"Looked" and "moved" seem to be the key words here, milord. There are real things — and there are simulacra of real things, if the experience/testimony of humankind in historical experience might be recognized as material to this dialog.
To suggest that the above statement is in any way aligned with a truthful analytical standard according to which we humans ought to be moving right now, in response to the exigencies of current global realities, strikes me as a bit tendentious. In that it assumes as true (valid) the very thing that remains to be tested, falsified, or "proved." I.e., that simulacra have free will, such that they can, for example, willingly flee a battlefield.
Though it is interesting that cyborgs in this fictional piece reacted the way they did, we have no way of reliably ascertaining, of knowing, why they did so. Are cyborgs "reasonable," strictly speaking?
Somehow I think that C. S. Lewis would have had a field day with the sort of reasoning presented in the article at the top of this thread....
Oh. I just noticed our little conversation has been removed to the "Smokey Backroom".... How delightful! Thanks so much for writing, King Prout! Good night!
Thank God.. A cigar and an adult beverage would be nice about now..
sometimes I loathe FR - it keeps me awake when I really need to be asleep.
anyway, let me start off by clearing up a poorly worded statement - the simulated combatants themselves didn't do anything, as they didn't exist even as much as being the products/calculations of individually tasked processors. AFAIK, all tens-of-thousands of the simulated combatants were the calculations of a single computer, based on the files it had on each individual's characteristics. sorry for having posted so gross an error.
next: "In that it assumes as true (valid) the very thing that remains to be tested, falsified, or "proved." I.e., that simulacra have free will, such that they can, for example, willingly flee a battlefield."
no. I did explicitly state that I do NOT consider this unanticipated result an example of free will. it was, however, an unplanned and unexpected complexity of organization.
lastly: were CS Lewis alive today and active on FR CREVO threads, he might argue against the ToE, but he'd at least (very likely) trouble himself to learn what the ToE says and does not say. If more folks here did so, these threads would be a LOT less nasty.
now, at long last, I really *am* going to bed
Don't most of them; after a while?
Sigh....