Real intelligence obeys the physical laws of our world, it is a natural phenomenon that we can observe by carefully arranging a system, but not something we can fabricate and mass produce, inject into a machine, and cause it to act as we please.
I was browsing the bookstore and came across "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins, creator of the palm pilot, written 10 years ago. His interest in the subject sounded similar to my own. There was nobody around who could provide a definitive answer to what is intelligence and no research going on in basic questions he was interested in, so he used his abilities to succeed in industry while advancing his lifelong goal to understand this question.
It's at the same time motivating and demoralizing to feel a connection to him. Motivating because he was so successful - his computer technology revolutionized the industry and allowed him to establish a neuro-science research center devoted to understanding intelligence by studying the brain. He made it in the real world and got to shape his dreams into reality. Demoralizing because, well, he had to make it big ... had to get that far and he had to have enormous funds from his own pocket for the project to even happen. It's either win big, or not at all. That's a lot of pressure and 99% chance of failure to follow the path he took, lol. It doesn't provide me with any viable solution to work with.
'OK you want to work on these fundamental questions that nobody else can figure out? Go create a fortune 500 company from the ground up, make lots of other people a ton of money and with what's left over, sure you can play around with your toys - nobody's going to take that seriously, but it doesn't matter because you've made enough people including yourself rich.' That's basically the moral of the story.
I know, I know, too cynical. I'm sure he believes in his work and that it will revolutionize the world in time, but how many other people believe that and are willing to make it their priority? Is that why the research institute exists, no, it's because his own pet project. They'll start paying attention when the dollars roll in. They don't believe anything, they just follow with their eyes and dollar signs in. Who are they? I don't know how finance and business work, so it's just a placeholder for my ignorance. But I don't think that invalidates my point.
I scanned through his book to see if his ideas matched my own theory. He outlined three features important to brains that allow for intelligence: time, the type of network, physical composition, and feedback loop. Then the details and specifics bulk of the evidence I skimmed past, all of that was irrelevant if the premise and conclusions of the investigation were off.
Although he makes three points that are similar, I don't think his theory includes the distinction I make in mine. I was encouraged that he also though intelligence wasn't a matter of processing power, but the way the connections are made. But I feel he too is trapped focusing only on the composition of the machinery and not the nature of its existence.
I feel he is missing the crucial points I make that intelligence i.e. conscious thought 1) requires life, a living host. 2) has intent, with foremost the primary objective to keep its host and by extension itself alive. and 3) the composition of its machinery physically changes as a consequence of the thoughts it outputs. The mind is not an abstract thinking machine, but a physical one whose logical rules depend on the condition of its host and random stimuli from the external environment. Its functionality is strengthened or impaired by the effect of its host's actions to produce positive or negative feedback from the environment.
I believe real intelligence obeys physical laws at the fundamental level, and its most basic interactions can be reduced to molecular interactions between chemicals that comprise the brain. I think it is not something that we can simply program as we wish, as we do with artificial intelligence. Real intelligence obeys the physical laws of our world, it is a natural phenomenon that we can observe by carefully arranging a system, but not something we can fabricate and mass produce, inject into a machine, and cause it to act as we please.
See my post on Conscious Intelligence for further explanation of my ideas.
I follow you. I agree on the things that make up intelligence, however when it comes to the host physically changing from influence,
ReplyDeleteit makes me think of people who intellectually process the idea of becoming older
and needing to stay youthfully active,
vulnerable
and needing to arm themselves,
hungry and needing to hunt and farm.
But what of intelligence when say... people become disablingly obese or tattooed and pierced to extreme, or willfully subservient, self-harming, etc.
I assume these actions are decided on NOT because of lack of a better idea, but because the brain and body are at war and require mediation. In other words, sometimes intelligent actions can get in the way of what works for individual hosts. Or maybe self-harming and self-disabling has it's rare and long-sited benefits.
In the examples above, there are social sigmas that come with being fat, extremely adorned, drunk, promiscuous, whatever. People enjoying or falling victim to a life style of excess are often viewed as people of low intelligence.
On the other hand, artists, philosophers, vagabonds and multifaceted entertainers are often viewed as people of high intelligence; almost gifted with some higher level of awareness or cunning.
Jeff Hawkins is using his money and career to understand intelligence and for all it's worth, there is not one stitch of evidence that his logistics of success are really acts of intelligence. The word "Opportunistic" comes to mind... anything with a pulse can perform the way Jeff Hawkins has but these acts in themselves do not lead to happiness, normalcy, homeostasis or universally useful gains.
In the case of Jeff, I think it takes an incredible amount of intellectual agility to fool oneself.
In the end, I do agree with your definition. Very eloquent.
It's necessary to differentiate between low level intelligence (not in the sense one an individual being stupid, but the thoughts that govern very basic functions like "eat because I'm hungry") and high level intelligence (thoughts about the host in relation to other people, its environment, predicting consequences, etc). At the low level, the feedback is more straightforward and the physical changes to the brain (pathways being created, strengthened or weakened) are a more direct effect of the physical benefit or detriment to the host. At the high level thinking, it is harder to decide if an action was good or bad to the host using an outsider's 'impartial' assessment.
ReplyDeleteWhat can we say about decisions that are bad for the host, but are strengthened? A drug addict is fooled by the chemical simulation of the brain. The brain doesn't objectively evaluate the state of well-being of its host. It acts based on the sensory input provided by the body. If the chemical is present, it will respond to the input given by the drug. Sure the drug addict in moments of euphoria and craving is compelled by thoughts to take the drug. But in moments of sobriety he can recognize the miserable state that is a consequence of his addiction.
Similarly, we may harm ourselves as a consequence of high level thoughts. But our minds must find some positive aspect what we are doing appealing, and some feedback that signals the action was beneficial to us for that passageway to be strengthened. This may happen despite the overall effect, as assessed by an impartial outside observer, being detrimental. Because to the brain, it appears beneficial.
This error may be because the sensors are faulty, that we do not sense or comprehend the harm being brought about to us, or that the brain misinterprets the feedback because the brain has been damaged. Physical changes to the brain based on the benefit of the feedback to the host does not require the interpretation be perfect or correct to match reality. Again, the brain doesn't know what the outside world is doing it interacts through sensory inputs and is liable to get things wrong.
But whether it's internal view matches the external world, the brain will act according to the benefit of its host according to its internal view. Sometimes its internal view conflicts with itself, and we have a hard time judging what to do or how to feel. Sometimes it thinks its decisions have helped the host when they have not. But I don't believe the brain can knowingly act for the sole intention of causing harm to itself.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteNice. I appreciated that conversation.