The individuality of artifacts and organisms.

Symons – the individuality of organisms and artifacts

    2 Comments

    • Stephen Harris says:

      Perhaps a non-algorithmic coherent comment on intellect, intuition and individuation.

      John Symons wrote in his broadly thought-provoking perspective, “Claiming that the intention of the creator and the individuality of the artifact are related is relatively uncontroversial. In the case of the organism, no such relation exists. The analogical application of the language of design to evolutionary history has a complicated role in scientific inquiry.

      The successful quest for a Turing Test Passing Program (TTPP) results in an artifact. If one makes the further Computationalist assumption that ‘the correct program instantiates a mind’ then a natural question arises, is that mind a reflection or creation of the self, and does it have individuality?

      Individuality it seems to me is proportional to the sense of self which
      requires memory to preserve the continuity of that self. Humans have
      organizing rules for this sense of self inculcated through ingrained selective evolutionary instincts. Does the “derived intentionality” bestowed by the Computationalist programmer for the TTPP emerge as the “original intentionality” of an evolved biological organism, assuming evolution has no purposed design? Or is the Computationalism thesis denied by the assumption of individuality and presumably the conquest of destiny be free will?

      …”I fail to see how anyone can fail to see that the two questions: (a) Is the language ordinarily used of biological organism literal or metaphorical, when it is being used of mental activity in poetry or elsewhere? and (b) Are the physical and mental worlds one single homogenous organism or are they not? are in fact one and the same question.” Owen Barfield responding to criticism of “What Coleridge Thought” and author of “Poetic Diction, a Study in Meaning”

      Barrow cites the logician John Myhill, who was inspired by Gödel to declare, “No non-poetic account of reality can be complete.”

      “On Creativity” by David Bohm, in the foreword by Lee Nichol: “Beauty, then, is not simply a matter of personal opinion, dependant primarily upon the eye of the beholder. It is the result of dynamic, evolving processes that consist of order, structure, and harmonious totalities.”

    • Stephen Harris says:

      Needs a closing quote mark ” after inquiry_ in the John Symons wrote … quote and

      the conquest of destiny _be free will?

      “be” should instead be “by”. Please edit my original post if you don’t mind, and then delete this corrective post.

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