Thread: What is Intelligence?

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Well that's why my main point is that intelligence does not exist. Only consciousness. Everything else is just arbitrary semantics.

Let me see If I understand your idea...

If we were to compare a man of average intelligence to say, someone like Earnest Rutherford, while many say that Rutherford is more intelligent (which I think in the common conception of what intelligence is, is highly likely) you would see as just semantics to the real root "intelligence", i.e consciousness. The notion you would suggest is that his intelligence is a manifestation of his highly perceptive and aware brain that connect logical patterns and reasoning that ground the framework quantum mechanics of electrons.

In this model of intelligence, knowledge would then be what people are mistaken as intelligence. Which of course, we see all the time, very "knowledgeable" people being mistaken as having high conscious capacity (or what we would call intelligence).

I don't really think this is trumps the idea of "intelligence", it just puts it in a different, arguably, more appropriate context in our language; and of course, the clearer our language is, the better.
If I am completely missing the point please guide me, you don't really seem to elaborate a lot on your reasoning and your views for the deeper point you were trying to make until now, which is that intelligence has different connotations and for all intents and purposes does not "exist" or apply in the contemporary context of capacity to reason.

An intelligent person is a collection of evolved neurons ranging into two capacities of evolution. The first is genetic and houses a collection of genetic memories that guide it instinctively and unconsciously through life. It does not understand most of these impulses and though study and examination can unlock many of them the mystery is always there, creating a separation between one and their unconscious motivations.

The second form of evolution is tradition which carries a memory based on teachings and observations. This one influences people on a cognitive level they can think about and utilize consciously but also carries a mass of unconscious impulses and habits which are utilized because of evolutionary conditioning upon the culture. This is also intelligence, but it's habit, not necessarily just words or logic. It can be just as sophisticated but it cannot be learned through logical apprehension nor cognitive thought.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Well that's why my main point is that intelligence does not exist. Only consciousness. Everything else is just arbitrary semantics.

That's your main point? Where is this thread going?

Define consciousness.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

An intelligent person is a collection of evolved neurons ranging into two capacities of evolution. The first is genetic and houses a collection of genetic memories that guide it instinctively and unconsciously through life. It does not understand most of these impulses and though study and examination can unlock many of them the mystery is always there, creating a separation between one and their unconscious motivations.

The second form of evolution is tradition which carries a memory based on teachings and observations. This one influences people on a cognitive level they can think about and utilize consciously but also carries a mass of unconscious impulses and habits which are utilized because of evolutionary conditioning upon the culture. This is also intelligence, but it's habit, not necessarily just words or logic. It can be just as sophisticated but it cannot be learned through logical apprehension nor cognitive thought.

To me what you have suggested is quite vague and sound a little too similar to call two different forms.
It sounds like in both situations you are describing our unconscious impulses that are driven by our genetic code and previous memory (which are imbedded in our DNA, so there need be no distinction)

But from what I gather from your idea here, is that one progresses intellectually by simply surviving longer. "An intelligent person is a collection of evolved neurons ranging into two capacities of evolution".

What I find interesting about how our neural networks evolve is that many scientists have suggested ways to model the evolution through genetic algorithms. That is why if we could create algorithms complex enough to model the evolution of our neural networks, we very well might be able to create a artificial intelligence that for all intents purposes "learns" and "evolves" through observation and analysis, arguable as we do.

http://www.idsia.ch/~tino/papers/gomez.gecco05.pdf

take look at this research, this is a lot of where my perspective is coming from.
It be very interesting if we could come up with an accurate mathematical for how we essentially evolve on the neural scale.
We could really challenge what it means to be human once we get artificial intelligence that starts discovering "new" knowledge and integrates it into its "thinking". Thinking at this point could even be model algorithmically in conjunction with our genetic code.

As much as I love somewhat arbitrary speculation, I must refrain .

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Well that's why my main point is that intelligence does not exist. Only consciousness. Everything else is just arbitrary semantics.

since you admitted it. i have to admit that you do exist, alive and concious, but not intelligent

Originally Posted by Dreams4free

To me what you have suggested is quite vague and sound a little too similar to call two different forms.
It sounds like in both situations you are describing our unconscious impulses that are driven by our genetic code and previous memory (which are imbedded in our DNA, so there need be no distinction)

But from what I gather from your idea here, is that one progresses intellectually by simply surviving longer. "An intelligent person is a collection of evolved neurons ranging into two capacities of evolution".

What I find interesting about how our neural networks evolve is that many scientists have suggested ways to model the evolution through genetic algorithms. That is why if we could create algorithms complex enough to model the evolution of our neural networks, we very well might be able to create a artificial intelligence that for all intents purposes "learns" and "evolves" through observation and analysis, arguable as we do.

http://www.idsia.ch/~tino/papers/gomez.gecco05.pdf

take look at this research, this is a lot of where my perspective is coming from.
It be very interesting if we could come up with an accurate mathematical for how we essentially evolve on the neural scale.
We could really challenge what it means to be human once we get artificial intelligence that starts discovering "new" knowledge and integrates it into its "thinking". Thinking at this point could even be model algorithmically in conjunction with our genetic code.

As much as I love somewhat arbitrary speculation, I must refrain .

We'll see how those mathematicians with their algorithms do surviving in the desert like an aboriginal or surviving in the snow like an inuit and you'll understand what I mean when I say not all intelligence is cognitive.

because that experience never encountered and learnt, so thats why most people will act inappropriately in life threatening situation such as in those extreme weather/land condition.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

We'll see how those mathematicians with their algorithms do surviving in the desert like an aboriginal or surviving in the snow like an inuit and you'll understand what I mean when I say not all intelligence is cognitive.

You're not sounding very sophisticated here, to be honest... Nor are you making any sense what so ever. In a serious conversation, I expect more than ambiguous/cynical remarks.

It sounds like, from what little I sense I could extract from what you wrote, that you don't believe that algorithms could be sophisticated enough to replicate an intelligent/conscious being. Which is fine, we haven't done it yet nor is there any substantial reason to assume it is possible.

In addition to the crude formatting, you seem to be loosely grounded in the contemporary denotation of words like intelligence, consciousness, cognitive, perception, and thought.

If you want to engage in a worthwhile philosophical conversation, clarity and focus are going to be your two highest concerns. We are circularly treading around a vast amount of different ideas while simultaneously trying to establish an agreement on the definition of words, considering we are dealing with very broad subject matter, we need to slow down a little and make sure we addresses a lot of the subtleties in the definitions that deriding the course of the discussion.

I would say the pace is just find as it is, but you have a fairly tailored diction. The focus is I don't even know what anymore. Our primary concern is "what is intelligence". We should keep reiterating this idea in our conversation.

For the most part, you don't believe that intelligence is completely grounded in "thought" or cognition. Your basis for this seems to be that you think that "unconscious" behavior is not thought and is part of our intelligence. This is sensible, is that what you are suggesting? It takes a lot of work for me to decipher what you write....

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

The second form of evolution is tradition which carries a memory based on teachings and observations. This one influences people on a cognitive level they can think about and utilize consciously but also carries a mass of unconscious impulses and habits which are utilized because of evolutionary conditioning upon the culture. This is also intelligence, but it's habit, not necessarily just words or logic. It can be just as sophisticated but it cannot be learned through logical apprehension nor cognitive thought.

After reading this over a little more, I think you are suggesting that tradition is intelligence? That is a highly controversial opinion. I could have a tradition of lighting my socks on fire before I go to sleep, and by that logic I would be "intelligent".

I think it is worth further discussing the connection between cultural behavior (habits) and evolution.

Also, how can some agent cause me to think about something and reason through it, yet not be learned through my thoughts and my reasons. That a contradiction.

For example, we observe someone who has a disgusted reaction to a gay couple. They think about this reaction "why is this disgusting", eventually they just conclude that it is an arbitrary reflex and they don't dispute whether or not having a disgusted reflex is right/wrong good/bad because they are told that this is a bad practice and it is discouraged and people will treat you differently.

This is a good example for you to use in defense of your argument. You see here, we have "evolutionary conditioning upon the culture" and the habitual reflex (avoid gay people/non approval). It would be reasonable at this point to suggest that we have learned only through teachings that being gay is wrong, but then we have a problem. The "master teacher", if you will, the person who decided to tell other people that being gay was wrong could not of been taught. He must of learned through some other medium rather than teaching. We are left with observation then......

When we observe something, we think about it and how it associates with other things. Our person saw a gay relationship (lets say the first gay relationship ever in caveman times) and didn't have a conditioned habit/reaction to this behavior. Therefore, with no unconscious motivation or preexisting bias, he logically came to some conclusion about the practice.

Therefore, this reflex we have to gay relationships is in fact conditioned on a mass scale, as you may say, but the master teacher could only have come to this knowledge through his own reasoning.

Same argument with God being the first mover. Not to bring in theology but It is fairly analogus.

aint nothin i never hearda

some kinda book lernin thing maybe

OD's gotta make longer, more intelligent (haha) posts. This has gotten a little drab.

I'm too lazy to vomit a bunch of words out that say nothing. What is missing from my explanation of the role our genes and traditions have in our intelligence? Dreams4free used examples where tradition is illogical to debate my claim that tradition is intelligence, as though apples were oranges and logic can be used to understand tradition. Tradition proves valuable through time, logic is limited to our current paradigm of understanding and often fails to see events as they work through time the way our traditions, habits and genes are able to do.

Let me try another example: Disease. Immunity to disease is a form of intelligence because the antibodies are programmed to recognize patterns in order to distinguish different foreign input and recognize the harmful ones. You can't use logic to fight disease but what use is your abstract definition of intelligence if it's unable to survive?

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I'm too lazy to vomit a bunch of words out that say nothing. What is missing from my explanation of the role our genes and traditions have in our intelligence? Dreams4free used examples where tradition is illogical to debate my claim that tradition is intelligence, as though apples were oranges and logic can be used to understand tradition. Tradition proves valuable through time, logic is limited to our current paradigm of understanding and often fails to see events as they work through time the way our traditions, habits and genes are able to do.

Let me try another example: Disease. Immunity to disease is a form of intelligence because the antibodies are programmed to recognize patterns in order to distinguish different foreign input and recognize the harmful ones. You can't use logic to fight disease but what use is your abstract definition of intelligence if it's unable to survive?

I'm not really motivated to continue the conversation after reading this.
I don't know why it is so difficult to take an extra 5-10 minutes to clarify your writing to save me the 2-3 days of confusion caused by the lack of mutual understanding. So be it I guess, this left much to be desired....

I don't know man, you don't speak very clearly, it's a little frustrating to read your posts. You could have said everything you tried to say in your last paragraph of that post:

For the most part, you don't believe that intelligence is completely grounded in "thought" or cognition. Your basis for this seems to be that you think that "unconscious" behavior is not thought and is part of our intelligence. This is sensible, is that what you are suggesting? It takes a lot of work for me to decipher what you write....

Yes, I am saying intelligence is not limited to cognition.

Ok read this and see if we are on the same page.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

"my main point is that intelligence does not exist. Only consciousness"

This should of been in your original post..... >.<. Could of just focused my resources on just defining a couple words and easily reaching some verdict that we could agree/disagree on.

For this discussion, I think you go further and even go as far to say as conscious = awareness = pattern recognition
perception of an act or object would just consummate to either a positive or negative pattern that we recognized. we then associate
a response that if positive would make us desire the act/object, or if negative would make us fear or avoid the act/object.
We can call this instinct, rather than habits or tradition.

running off of what you are saying, as I sit here "thinking", I am not in some separate realm but rather consciously critiquing my experiences, my future, and what
behavior I should be exhibiting right now, behavior that will be determined by what my body has associated with "good" or "bad". After I "evaluate" what future behavior I should exhibit (behavior that is associated with good associations), I execute this behavior while consciously and unconsciously observing and perceiving the results. If this result is unfavorable, I adjust. If the result if favorable, I continue my exhibiting the same response to the same goal.
therefore all actions, "thoughts", and motives are all essentially driven by instinct (or historical perceptions/habits/traditions what ever term you wish to use). We are always looking to be satisfied, which is our body's way of telling us to pursue objects and actions that have historically resulted in favorable outcomes (through the use of releasing chemicals when we do such an action is how our body does it). When new phenomena occurs, we scan our memories (i.e exercise consciousness i.e use pattern recognition) to find what good or bad associations we have (the most similar scenario is probably used if the same exact scenario doesn't appear, which as technology and society telescope rarely does) and go with it.

I think all the hard work I put into this post has concluded my part in the thread. My validation is that if we define consciousness as pattern recognition, for all intents and purposes, we can disregard the idea of intelligence.

This is why I made that comment about fatalism earlier, because in a lot of ways, this theory strongly advocates it.

And about my posts being "frustrating", I like to explain how I arrive at my conclusions in great detail so everyone understands me and if there is a disagree it can be very clear where. Sorry if you find that frustrating.

And before you comment on my horrendous grammar, I'm tired from all this consciousness (lol).

I suppose some may find your way of writing better than mine. I can't stand it, I feel like you excessively elaborate to the point where I can't help but think "no shit" the whole time I read. But to be fair, I'm also a pretty impatient person with repetition. My pet-peeve is people that take a long time to say something very simple. However, the reason I'm responding to you rather than anyone else is because you're the only person not trolling this thread right now so you do get bonus points for that.

I would agree with your statement and include Backwards Rationalization which is the act of using logic to justify illogical or non-cognitive instinct. I not only think instinct is an integral aspect of our intelligence, I think it is the most prominent force of our decision making and many of the excuses behind our decisions are merely backward rationalization. The advice behind this is to trust your instinct. It is more intelligent than your logic. It has millions of years of experience it leans upon, your cognitive capacity is much more limited.

I also think, from a psychologist's standpoint, it's important to remember the balance between nature and nurture and not equate every unconscious motivation with instinct. It suited the purpose of describing my argument but can ultimately be misleading since instinct is considered behavior which requires no learning while I'm trying to make a claim about the nature of learning itself.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I suppose some may find your way of writing better than mine. I can't stand it, I feel like you excessively elaborate to the point where I can't help but think "no shit" the whole time I read. But to be fair, I'm also a pretty impatient person with repetition. My pet-peeve is people that take a long time to say something very simple.

I would agree with your statement and include Backwards Rationalization which is the act of using logic to justify illogical or non-cognitive instinct. I not only think instinct is an integral aspect of our intelligence, I think it is the most prominent force of our decision making and many of the excuses behind our decisions are merely backward rationalization. The advice behind this is to trust your instinct.

I also think, from a psychologist's standpoint, it's important to remember the balance between nature and nurture and not equate every unconscious motivation with instinct. It suited the purpose of describing my argument but can ultimately be misleading since instinct is considered behavior which requires no learning while I'm trying to make a claim about the nature of learning itself.

I would hardly find what we are talking about simple. There is much variance in the language that we use, and philosophy demands that this language is highly clarified. In order to satisfy this condition, I take extra long to make sure that I am clear.

In fact, I'm glad you are saying "no shit", it means that you are at least able to understand the majority of what I am saying and when I get to my logical leaps or big jumps if you will, the pieces come together fairly easily. It would be nice if I could justify answering in a lot less words, but the truth is, I am being as concise as possible.

I see that you are trying to make a statement about the nature of learning itself.
And my opinion is that every decision we make goes through a systematic sort of process:

1. unique situation occurs (I should do my work)
2. we recall similar situations and assume apply old patterns loosely to this new test hoping for a closely replicated outcome.
3. the response is stored and our instincts have been influenced.

So when I am in that exact situation again, say 10:30 AM on a tuesday
I will pretty readily remember the last time it happened, what I did, and how it panned out.

I'm so god damn tired lol.

As much as I like to have conversations at 3:00 AM I am going to retire.

Go for it, this message will be here when you wake up.

Here's my take on the order of reaction.

Input
Response
Rationalization of response (if positive result)/Learning from result of response (if negative result)

Perhaps this is revealing on the way we've been arguing through this thread though. I make intuitive statements based on what I know and then explain them while you work every idea through logical mechanisms to arrive at a result. I'm not throwing random guesses out and hoping they stick, though, I just cannot completely describe the reasoning behind my ideas at all times. Much of my decision making takes place with bits of data that were not taught verbally and must be transformed into words in order to describe.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Go for it, this message will be here when you wake up.

Here's my take on the order of reaction.

Input
Response
Rationalization of response (if positive result)/Learning from result of response (if negative result)

Perhaps this is revealing on the way we've been arguing through this thread though.

So I am doing all the work, sounds about right XD.

Yeah. I agree with input / response / learning, I think that is pretty objective.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I'm not throwing random guesses out and hoping they stick, though, I just cannot completely describe the reasoning behind my ideas at all times. Much of my decision making takes place with bits of data that were not taught verbally and must be transformed into words in order to describe.

You are essentially describing how your ideas and opinions on the subject matter have arrived mainly unconsciously.

Whether or not our ideas arrive consciously or unconsciously, the important element to consider is the logical structure of the idea so it can be transferred, worked on, and effectively become a more solid and coherent concept in discussion and analysis of the idea and what connotations it has on other ideas.

We can't justify ideas on intuition, lol. We need to explain them with great detail in order have them answered clearly and specifically.

You should aim to be able to explain the logical reasoning behind any information you post because I am assuming that your writing has logic behind it.

If you are just simply posting intuitive ideas, they haven't really been consciously evaluated. Which in that case, It would seem sensible that I am doing a shit load of work and finding a lot of errors and adjustments to turn your lasdg;laksd;gkasd;lgkasldgka;sldkg;asldgk into legible points.

You're doing work you want to do. It's got nothing to do with me. I usually don't feel the need to backwards rationalize my ideas. Not every idea must be concluded logically. Logic is just one tool, but there's an entire life experience of powerful insight available to you.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

You're doing work you want to do. It's got nothing to do with me. I usually don't feel the need to backwards rationalize my ideas. Not every idea must be concluded logically. Logical is just one tool, but there's an entire life experience of powerful insight available to you.

If you honestly think Logic is the ultimate form of truth then I feel very sorry for you.