Early meditations on Mind

[Jasper]

Intelligence seems to be, on a mechanical level, a brute force decryption of reality.  Whatever that is.  Brain components don't behave intelligently, and they weren't designed by an intelligence. 

Computers, having been created by intelligences, rather than exhibit more intelligence as one's intuition presupposes, exhibit rather a certain perfection of stupidity itself.  Programmers understand what it means to write instructions that are impossible for computers to misunderstand. 

Nobody seems to really know what intelligence is.  Everyone seems to know what stupidity is.  Logic isn't intelligence, it only works when knowledgeable and well-reasoned entities arrange it properly.

My feeling on the matter is that human intelligence is a liar and a theif, and if strong AI ever occurs, it will be an off-brand reinterpretation of human cognition.

I say our intelligence is a liar because our brains misinterpret with reckless abandon in the name of self-interest.  It is a thief because we are not able to generate our own information.  We are born with the blueprint for cognition, and perhaps even "genetic memories", and from then on all we know is what we experience.  Every original idea bears the indelible mark of everything we've recorded in life.  Humans and computers are similarly affected by GIGO.

But the really good things in life aren't reducible.  Love, hate, food, sex, life, death.  Emotionally charged abstracts created by a textured matrix of neuro-physical and neuro-electrochemical mentations make up our Platonic ideals, complex ideas, poetry, et cetera.

It's those things that we seem to need emotion to help us decode the significance of; Some ideas seem out of reach of logic, and require emotional energy to help us ascertain what is important.

Apparently necessary disclaimer: Extemporaneous thoughts on intelligence, not that I know much about it.

[Manta Obscura]

This is good; I wish I had been intelligent enough to think of it. 

I wish I could make an insightful comment in response to this, but the ideas need some more time to gestate. Until the birth pangs, though: thanks for posting, Felix.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

[Jasper]

This sort of stuff comes to me constantly.  I seem to have a cognitive theory compulsion.  I'll keep posting my ideas ITT from now on.

[Eater of Clowns]

Intelligence - lacking telligence.

[Jasper]

It makes sense though, doesn't it?  Why else would the smartest beings on earth be susceptible to mistakes a lower animal would never make?   Why are we simultaneously the most advanced and yet the most mistake-prone species on earth?

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Intelligence seems to be, on a mechanical level, a brute force decryption of reality.  Whatever that is. 

Google for timewave zero. Look at the graph, then look at the graph of memory usage in a brute-force search (such as solving a complex problem in prolog). Then look at the scientific method.

[P3nT4gR4m]

It makes sense though, doesn't it?  Why else would the smartest beings on earth be susceptible to mistakes a lower animal would never make?   Why are we simultaneously the most advanced and yet the most mistake-prone species on earth?

The more complex a system becomes the more unpredictability creeps in. Our minds seem to be complex enough to put us on a level which (whilst maybe not the top of the planet) would certainly be well up there.

The last I heard animal psychologists point blank refuse to attribute 'self awareness' in any degree to the rest of the animal kingdom. Whether or not I agree with this statement I would certainly agree that we seem to possess this meta-faculty to a far greater extent than the rest of the animal kingdom and I'm sure that's got a lot to do with the problem you mention.

Only a human has sufficient degree of meta thought to question why they got dealt their lot in life. Only a human is capable of thinking "Fuck this, I'm going to cut off my own genitals and post the pictures on BME"

We're an ant colony that doesn't take orders from the queen.

We're a flock of starlings with no flight plan, arguing about why we should all fly south for the winter.

We are, at the same time, the most impressive and the most ridiculous of all the beasts.

Yay us!

[Telarus]

Yay Us!

BTW, dolphins and corvids (ravens/crows) have been shown to be 'self aware' in that they can recognize themselves as a specific individual when shown their reflection in a mirror.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

I might argue that, for the most part, cats are far more self-aware than humans; humans are generally on the same level as dogs or cattle in terms of identifying one's own will, whereas cats not only identify themselves by their will and preferences, but are strongly averse to doing anything that is suggested that doesn't directly mesh with their will in some way. Dogs can have their will replaced by the will of the owner via stimulus-response imprinting, but only cats will complain loudly and become stubbornly rude when their expected reward isn't coming -- often being able to undo a great deal of postitive feedback with one counterexample. This would be neurologically impossible without a great deal of internal activity, or a great deal of emphasis on the effectiveness of negative feedback as opposed to positive feedback. I might consider cats to fit well into the intense-world-syndrome model, which is actually fundamental to the strange loop called self. That said, cats seem to have a very simple language for communication, one that's closer to the use of instrumental music and interpretive dance to give meaning as opposed to the use in human natural languages of independent symbol-systems -- you give various syncopations, intensities, body correlations, frets, and strains to slight variations on "can has", "not want", and "yay", and then point with they eyes/paws/head or lead for context.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Do not compare cats to dogs. Seriously I beg you!

Cat's are not pack animals, therefore they have no desire to do what they're told hence their disobedient nature which cat owners love to anthropomorphise into human-like rebelliousness or whatever stupid fucking personality whatever stupid fucking cat owner likes to project.

Dogs on the other hand, whilst vastly more intelligent than cats, are still completely fucking stupid. However a dog will try to fit in with the pack more, because that's the way it survives in the wild.

Incidentally I place cat owners below cats in the self awareness/intelligence pecking order. 

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

That's kind of my point. I consider disobedience a form of agency, and the type of disobedience a cat practices involves a lot of enginuity, which I consider the product of a pretty vast inner monologue.

You can train a dog to do something in return for something (food, a treat, whatever). Only a cat will figure out a way to get the treat while specifically avoiding what is requested. That isn't precisely all there is to intelligence -- a dog can learn things much faster than a cat, sure, but a cat is clever about avoiding doing what it's told, whereas a dog has no real motivation to develop a faculty for being clever about disobedience.

That said, this is from my POV, being a cat owner since birth, and being bitten or chased by nearly every dog that I've come within a ten foot radius of. As such, I have a bit of fear-loathing-and-pity towards dogs, and I probably put cats on a pedestal to compensate.

[P3nT4gR4m]

That's kind of my point. I consider disobedience a form of agency, and the type of disobedience a cat practices involves a lot of enginuity, which I consider the product of a pretty vast inner monologue.

You can train a dog to do something in return for something (food, a treat, whatever). Only a cat will figure out a way to get the treat while specifically avoiding what is requested. That isn't precisely all there is to intelligence -- a dog can learn things much faster than a cat, sure, but a cat is clever about avoiding doing what it's told, whereas a dog has no real motivation to develop a faculty for being clever about disobedience.

That said, this is from my POV, being a cat owner since birth, and being bitten or chased by nearly every dog that I've come within a ten foot radius of. As such, I have a bit of fear-loathing-and-pity towards dogs, and I probably put cats on a pedestal to compensate.

Do not confuse ignorance with rebellion, a cat has no idea what the fuck it's being told. They can be trained, apparently, but I think it's much harder an there's probably a lot less scope for what can be done with them.

I think the whole issue with animal intelligence is compounded because, whilst the animals might have little or no 'intellect' (for want of a better word) They still have a highly sophisticated neural net processor, capable of pulling off very impressive feats of ingenuity and adaptive response. Because, as humans, we largely take our ability for abstract thought for granted, we find it hard to imagine doing anything without it, so we project this onto animals when we see them doing things we'd have to think about.

Think about a squirrel. The leaves start falling off the trees and it starts stockpiling nuts for the winter. You'd be forgiving for thinking that the squirrel knows winter is coming but no - the squirrel is utterly incapable of imagining winter, it lacks the imaginative faculty for one thing. The squirrel is only concerned with it's immediate situation and, right now, it has a psychotic craving for nuts. That's just not a decision, it's hard wiring.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Do not confuse ignorance with rebellion, a cat has no idea what the fuck it's being told. They can be trained, apparently, but I think it's much harder an there's probably a lot less scope for what can be done with them.

Meh. I think when an animal goes out of its way to avoid doing as it's told, it probably knows what it's being told to do. Anyway, I was just using cats as an example of one element of intelligence that I don't think many people consider; I wasn't trying to start a flamewar about whether cats are better than dogs. If that needs to be sorted out, I can start a topic for it in the Apple Talk forum, and then never look at it again.

[P3nT4gR4m]

You thought I was flaming you ?? 

Holy shit you better hope I never do.

Anyroad, read my post again, I think I made my stance perfectly clear. What you refer to as "when an animal goes out of its way to avoid doing as it's told" I refer to as "the animal has no idea it's being told to do anything"

Under this pretext the human barking out the orders merely becomes another obstacle which the cat will have to circumvent in order to achieve its immediate goal.

I compared this to a dog, not because I think dogs are in some way better than cats but because a dog will respond differently and it's a good example to use - the reason the dog will attempt to obey orders is because it's hardwired to follow the commands of the pack leader. This is a gross oversimplification but, as a general rule, it works quite nicely.

If you really want to see a cat follow an order then use the "Freeze!" command and pick it up by the scruff of the neck. Cats are programmed to obey this order, although the verbal component is optional.