What Exactly IS Intelligence? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Sunday, August 29, 2010, 08:05 (4979 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH: But is it not necessary to understand what conscious is or is not if we want to use it as a part of our definition of intelligence?-Yes, it's necessary to understand every element of a definition, but unfortunately there will then be no end to the process. If I define intelligence as "a conscious ability to perceive, learn, understand and think about things, and to apply the knowledge thereby acquired", you could ask for a definition of every single term, and a definition of every term in every definition. We would end up with a book. That's why I said that without some sort of consensus on language, communication becomes almost impossible. -Additionally, one is almost certain to get so bogged down in definitions of definitions that one digresses endlessly from the original subject ... hence our movement away from intelligence and onto consciousness and philosophy. There's also the all too obvious fact that the more you think, the less certain you become, which is a good thing in some fields, but paralyzing in others! Having said all that, I appreciate your spurring us on to examine the concept a little more closely. You have made me ... and continue to make me ... think about it and clarify my own ideas, which is part and parcel of our discussions. But having said THAT, I have now gallantly explained exactly what I consider intelligence to be, and when challenged have also explained exactly what I consider consciousness to be, and so I would dearly love to claim the $64,000 prize. No-one has yet said why I shouldn't.-We've agreed about philosophy, and I take your point about noumena and neurological science. Although this is very much an age of specialization, the fact is that no branch of knowledge can function independently of others.-As regards your rhetorical question, I must confess I deliberately steered clear of "free will", and it does not figure in my attempt at a definition of intelligence. It has, however, come up indirectly in my discussion with Matt on robots, as I have argued that a robot has to be programmed (= it doesn't have free will), which of course raises all kinds of questions about our own "programming". David believes we do have free will. Perhaps we all believe we have it, since we are constantly and consciously taking decisions, but if we could step outside ourselves and see all the forces that have shaped us, we would not ... in my agnostic view ... know whether we had it or not.-You wrote that "there's a lot of believing going on considering this is an agnostic website". I regard it as a colossal stroke of luck that we have a "resident" panentheist (David) and a "resident" atheist (George), who are constantly providing us with challenging insights, while even the agnostics among us have widely differing views on many subjects. For a while we had a vicar who also engendered lively discussions. We can all learn from one another, even if some of us may never jump down from our fence.