Vital fluids, hydraulics and computers

I find it fascinating that books are being written about the future of life or intelligence. And yet, today, we do not have a shred of understanding of how to define life and intelligence. Not even an understanding of why we haven’t found a way to characterize life and intelligence.

This surreal situation reminds me of our ancestors, a couple of centuries ago. They were debating about the brain in terms of hydraulics. Their ancestors, even earlier, in terms of vital fluid. Or us, today in terms of computers.

We just have no idea what we do not know.