Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 44.
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        Date: 2026-06-08 06:24:44+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
        Subject: no intelligence?

My good and close friend Manfred has said in response to my "what's
wrong?" that,

> I find it very hard to swallow the "characteristics of a different
intelligence
> than our own". I see no intelligence there, just data structures and
> algorithms. These are different enough for me.

I would find none too--if I assumed that 'intelliigence' is an attribute
we can securely define. But I don't. I think it's not only safer but
also more intelligent to assume difference, however great, rather than a
categorial distinction. This frees one to watch out for those pesky and
perhaps relevatory anomalies. Did not 'intelligent' life emerge somehow
from once molten inorganic matter?

Ha!

WM

--
Willard McCarty, Professor em., King's College London;
Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities
(tinyurl.com/Berghahn-IRASH); Humanist (dhhumanist.org);
Science in the Forest, Science in the Past
(www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/sfsp/);
www.mccarty.org.uk


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