They’re doing it within their frame of definitions which is largely evidence of constrained models leaving options unknown outside the realm of reason thereby excluding outliers of surprising potential.
It’s not like nobody realizes that we don’t have flawless definitions for “self-aware”, “intelligent”, or even “life”. Or that the experiments we devise to test for these things come from our own experiences and bias, and might exclude creatures with novel presentations of these traits.
But they’re the best we have for now. And smart people have spent countless lifetimes trying to improve upon what we have, attempting to broaden these categories and their testing apparatuses without expanding the definitions past the point of usefulness.
So, yes, we get it. Everyone knows our tests and definitions aren’t perfect. We know they’ll exclude life forms with presentations of these traits that we haven’t even conceived of. Not only doesn’t science have all the answers yet, but it hasn’t even agreed on the wording of the questions yet. Pointing this out for the thirteen trillionth time just isn’t useful or insightful.
I understand your point though, and I'm sorry if it came off as an attack. It's a criticism rooted in a few things. I typed up more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24601665
Sometimes people are well aware of the problems and are actively trying to solve them.
It’s like popping into a discussion of general relativity and “helpfully” chiming in with the criticism that “But we know GR must be wrong, since it’s incompatible with quantum mechanics.”
I will be more mindful of my ranting. Thanks for sharing.
I know plenty of individuals who are more-expert, more scientific than any scientist publishing papers funded by poorly designed incentive structures between education, research, monetary incentive, and survival.
There's a lot of "clique politics" within the academia of science and it deeply troubles me. It's largely based on the university system being in control of it and the processes that contribute to that structure.
Luckily it does seem to be getting more attention so that is good. Additionally the trend towards self-organization with the internet and wherever that leads us will most likely lead to new structures that allow more freedom of information within science to propagate without as much dependence on centralized entities being corrupted and tainting the scientific process.
Outside of that, my critique here is largely based on various modes within Functionalism (theory of mind)
> In an analogous manner, the role of mental states, such as belief and desire, is determined by the functional or causal role that is designated for them within our best scientific psychological theory. If some mental state which is postulated by folk psychology (e.g. hysteria) is determined not to have any fundamental role in cognitive psychological explanation, then that particular state may be considered not to exist . On the other hand, if it turns out that there are states which theoretical cognitive psychology posits as necessary for explanation of human behavior but which are not foreseen by ordinary folk psychological language, then these entities or states exist.
I think the solve I'm looking for is required on both ends to communicate truth and "fuzziness" of truth. I'm not sure if English and current languages will ever trend towards this because every statement has a value of assigned truth based on existence/to-be. So short-term would be communicating the meme of this through the zeitgeist/noosphere and embed it within the culture - then potentially evolve towards a language that is fuzzy based.
And if you want to preach about better communicating uncertainty and statistics then I am afraid you're preaching to the choir in a particularly ranty sermon.
Yes there are plenty of uncertainties, but those uncertainties cut both ways.