Or do we just believe we share a common ancestor? Also, if a machine is trained on data generated by humans, couldn't you argue that the humans are the machine's ancestors?
Well... I believe that we share a common ancestor to the same degree that I believe that my parents are my ancestors and I am my child's ancestor. In other words, those are things that physically occurred and there is no physical/observational conspiracy.
The term ancestor is not cultural. It is physical. As in, we may not actually have any free will in cultural or qualia space. In the sense that, the only instance of choice (by the universe) occurs at conception. Which is actually the expected and occums-Razor implementation. Meaning that, the brain is entirely deterministic. The choice of behavior of an organism is entirely determined and constrained by it's genes (which the universe constructs at hopefully a quantum level at conception). If we eliminate quantum mechanics even at conception, then life is entirely deterministic (though obivously the range of it's choices is large). In fact, one could argue, if there is free will, then it doesn't conform to natural selection (or exceeds the performance of natural selection), in the sense that it adds something beyond what is specified by the random choice of the universe in it's conception of a particular organism. The point (or atleast observable performance) of natural selection, as I understand it, is to construct a variety of life objects that have varying performances. If the life objects are entirely Newtonian deterministic, then the instance of quantum wave collapse (by God or whatever is making non-deterministic choice, as we are in our egotistical mind, want to add something non-determinstic to our life soup) occurs only at every instance of conception. Everything after conception is a rube goldberg machine.
If consciousness adds non-Deterministic (quantum) free will and behavior to an organism, then such organisms are implementing a different version of natural selection than other life. If natural selection is occurring in cell cultures entirely on the basis of genes (ie the performance behavior of an organism is optimized by it's changing genetics, and these changes are only constructed at conception), which is what natural selection appears to describe, then we have added something to the natural selection process by claiming consciousness adds another instance of egocentric quantum choice.
The term ancestor is not cultural. It is physical. As in, we may not actually have any free will in cultural or qualia space. In the sense that, the only instance of choice (by the universe) occurs at conception. Which is actually the expected and occums-Razor implementation. Meaning that, the brain is entirely deterministic. The choice of behavior of an organism is entirely determined and constrained by it's genes (which the universe constructs at hopefully a quantum level at conception). If we eliminate quantum mechanics even at conception, then life is entirely deterministic (though obivously the range of it's choices is large). In fact, one could argue, if there is free will, then it doesn't conform to natural selection (or exceeds the performance of natural selection), in the sense that it adds something beyond what is specified by the random choice of the universe in it's conception of a particular organism. The point (or atleast observable performance) of natural selection, as I understand it, is to construct a variety of life objects that have varying performances. If the life objects are entirely Newtonian deterministic, then the instance of quantum wave collapse (by God or whatever is making non-deterministic choice, as we are in our egotistical mind, want to add something non-determinstic to our life soup) occurs only at every instance of conception. Everything after conception is a rube goldberg machine.
If consciousness adds non-Deterministic (quantum) free will and behavior to an organism, then such organisms are implementing a different version of natural selection than other life. If natural selection is occurring in cell cultures entirely on the basis of genes (ie the performance behavior of an organism is optimized by it's changing genetics, and these changes are only constructed at conception), which is what natural selection appears to describe, then we have added something to the natural selection process by claiming consciousness adds another instance of egocentric quantum choice.