larry@JPL-VLSI.ARPA (07/17/86)
[Medium length: 75 line] Yes, even defining "intelligence" and "creativity" is very difficult, much less studying their referents scientifically. But I think it's possible. General systems theory helps, despite some extravagances and errors its followers have committed. (Stavros McKrakis pointed out a paper to me by Berliner that discusses some of the worst.) It resolves the difference between reductionism and mysticism in a useful way, by raising the status of information to a physical metric as important as space, time, charge, etc. GST focuses on the fact that when parts are bound together, interaction effects bring into existence characteristics which none of the parts possess. Science is organized around this, with physics concentrating on atomic and subatomic domains, chemistry concentrating on molecular interactions, and so on. The universe is divided up into layers of virtual machines, and for the same reason we do it in computer science: intellectual parsimony. The biologist, for instance, doesn't have to know whether the hydrogen atoms in a sample of water have one, two, or three neutrons. Water functions much the same regardless. (There ARE fascinating and subtle differences some researchers are investigating.) Definition (and investigation) of intelligence and creativity are bound up with another "impossible to define" word: life. "Life" is a label I give to systems which maintain their existence in hostile environments by continuously remaking themselves. Over a period of time (sometimes quoted as seven years for humans), each organism exchanges all of its individual atoms with the environment. Yet it still "lives" and "has the same identity" because its pattern is (essentially) the same. Obviously each organism must somehow "know" the pattern it must maintain and the safe limits for change before corrective action is taken. Biologists have concluded that genes (and gene-like adjuncts outside them) don't contain enough information. Studies point to the conclusion that some of this information is stored in the universe itself, in the form of natural laws for instance. Additionally the organism must be able to sense itself, compare itself with the desired pattern, and take action to correct for deviations. In some cases it acts on its environment (pushing away a danger, for instance); in others it acts on itself (say, standing tall and bristling to frighten attackers). "Intelligence" I would define in very general terms: storing information that describes an organism's external and internal universe, comparing and other- wise processing information in the service of its survival and health, and controlling its action. (Obviously, this definition could be formalised and made more precise, but it will do as a first cut.) It may be protested that these terms are too general, that too many things would thus be classified as alive and/or intelligent. I would say that it's more important to subclassify intelligence and study the interactions and limits of different kinds of intelligence, to study the physical bases of intelligence. I see nothing wrong with saying that a computer program of the Game of Life is really alive (in a very restricted and limited sense which can be couched in formal terms) or that a virus has (very limited, specific kinds) of intelligence. I see it as useful parsimony that intelligence is defined as a multi-dimensional continuum with protozoa near one end, humans in the middle on many continua, and who knows what at the upper end(s). "Creativity" is a particular kind of intelligence. It can be recognized by its products: ideas, actions, or objects that did not exist before. This is not an absolute criteria; it's not all that rare for even those we recognize as geniuses to create the same idea independently (or as much as humans can be who are working in the same field). There are middle and low grades of creativity as well: the same "Chicken Kiev" jokes conceived by hundreds of people on the same day, for instance. Obviously, these new things don't appear from nowhere. There are conservation laws in thought as well as in physics (though very different ones). These novelties are made up of percepts/concepts already in memory, selected and bound to create a system with emergent properties that convince us (or don't) that we've come across something original. (I've gone into the dynamics of creativity in a previous message and won't repeat myself.) Larry @ jpl-vlsi