So, I’m having a lot of difficulty mapping your response to the question I asked. But if I’ve understood your response, you are arguing that technology analogous to the technology-developing functions of human intelligence might not be in principle possible, or that if developed might not be capable of significantly greater technology-developing power than human intelligence is.
In other words, that assumptions 5 and/or 6 might be false.
I agree that it’s possible. Similar things are true of the other examples you give: it’s possible that technological echolocation, or technological walking, or technological photosynthesis, either aren’t possible in principle, or can’t be significantly more powerful than their naturally evolved analogs. (Do you actually believe that to be true of those examples, incidentally?)
This seems to me highly implausible, which is why my confidence for A5 and A6 are very high. (I have similarly high confidence in our ability to develop machines more efficient than human legs at locomotion, machines more efficient at converting sunlight to useful work than plants, and more efficient at providing sonar-based information about their surroundings than bats.)
So, OK. We’ve identified a couple of specific, relevant assertions for which you think that my confidence is too high. Awesome! That’s progress.
So, what level of confidence do you think is justified for those assertions? I realize that you reject assigning numbers to reported confidence, so OK… do you have a preferred way of comparing levels of confidence? Or do you reject the whole enterprise of such comparisons?
Incidentally: you say a lot of other stuff here which seems entirely beside my point… I think because you’re running out ahead to arguments you think I might make some day. I will return to that stuff if I ever actually make an argument to which it’s relevant.
So, I’m having a lot of difficulty mapping your response to the question I asked. But if I’ve understood your response, you are arguing that technology analogous to the technology-developing functions of human intelligence might not be in principle possible, or that if developed might not be capable of significantly greater technology-developing power than human intelligence is.
In other words, that assumptions 5 and/or 6 might be false.
I agree that it’s possible. Similar things are true of the other examples you give: it’s possible that technological echolocation, or technological walking, or technological photosynthesis, either aren’t possible in principle, or can’t be significantly more powerful than their naturally evolved analogs. (Do you actually believe that to be true of those examples, incidentally?)
This seems to me highly implausible, which is why my confidence for A5 and A6 are very high. (I have similarly high confidence in our ability to develop machines more efficient than human legs at locomotion, machines more efficient at converting sunlight to useful work than plants, and more efficient at providing sonar-based information about their surroundings than bats.)
So, OK. We’ve identified a couple of specific, relevant assertions for which you think that my confidence is too high. Awesome! That’s progress.
So, what level of confidence do you think is justified for those assertions? I realize that you reject assigning numbers to reported confidence, so OK… do you have a preferred way of comparing levels of confidence? Or do you reject the whole enterprise of such comparisons?
Incidentally: you say a lot of other stuff here which seems entirely beside my point… I think because you’re running out ahead to arguments you think I might make some day. I will return to that stuff if I ever actually make an argument to which it’s relevant.