of DNA or RNA into the
victim critter. Another example is microscopic organisms exchanging
DNA or RNA, often as plasmids. No brain required.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Even single-cell critters (including our own cells) have
extraordinarily complex behavior. And nobody understands how our
brains work.

What I'm suggesting is that we not exclude thinking about possible
biological mechanisms for theological reasons.

What's your definition of "actual intelligence" ? I know that most of
what I do (and invent) is done unconsiously.

Is an oyster intelligent?

Maybe it's just the wrong question. An oyster certainly has a nervous
system and reacts to its environment sometimes in complex ways. But
it does not appear to be conscious.

Nobody has found a universally agreed definition of conscious, but
people know it when they see it, and generally agree on the degree to
which various critters have it

An intelligent being, properly speaking, is one with a *nous*.

This definition mixes common sense and agency; a better term is
needed.

Joe

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:48:28 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:16:48 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>>why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and >>>>>often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>>of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way, >>>>>and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>>>>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>>>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press.

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people >>>>suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and
pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some
sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Sure they do, from everything near. But a god is better, but it was
getting crowded.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is
Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I know of that book, but from a book review if I recall. Made perfect
sense. There is all kinds of horse trading going on between species,
no matter the size or kind.

What I always tell people is that if you can see a critter, it's not
actually important, being far outweighed by all the microscopic stuff.

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously >>instrumented.

I recall seeing that. There is a kind of clam that has calcite fibers >embedded in its shell, and so has a crude form of vision even when
closed tight.

Joe

Humans have upside-down retinas, with klugey light pipes.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 16:44:47 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 12:22:12 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:48:28 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:16:48 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>>>>why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and >>>>>>>often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>>>>of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>>>>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way, >>>>>>>and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>>>>>>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>>>>>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press. >>>>>>

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people >>>>>>suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and >>>>>pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some >>>>>sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Sure they do, from everything near. But a god is better, but it was >>>getting crowded.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is
Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I know of that book, but from a book review if I recall. Made perfect >>>sense. There is all kinds of horse trading going on between species,
no matter the size or kind.

What I always tell people is that if you can see a critter, it's not >>>actually important, being far outweighed by all the microscopic stuff.

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously >>>>instrumented.

I recall seeing that. There is a kind of clam that has calcite fibers >>>embedded in its shell, and so has a crude form of vision even when
closed tight.

Joe

Humans have upside-down retinas, with klugey light pipes.

Yes, but what does it matter? They seem to be doing well enough.

They are very fragile, barely glued to the back of the eyeball. I have
personal experiences with that.

I wonder why they evolved that way.

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On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 12:22:12 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:48:28 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:16:48 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>>>why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and >>>>>>often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>>>of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>>>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way, >>>>>>and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>>>>>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>>>>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press. >>>>>

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people >>>>>suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and >>>>pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some >>>>sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Sure they do, from everything near. But a god is better, but it was >>getting crowded.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is
Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I know of that book, but from a book review if I recall. Made perfect >>sense. There is all kinds of horse trading going on between species,
no matter the size or kind.

What I always tell people is that if you can see a critter, it's not >>actually important, being far outweighed by all the microscopic stuff.

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously >>>instrumented.

I recall seeing that. There is a kind of clam that has calcite fibers >>embedded in its shell, and so has a crude form of vision even when
closed tight.

Joe

Humans have upside-down retinas, with klugey light pipes.

Yes, but what does it matter? They seem to be doing well enough.

It doesn't take much to cause significant evolution. It was recently
figured out why Baltic Cod are so small these days, compared to the
two-foot length common a few decades ago.

"Genomic evidence for fisheries-induced evolution in Eastern Baltic
cod", Science Advances, 25 June 2025.

.<https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr9889>

Turns out that the culprit is hungry people.

Joe

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On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:02:17 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 16:44:47 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 12:22:12 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:48:28 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:16:48 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>>wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>>wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>>>>>why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and >>>>>>>>often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>>>>>of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>>>>>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way, >>>>>>>>and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>>>>>>>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>>>>>>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press. >>>>>>>

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people >>>>>>>suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and >>>>>>pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some >>>>>>sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Sure they do, from everything near. But a god is better, but it was >>>>getting crowded.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is >>>>>Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I know of that book, but from a book review if I recall. Made perfect >>>>sense. There is all kinds of horse trading going on between species, >>>>no matter the size or kind.

What I always tell people is that if you can see a critter, it's not >>>>actually important, being far outweighed by all the microscopic stuff.

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously >>>>>instrumented.

I recall seeing that. There is a kind of clam that has calcite fibers >>>>embedded in its shell, and so has a crude form of vision even when >>>>closed tight.

Joe

Humans have upside-down retinas, with klugey light pipes.

Yes, but what does it matter? They seem to be doing well enough.

They are very fragile, barely glued to the back of the eyeball. I have >personal experiences with that.

I wonder why they evolved that way.

Well, it persists because it doesn't become a problem until well after
people have had their children.

Joe

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I blame comp sci/software marketing who've has been calling anything more sophisticated than a bubble sort an "intelligent algorithm" for like 40 years.

In many schools it probably *is*! I've seen curricula where "search"
was a semester long class as they tackled a particular search
algorithm each week (instead of dealing with ALL of them in a single
session).

Stuff like Bayesian inference and A* search should be in a data structures and
algorithms course but they put it in the "Artificial Intelligence" course cuz when you put course titles with the word "algorithms" in it students are like "shit the homework's just going to be a lot of irritating Big Oh runtime analysis questions", it unearths past trauma, and they're not signing up for that.

It was in my "Introduction to Algorithms" class -- along with things like CORDIC, traveling salesmen, readers-writers, etc. A freshman class.

As was the AI class (Patrick Winston) which dealt with things like scene analysis, autonomous agents, etc.

[A friend took a graduate level class at Northwestern University and
quickly discovered it was the freshman undergrad class he had already taken!]

Compiler design & language design classes were "second year" classes along
with things like public key encryption (new, at that time), key exchange algorithms, zero-knowledge, etc.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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"Phil Hobbs" <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote in message news:104rdt7$1jdkq$1@dont-email.me...

john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:49:03 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2025-07-10 14:04, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>> why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and
often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>> of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>> simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way,
and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The
Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press. >>>>

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

That's just moving the goal posts. One gets people nowadays talking
about different people's gut biomes 'communicating' with each other. If >>> all they mean is that there's some poorly-qnantified mauual influence,
okay, but I get the impression they often mean more than that.

I think it's unhelpful to conflate mere mutual influence with
intelligence---even calling it "information exchange" imports the idea
of meaning, which requires actual intelligence.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Even single-cell critters (including our own cells) have
extraordinarily complex behavior. And nobody understands how our
brains work.

What I'm suggesting is that we not exclude thinking about possible
biological mechanisms for theological reasons.

What's your definition of "actual intelligence" ? I know that most of
what I do (and invent) is done unconsiously.

Is an oyster intelligent?

An intelligent being, properly speaking, is one with a *nous*.

There's a word I haven't heard used in North America but it's certainly used in the UK.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 17:43:36 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:02:17 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 16:44:47 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 12:22:12 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:48:28 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:16:48 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>>>wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>>>wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>>>>>>why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and >>>>>>>>>often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>>>>>>of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>>>>>>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way, >>>>>>>>>and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>>>>>>>>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>>>>>>>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press. >>>>>>>>

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people >>>>>>>>suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and >>>>>>>pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some >>>>>>>sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Sure they do, from everything near. But a god is better, but it was >>>>>getting crowded.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is >>>>>>Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I know of that book, but from a book review if I recall. Made perfect >>>>>sense. There is all kinds of horse trading going on between species, >>>>>no matter the size or kind.

What I always tell people is that if you can see a critter, it's not >>>>>actually important, being far outweighed by all the microscopic stuff. >>>>>

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously >>>>>>instrumented.

I recall seeing that. There is a kind of clam that has calcite fibers >>>>>embedded in its shell, and so has a crude form of vision even when >>>>>closed tight.

Joe

Humans have upside-down retinas, with klugey light pipes.

Yes, but what does it matter? They seem to be doing well enough.

They are very fragile, barely glued to the back of the eyeball. I have >>personal experiences with that.

I wonder why they evolved that way.

Well, it persists because it doesn't become a problem until well after
people have had their children.

Joe

One theory is that having the blood vessels on top gives better
cooling and lets us look up, near the sun, which is good somehow.

Our night vision is correspondingly bad. Some critters can see single
photons.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Edward Rawde <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

"Phil Hobbs" <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote in message news:104rdt7$1jdkq$1@dont-email.me...

john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:49:03 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2025-07-10 14:04, john larkin wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>> wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>>> why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and >>>>>> often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>>> of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>>> simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way, >>>>>> and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's
Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>>>> Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press. >>>>>

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people
suggest some level of consciousness.

The book sounds cool.

Dawkin says he is an atheist above anything else. So he naturally
hides from anything that's not primitive neo-Darwinism.

That's just moving the goal posts. One gets people nowadays talking
about different people's gut biomes 'communicating' with each other. If >>>> all they mean is that there's some poorly-qnantified mauual influence, >>>> okay, but I get the impression they often mean more than that.

I think it's unhelpful to conflate mere mutual influence with
intelligence---even calling it "information exchange" imports the idea >>>> of meaning, which requires actual intelligence.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Even single-cell critters (including our own cells) have
extraordinarily complex behavior. And nobody understands how our
brains work.

What I'm suggesting is that we not exclude thinking about possible
biological mechanisms for theological reasons.

What's your definition of "actual intelligence" ? I know that most of
what I do (and invent) is done unconsiously.

Is an oyster intelligent?

An intelligent being, properly speaking, is one with a *nous*.

There's a word I haven't heard used in North America but it's certainly used in the UK.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / >> Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

They use it wrong over there too. ;)

The nous is the mind, but not primarily the discursive reason (dianoia).

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 17:50:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 17:43:36 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:02:17 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 16:44:47 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 12:22:12 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:48:28 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:16:48 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:14:51 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>>wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:04:32 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>>>>wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:38:41 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>>>>wrote:

I forgot to mention that he Sciences of the Artificial digs deep into >>>>>>>>>>why living things (even microscopic ones) have distinct organs and >>>>>>>>>>often components within such organs, versus the organism being a mass >>>>>>>>>>of tissue that somehow does everything. The driver is efficiency and >>>>>>>>>>simplicity.

This assumes that life has already emerged in some unspecified way, >>>>>>>>>>and goes from there. This is a different approach than Dawkin's >>>>>>>>>>Blind-Watchmaker arguments.

Joe


Ref: "Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed" - The >>>>>>>>>>Architecture of Complexity. New copies are available from MIT Press. >>>>>>>>>

Even single-cell critters have levels of intelligence. Some people >>>>>>>>>suggest some level of consciousness.

I would not go quite that far. Resembles ancient paganism and >>>>>>>>pantheism, where behind every rock and plant there is a god of some >>>>>>>>sort.

But rocks don't have DNA.

Sure they do, from everything near. But a god is better, but it was >>>>>>getting crowded.

Plants turn out to be pretty intelligent. A really good book is >>>>>>>Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.

I know of that book, but from a book review if I recall. Made perfect >>>>>>sense. There is all kinds of horse trading going on between species, >>>>>>no matter the size or kind.

What I always tell people is that if you can see a critter, it's not >>>>>>actually important, being far outweighed by all the microscopic stuff. >>>>>>

I'd really like to see the fiberoptic-like fungi network seriously >>>>>>>instrumented.

I recall seeing that. There is a kind of clam that has calcite fibers >>>>>>embedded in its shell, and so has a crude form of vision even when >>>>>>closed tight.

Joe

Humans have upside-down retinas, with klugey light pipes.

Yes, but what does it matter? They seem to be doing well enough.

They are very fragile, barely glued to the back of the eyeball. I have >>>personal experiences with that.

I wonder why they evolved that way.

Well, it persists because it doesn't become a problem until well after >>people have had their children.

Joe

One theory is that having the blood vessels on top gives better
cooling and lets us look up, near the sun, which is good somehow.

Better cooling is thought to be why humans have hair on top (to block
solar heat and UV from cooking the tip), but no fur.

Ancient Egyptians all wore wigs, probably to block the Sun even
better. Noontime Egyptian sunlight is brutal.

Aside from that, the higher the eye is off the ground, the farther one
can see; this is useful in grassland plains with prowling predators.

Our night vision is correspondingly bad. Some critters can see single >photons.

Ours can as well, at the sensor molecule level. But we don't perceive scattered single photons as there are lots of self-noise processes
that generate what appears to be light. And there is always shot
noise. So the minimum is two photons that are close in both time and
space. This optimizes the SNR.

Joe

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