DRogers@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (10/31/83)
From: David Rogers <DRogers@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA> From: RICKL%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA I don't think I believe in "pure, abstract intelligence, divorced from the world". However, a consequence of the second position seems to be that there should be possible worlds in which we would consider humans to be un-intelligent, and I can't readily think of any (can anyone else?). From: Jay <JAY@USC-ECLC> ...Take desert tortoises, [...] Combining these two comments, I came up with this: ...Take American indians, although they are quite young compared to amoeba, they have been living in the desert some thousands of years. Does this mean they are intelligent? NO! Put a freeway (or some barbed wire) through their desert and they are soon dying. Increase cultural competition and they may be unable to compete with the white man (which will take full advantage of their lack of guns and produce an increase in white-ation). The ability to cope with CHANGE in the environment marks intelligence. I think that the stress on "adaptability" makes for some rather strange candidates for intelligence. The indians were developing a cooperative relationship with their environment, rather than a competitive one; I cannot help but think that our cultural stress on competition has biased us towards competitive definitions of intelligence. Survivability has many facets, and competition is only one of them, and may not even be a very large one. Perhaps before one judges intelligence on how systems cope with change, how about intelligence with how the systems cope with stasis? While it is popular to think about how the great thinkers of the past arose out of great trials, I think that more of modern knowledge came from times of relative calm, when there was enough surplus to offer a group of thinkers time to ponder. David
dm%BBN-UNIX@sri-unix.UUCP (10/31/83)
From: Dave Mankins <dm@BBN-UNIX> By the survivability/adaptability criteria the cockroach must be one of the most intelligent species on earth. There's obviously something wrong with those criteria.
MINSKY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA (11/02/83)
The ability to cope with a CHANGE in the environment marks intelligence. See, this is what's usually called adaptiveness. This is why you don't get anywhere defining intelligence -- until you have a clear idea to define. Why be enslaved to the fact that people use a word, unless you're sure it isn't a social accumulation.