File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0305, message 105


Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 10:48:49 +0100
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Intelligence of man, God, Nature.


Hugh/all


Your narrative has aspects of seeming to fit with the long history of 
humans. But  you need to take into account that what we recognise as 
'human' at least in the social and cultural sense, and thus probably in 
the sense of 'intelligence' appears to start with the invention of the 
state, more specifically the city-state. At the moment of the first 
industrial revolution, that of neolithic farming... From here it's 
relatively easy to postulate the importance of human population growth 
and the variable forms of dominance and oppression that these singular 
events brought into being.

Prior to this moment 10,000 or so years ago the precise differences 
between a human and say a dolphin, or a great ape were to all inmtents 
and purposes Zero...



Science and thus modern knowledge itself, in it's currently understood 
form comes into existence in the 16th and 17th Centuries.


...brevity...

steve

hbone wrote:

>Stevel,
>
>First,  I interpret the Chomsky statement as referring to "comparative"
>intelligence and social behavior, implying that being more or less
>intelligent than others does not excuse  anti-social behavior.
>
>Second, finding food and avoiding being eaten, is a characteristic of all
>living species or they become extinct.
>
>Third, with only human and non-human intelligence in the Cosmos, its a
>fairly recent event, and may have occurred only on Planet Earth.
>
>Science leads me to believe that Nature created Man, who created gods, and
>eventually a  single God.  This narrative gave the priests indisputable
>power so long as they convinced their flock that they were the only ones who
>knew God's will.
>
>Of course, religious narratives start with God and end with science.
>
>Anyhow the "intelligence" I'm interested in is the intelligence that
>"creates" a  world or worlds with or without the help of God or gods.
>
>That's what intelligent humans do.  I think the only world(s) humans "know"
>are those built from their  senses/memory/learning.  But these are mental
>creations plus technology.
>
>Only Nature, or God,created a Big Bang, suns, stars, planets and invisible
>"black matter" and "black holes".
>
>How about the "Laws of Nature?  I think of mathematics, like art,  music or
>language as a human attribute, a manifestation of human intelligence, but
>natural law is older than human species, and is therefore, in a sense, it is
>a manifestation of  "Nature's Intelligence".
>
>regards,
>Hugh
>
>
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>
>Other animals with other senses inhabit other worlds.
>
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>Hugh
>
>I would propose a different set of categories - relating to the question of
>intelligence.  Though as Chomsky once pointed out the question of
>intelligence is irrelevant in relation how a human should behave.  Rather
>there are two forms of intelligence - the human and the non-human. The human
>consisting of the broad range of  human subjects, those who generally think
>of themselves as part of a human species. The non-human consisting of all
>other intelligences from the humble insects to the oppressed mammels and so
>far un-intelligent machines we are surrounded by. (Assuming one of the
>myriad of gods people have invented across the past 10,000 years existed -
>why would it be necessary that they be intelligent  ?)
>
>Meaning and saying imply a representational system...
>
>steve
>
>hbone wrote:
>
>Geof wrote:
>
>
>What's the "meaning" of "saying" versus the "meaning" of "meaning," one
>wonders...
>
>
>"Saying" implies a second person.  Obviously there are two in any
>conversation.
>"I could not talk to myself had others not talked to me."
>
>Meaning implies a future, a horizon of possibilities.
>
>Absent intelligence and  the concept of a future, the word is meaning-less.
>
>There are at least three kinds of intelligence::  Human, Divine, and
>Artificial.
>A human intelligence is its history - a library of memories and software.
>vs. the here-and-now of the senses.  So is the Artificial, though it only
>senses code.
>
>And the Divine???   God only, knows.
>
>Are there others?
>
>regards,
>Hugh
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>



   

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