Caledonian2 comments on Recognizing Intelligence - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 07 November 2008 11:22PM

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Comment author: Caledonian2 07 November 2008 11:56:50PM 0 points [-]

Suppose I landed on an alien planet and discovered what seemed to be a highly sophisticated machine, all gleaming chrome as the stereotype demands. Can I recognize this machine as being in any sense well-designed, if I have no idea what the machine is intended to accomplish?

I have no idea what the machine is doing. I don't even have a hypothesis as to what it's doing. Yet I have recognized the machine as the product of an alien intelligence.

Carefully, Eliezer. You are very, very close to simply restating the Watchmaker Argument in favor of the existence of a Divine Being.

You have NOT recognized the machine as the product of an alien intelligence. You most certainly have not been able to identify the machine as 'well-designed'.

Comment author: notsonewuser 05 January 2014 07:11:30PM *  1 point [-]

You are very, very close to simply restating the Watchmaker Argument in favor of the existence of a Divine Being.

Not at all. The problem with the Watchmaker Argument wasn't the observation that humans are highly optimized; it was the conclusion that, therefore, it was God. And God is a very different hypothesis from alien intelligence in a universe we already know has the capability of producing intelligence.

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