What is Intelligence, exactly?

I come to say, what is intelligence?

I mean, I used to go to a church, where a lot of the people were engineers and were good at what they did. Many of them were more knowledgeable than me. Some of them were math whizzes, who were valedectorians of their class. Contrast this to me, who, at an early age, got straight A+'s in all classes, but as my depression grew, I didn’t apply myself. For example, in high school physics I wouldn’t pay attention in class, and I waited till the last day to study for the finals. Yet I got a perfect score on it. On the other hand, I had a computer science class which was so easy I didn’t even bother to do the assignments, and I got a C in it.

Since I am depressed and view humans as bad people, I don’t have much motivation to become valedectorian of any class. That being said, there were some classes that I legitimately struggled in, for example I had a Calculus professor who spoke broken english and I barely understood the concepts. To this day I still dream about that class, and I have dreams where I have 20 pages of math homework I have to do in one day, which instead of doing I am partying. Yet it is not him in the dream, it is always a woman professor I feel love towards. Another class I struggled in was C++ programming, it seemed daunting and I never really applied myself, I slacked off. I am a visual learner and I often learn better when i hear things one on one, for example sometimes when I read things in a book I see ideas which have a double meaning, and I don’t know which it means so I have to ask in person. That being said, I was very antisocial and afraid of talking to people, so if there was something I didn’t understand I’d just suffer in silence without asking anyone. I was also depressed at that time and waited till the last minute to study and do homework, sometimes forgetting to do assignments altogether. I got a D+ in that class.

Back to the church thing though, in my church I was surrounded by people I was envious of for several reasons. For one, they all had relationships and girlfriends/boyfriends and I didn’t. They also had better and bigger houses than I did. But also a lot of them had engineering and math backgrounds that I was envious of. A lot of them were better at calculus and trigonometry than I was, and it made me upset. Also, some of them seemed to have a fancier English vocabulary than I did. Some of them seemed to be pros at debate and knew terms about logic I didn’t even know. But yet…all of them still had blind faith to obey a religion…They never could trump me at ethics either, I always beat them at debate at poking holes at both God’s morality, and showing gaping holes in human behavior and morality. They never won those debates, just agreed to disagree.

There is a second reason I mention my old church friends. I am 24 years old now. I have a condition, where I am unable to connect with people, and find interactions with them to be boring. The reason I mention my old church friends, is because they would say that the inability to connect with people, is not related to my intelligence. The say this because they are happy go lucky types, who enjoys the company of people and stupid social gathering activities. They say that the inabilty to connect is unrelated to intelligence. But I say different, deep down it deeply feels like it is because of my intelligence. But I cannot prove it.

So I say to you, what exactly is intelligence?

It is because of your intelligence. Don’t you feel more comfortable around people with clearer minds, who aren’t hung up on some lame agenda or religion [in religionist terms]? Those Christians are in a daze and you can see it, even if such things [as like emotions too] don’t self-define exactly into informations.

proving it would take a long time and be different in each case, but usually I find that if you keep observing your perception sees deeper, and peoples notions are unravelled. thing is, its non-profitable to do that, as the mind can use its ninja senses to get an impression upon its fabric - so to say. best thing is to surround yourself with people who don’t have an agenda, nor have rudimentary intellects.

What if its a good agenda though, like bettering science and the human DNA?

haha, well my point was different but anyways…

Perhaps its only an ‘agenda’ if belief is attached to it. Science should want to be battered, as should any philosophy. DNA resequencing can be seen as medical, or aesthetic etc, its a diverse topic, and each aspect should have its own debate. People tend to globalize everything one says these days, so if you say; ‘i want to make DNA better’ people make all sorts of associations, simply because that can mean anything.

I know this one too. Its the name of a feature you give something with a nervous system when you observe it responding to its environment.

Nailed it.

Which feature? You still have to nail it. I see the general metaphor you want to use, but not the specific one.

that’s the question I was hoping you wouldn’t ask, the one that continues to baffle us. what exactly is the feature? a Turing machine can process information and take directions from its environment, while a computer can hold a conversation with a human being that is damn near indistinguishable from a real persons conversation.add these up and you’ve got a p-zombie type scenario.

what the f*** is intelligence? information processing? directive response? Intentional action?just basic problem solving? And what things in nature can have at least one of these features?

and lower animals who seem to have no self awareness can solve problems and puzzles. but wait,there is no such thing as a problem or a puzzle for an animal that doesn’t have a language. now we can’t interpret the animal’s behavior as problem or puzzle solving because the animals intentions do not involve the same thing.

W couldn’t have said it better.

the animal would just be acting autonomously, and its behavior would only appear to be coordinated and with intent…signs that the animal is intelligent and at least aware of its environment.

here is what is happening. we are trying to talk about something that if we used to describe anything other than a human beings behavior, we’d run into confusions.

Zoot

Lol but our experience shows it to be something more than that, there’s you there too. You are an observer but what are you observing? …what colour and sound qualia? What projected world? And what IS the observer?

if we are going to look at things directly, why the need to only say what the physics are, when that’s so evidently not all there is?

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Check out the essay “what mary didn’t know” by Frank jackson If you have a few minutes.

Intelligence is the ability to process information that allows the solution to a problem to be the most logically sound
For it is not just the ability to store knowledge like a computer but how to utilise that to the best of ones advantage
It is learning how to think through every single possibility and selecting the one that is deemed the most appropriate

It seems to me we can speak intelligently about this animals intelligence vs. that animals intelligence and point to the reasons why we judge Animal X to be more intelligent than animal Y. (could intra- or inter species comparison). Intelligence seems to be used as the degree to which something can find a way to do X, Y and Z. And then different humans define the ‘tasks’ and actions that are consider telling for intelligence. The definition of intelligence and the testing of intelligence has broadened a lot in recent years, now incorporating the ‘regions’ popularized by Gardner - like musical and emotional being added in, along with others. There is obviously bias in this. I would guess that any study of how an individual define’s intelligence would correlate well with that individual’s test scores in one of the various intelligences. I also think there has been a general bias toward what gets called left brain intelligence and that this bias is being more and more challenged and within the mainstream not just from without.

I think we can use problem solving as a metaphor. If we just take problem solving literally we will likely end up with the older bias. But I think any form of intelligence currently proposed can have the events of intelligence translated into problems. How can one find the next tone in the sequence? How might Mary’s recent divorce change the most effective way of criticizing her divorce? How can I retain balance when standing on one foot while holding a bowling ball in the opposed hand in gale force winds?

Some of these are less language based and the solutions may not be found via language. Some events may not even be best considered problems. But I think most can be translated into problems.

So how well does one do what one wants in challenging events. We determine range and effectiveness by viewing these events as problems and how well one does in terms of how much one does what one wants despite the challenges. Perhaps throwing in extra credit for coming up with many options.

Computers may do well in very limited ways in communication, but that is just one piece of the intelligences now considered. It is just one piece of language intelligence also. I doubt they do very well with metaphorical speech, groans, the terrible grammar of spoken language, significane of pauses and so on. Much of this likely will be solved by adding more programming and RAM, etc. But even then we will still have a partial intelligence when compared to a human. Further ahead well maybe some idiots will make AIs and may they suffer whatever fate they dole out to the rest of us first and clearly for them.

I expect everyone here knows Mary’s room conundrum.

it assumes that you have to know first, but we don’t, we see first, and so colour and qualia are read by our instrumentation, and denoted by brain function [like filter lenses on cameras]. there is a mechanistic side to it all, and conscious knowing has little impact upon that except in its utility.

To the OP -

There are three interrelated things here, which slightly differ from each other and generally confused with each other too.

Intelligence, knowledge and wisdom.

Intelligence is how much one can learn, knowledge is how much one has been learned so far, and wisdom is how one is using his intelligence and acquired knowledge.

So, basically, you are having problem with people not because they are not intelligent or knowledgeable. They certainly are, as you can see both of these qualities in them. The real thing which is lacking, is wisdom.

Sometimes, or rather more often than not, people do not know how to use properly what they have. It is the question of both of intent and knowledge, though mostly of intent.

That is why it is always necessary to make people learn wisdom (right intent) before knowledge. Wisdom has to bridle both of knowledge and intelligence, because these are raw powers and need some check on themselves.

Untamed intelligence and knowledge, without wisdom, are just like sward in monkey’s hand, or a child playing with an AK-47.

With love
Sanjay

Animals, even small animals, have more processing power than most computers. They can do things a computer cannot do. They do it autonomously. Can a computer even protect itself? So they are smarter than a computer.

Animals have inherent high intelligence that we take for granted. We take for granted our autonomous heart rhythms, and our autonomous ability to sense danger, and autonomously recognize visual patterns. We navigate a room almost autonomously. So what is intellect?

Intellect is different from intelligence. Intellect is used when we encounter an obstacle that is not binded to our autonomous instinct. Intellect is laborious. When it ceases to become laborious, it is said to be integrated into our massive autonomous processes, and we are said to be in “work flow” and said to have gained intelligence.

Wisdom is knowing the right techniques to use at the right time, and harmonious goals.

I’d say that automatic intelligence is part of the same things as non-automatic intelligence. The mind is continually refreshing its projection or game-world, and when it comes across something different it makes comparisons to that. The ability to do that effectively denotes the intellect as a tool of the perception, its informant - if you will, which in turn hones and sharpens the sword of the combined intellect.

It necessarily increases in proportion to its state. The more complex the set of correlations, the greater the intellect becomes.

On the other hand, there can be so many shapes in the forge, that its unclear or impossible to forge anything. Ergo an overly complex mind is incapable either in a given area, or completely. e.g. With your typical genius, they are incapable of doing routines.

For every benefit there is a deficit.

On the other hand, a robot ~ or human linked up to one, could have an entire library of man, and a ton of software for performing intellectual tasks in an automated sense. Having that as ‘the body of the intellect’ increases the automatic function [body like], and increases the instrument of perception.

I feel that having so much stuff going on in the conscious mind would be messy, and one would have to focus in given areas just as we do now.

I do wonder how far an intellect can be taken or grow to? In my arrogance I don’t think I could cope with more stuff, my head is already maxed out. But being hooked up to a library would be better than google ~ if not for the fact that that would be MASSIVELLY DISTRACTING! Not so bad if we had robots who could do it for us. This would make the whole endeavor bespoke.

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Yes, the state of robots confirms this. WE have not come near reverse engineering a swallow or a coyote, or some big company would be selling the damn things to Russian nouveau riche oil magnates. This will probably be managed at some point, though likely it will come through genetic mucking about.

The term is always a reference to “that which works”. Defining it specifically involves a definition of ends.

Its a general term designating efficient means, and is usually attributed in retrospect.

IQ tests specify the nature of such means to particular type of ends. This is why it is complemented by emotional intelligence (what works in terms of emotions) and other quotients.

Language is largely ‘superstition’, qualifying terms are almost always based on the blind assumption that ends are objective.

(hence, VO)

So you don’t bathe, shave, do your hair, or brush your teeth? There seems to be two types of genius, ie. the specialist (ie. Einstein, who pretty much sucked at philosophy, or Mozart, who pretty much sucked at particle physics) or the jack of all trades (ie. most everyone these days. Computers are kind of like an artifice, enabling everyone to be a genius, for example everyone is both an artist, inventor, musician, philosopher, and physicist all in one these days. We are cyborgs, enhanced by Google. ) However, my findings seem to contradict your position that geniuses are incapable of doing routines. Both types of geniuses use routines, that is how they compose their work flow. However, the second type of genius is more like an SA-X, as it can easily assimilate new routines and add them to it’s database programming.

The formula is not linear, and thus can be overcome. Larger brains require more resources, but the productivity potential to acquire more resources is hyperexponentially more probable, the larger the brain.

It might increase the perception, period. The more complex the “automatic” task is, they greater the risk of inheriting sentience.

It would be beautiful, like Heaven.

There is a physical limit to organic brain capacity, the speed of neuronal transfer becoes inefficient when the brain gets too large. Whether this applies to AI is unknown. Humans are not close to this limit yet, so there is much room to improve.

A true IQ test should measure the capacity for ends, period. A rock has no capacity for ends. A true IQ test, should measure the capacity for input/output in a sane way. Ie. a goal should be presented, pictures should be provided as to lessen the vaguity of language, and points should be awarded based on how effective the solution would (objectively) be, while minimizing the reliance on extraneous knowledge.

A sample math question on such a test might be:
Sattelite A broadcasts signal at a wide spread and costs 500 dollars a month to run. Sattelite B broadcasts a focused signal and costs 300 dollars a month to run. Wavebeams lose their strength rapidly when they are unfocused, but can reach multiple targets. Focused beams can only reach one. Which plan is best for your company to use, if you want to save money and reach the most potential customers?

1. Radar dish A, their customers have custom TVs with special antennae to pick up the signal. Customers pay $x a month for the service, plus $x for antennae rental.
2. Radar dish B, their customers do not need special antennaes with their TV because there is an underground cable network connected to a conversion facility which disperses the focused beam. Customers pay $x a month for the service, but YOU have to pay a $x startup fee to build the conversion facility.
3. Radar dish A with Government integration. Government offers to give all citizens free antennae, but increase your company’s tax by $x a year.
4. Radar dish B with Government integration. Government lets you rent their conversion facility for $x a year.

Now this is a trick question. Question 1 an 2 should be structured so that they give the same mathematical result. But answer 1 is the correct answer, because answer 2 has an extra electricity fee from using the underground network.

This is a sample logic question.

You are walking down the road on a vacation. A lady walks up to you. She says only one thing to you. “Please, may I have 10 dollars? If the stocks bloom next month, I will give you 50 percent of what I make. I swear it.” You give her ten dollars, and she leaves. Next month, the stocks go up 50 percent. How much money do you make?

This is a trick question. The answer is 0 dollars. Both of you forgot to exchange contact info. Since it was a vacation, you will never see them again.

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Trixie

Sometimes scatty geniuses do chores methodically, because it automates tasks. Perhaps a geniuses degree of suffering and the craziness which goes with that in extremes, is something of a measure of their genius? E.g. Nietzsche was a bit of a mess in the end. I even wonder if the impact of the genius upon the world, is the stick which delivers the said suffering.

Consider that the brain makes billions of calculations per second, yet our consciousness can only think of a few concepts, and only 3-7 objects at any one time. There is already vastly more capacity that we can consciously use, and adding more wont change a thing. A connection to a cloud library would be handy though, but I just want that on a device that’s not built into my brain.

Maybe an AI/computer or larger brain wouldn’t add anything, except in terms of simple knowledge items/info? Either way there would be limits to possible intellectual capacity, because mathematically we are resolving a multiplicity into the singular gnosis.

Maybe? …or chaotic like hell! More intelligent people have more chaotic minds, so more of that would surely increase it.

I do wonder if there could be a possibly tao-like super-intellect, which would find everything very simple and not say stupid shit, nor behave in idiotic fashion. Here’s hoping.

jakob

Computer language isn’t and its ends are objective. The info your subconscious brain uses in functional terms are also objective. The valuing in language is in our subjective and relative perspective views/perceptions.

info and language are different. valuing and perception are also different. the function of the instruments of mind are different to the product of mind [when that is consciousness].
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