Eliezer: “Don’t y’all find it a little suspicious that so many people think “emergence” is a useful concept, yet have different definitions of what it is?”
That’s a non sequitur. Different people define intelligence differently, so what? The fact that they don’t understand intelligence doesn’t mean that it isn’t a useful concept.
When people actually can’t agree on the meaning of a word, the signnal to noise ratio drops from using it. But in that case, instead of discarding the word, people just need to standardize it.
Eliezer: “Don’t y’all find it a little suspicious that so many people think “emergence” is a useful concept, yet have different definitions of what it is?”
That’s a non sequitur. Different people define intelligence differently, so what? The fact that they don’t understand intelligence doesn’t mean that it isn’t a useful concept.
When people actually can’t agree on the meaning of a word, the signnal to noise ratio drops from using it. But in that case, instead of discarding the word, people just need to standardize it.