markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) (07/30/89)
* In article <3558@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> I wrote:
*
* There is nothing that IQ tests measure that is built into the architecture
* of our brain in such a way as to remain static throughout our lives. It is all
* learnable and teachable.
* To assert that IQ is genetic is dangerously wrong for precisely that
* reason, that it denies us our human endowment.
In article <504@dcdwest.UUCP> benson@dcdwest.UUCP (Peter Benson) writes:
* I have seen studies that note a significant correlation in
* IQ between twins raised apart. If it is all 'learnable and
* teachable' then there would be no such correlation.
I do not quite see how the lack of a correlation must follow from what I said
above. Making the *inference* is the same as asserting that differences in IQ
are genetic, which was the question being raised in the first place. Making
the *assertion* you made, though, is not.
In fact, I do not even see how the conclusion that "all people are the same"
must follow from our being able to invest conscious energy into raising the
level of our own genius to any humanly achievable level or even from our
having the same maximum capacity -- despite the fact that some people seem
to persistently infer it.
Therefore, I argue that whether it is learnable or teachable has no bearing
on what correlations might exist, if any, but only that the correlations are
not static.
In fact, I'd go further and state that the positive correlations can even be
MADE into negative correlations, if one twin from each of a large number of
pairs is taken aside and given special training.
So back to my original point: whatever intelligence I possess that is over an
beyond what is regarded as normal intelligence is solely the result of my
own special training in the learning process itself. If anyone else had used
the same technique over the same extensive period of time they would have
achieved the same results to the pretty much the same extent. Maybe a little
less in virtue of my unusual ancestry, but nothing that couldn't be made up for
in due time.
------------------------------------------------------------
* Our human endowment, I surmise, is the exceptional ability for
* humans to learn new things. In my experience, every human I
* have met has that ability, although some are quicker than
* others and some have more persistence than others.
Examine the consequence of what you said. To learn WHAT new things?
Like: learning how to learn? Learning how to learn raises your ability to
learn (including learning how to learn). If so, then you have come around
to what I've said all along -- that nothing measured by the IQ test (or any
intelligence test) is built into the architecture of our brain in such a way
as to remain static throughout our lives -- that it is all learnable and
teachable.
* I don't know whether the quickness or persistence is innate or
* learned.
The significance of what I have said all along is that it is not only learnable
but is teachable. As far as I am aware, this is not a commonly accepted fact
of the psychological or cognitive science communities, though there are
many successful programs out there developed in the last couple years
essentially based on this observation. It a totally new observation
concerning the nature of human intelligence.
Past a certain threshold, which I claim to be the ability to comprehend a
human language and generate it, genetic differences are no longer of any
consequence. The reason being that the ability to infer at arbitrary levels
of abstraction must already be present in order to learn and use a human
language -- an ability which underlies the origin of all other forms of
human intelligence.
------------------------------------------------------------
* How similiar are large computer programs using these measures?
(genetic similarity)
* how similar are different versions of the same program?
* Especially the one that has the factor of 2 speed up over
* an earlier version by revising one small loop?
Would they be different programs if the program, itself, was responsible for
its own improvement?
That's where the analogy lies.ghh@cognito.princeton.edu (Gilbert Harman) (07/30/89)
In article <504@dcdwest.UUCP> benson@dcdwest.UUCP (Peter Benson) writes:
* I have seen studies that note a significant correlation in
* IQ between twins raised apart. If it is all 'learnable and
* teachable' then there would be no such correlation.
and others have referred to this without challenging it.
But what studies are being referred to. A few years ago it
emerged that Cyril Burt's classic twin studies were faked.
(Leo Kamin demonstrated that the numbers were too good to be
true and then Burt's son reported that his father had indeed
faked the results.) This leaves the question whether in
fact there are studies indicating a significant correlation
in IQ between twins raised apart. If anyone knows of such
studies I would be interested in references to them.
--
Gilbert Harman
Princeton University Cognitive Science Laboratory
221 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ 08542
ghh@princeton.edu
HARMAN@PUCC.BITNETdemers@beowulf.ucsd.edu (David E Demers) (07/31/89)
In article <GHH.89Jul30091639@cognito.princeton.edu> ghh@cognito.princeton.edu (Gilbert Harman) writes: >In article <504@dcdwest.UUCP> benson@dcdwest.UUCP (Peter Benson) writes: >* I have seen studies that note a significant correlation in >* IQ between twins raised apart. If it is all 'learnable and >* teachable' then there would be no such correlation. > >and others have referred to this without challenging it. >But what studies are being referred to. A few years ago it >emerged that Cyril Burt's classic twin studies were faked. >(Leo Kamin demonstrated that the numbers were too good to be >true and then Burt's son reported that his father had indeed >faked the results.) This leaves the question whether in >fact there are studies indicating a significant correlation >in IQ between twins raised apart. If anyone knows of such >studies I would be interested in references to them. I unfortunately don't have a reference handy, but I went to a talk this year on the current studies underway at {Michigan| Minnesota} on identical twins reared apart. Much has been published, so a few minutes at the library should get you pointers. I'll try to get some references tomorrow and post... My recollection of the talk was that there were somewhere in the order of 100 sets of identical sets of twins reared apart (+/- 50%), plus about the same number of fraternal twins reared apart, plus about the same number of each reared together. Each set of twins underwent about 50 hours of testing, ranging from physiological to various "personality" type tests, over the course of 9 days in the University lab. The results to date show tremendous correlations along nearly all tests - identical twins having far stronger correlations than fraternal. In fact, the proportions were appropriate to match up with the amount of genetic similarity. Controls, unrelated persons of approximately similar backgrounds (obviously it's impossible to find enough people who match on the non-genetic factors to isolate everything...), showed nearly no correlation, while identical twins were correlated at approximately twice the level of fraternal twins. Please don't flame my cavalier usage of "correlation" here, as a twin I thought it would be an interesting talk and am reproducing it all from memory... and I'm not an expert on experimental statistics (nor very literate in the area...). So, to make a short story long, it does appear that there is SIGNIFICANT genetic component to IQ, as well as to many other parts that make up us humans. I prefer to use a working philosophy that genetics provides a range of potential. Development determines where in that range we end up. Dave "He had potential" DeMers Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering UCSD La Jolla, CA 92093 demers@cs.ucsd.edu
cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550) (07/31/89)
In article <3612@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes: >So back to my original point: whatever intelligence I possess that is over an >beyond what is regarded as normal intelligence is solely the result of my >own special training in the learning process itself. If anyone else had used >the same technique over the same extensive period of time they would have >achieved the same results to the pretty much the same extent. Maybe a little >less in virtue of my unusual ancestry, but nothing that couldn't be made up for >in due time. > Your phrase "in due time" is interesting. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that there exists a regime of mental exercises, starting at age six months, which can produce Einstein-level intelligence in anyone. Let us further suppose that Einstein's own special ancestry means that the intelligence he had developed by age 25 would take you 50 years to develop, and me 100 years to develop, and Harry 200 years. Not much use to me or Harry, I'm afraid. I presume that you do not suppose that simply by working at it you could become an Olympic standard weightlifter. I certainly don't think I could, even if I had started exercising in the cradle: I come from a long line of weeds and weaklings, some of whom have made heroic but vain efforts to acquire Charles Atlas, or even average muscular endowment. Why should mental strength behave differently than physical strength? >The significance of what I have said all along is that it is not >only learnable but is teachable. As far as I am aware, this is >not a commonly accepted fact of the psychological or cognitive >science communities, though there are many successful programs >out there developed in the last couple years essentially based >on this observation. It a totally new observation concerning >the nature of human intelligence. The cognitive scientists I know accept, and have accepted for at least decades, that whatever intelligence is, it is - like most other complex performance measures - subject to considerable environmental variation (teaching, training, etc.), within limits set by individual genetic endowment, and that the range of environmentally producible variation is somewhat less than the variation seen in a standard environment, i.e., genetic. That kind of opinion can be found in decades-old undergrad psychology textbooks. So what exactly is this totally new observation concerning the nature of intelligence? >Past a certain threshold, which I claim to be the ability to comprehend a >human language and generate it, genetic differences are no longer of any >consequence. The reason being that the ability to infer at arbitrary levels >of abstraction must already be present in order to learn and use a human >language -- an ability which underlies the origin of all other forms of >human intelligence. A great deal of linguistic experimental evidence contradicts you here. Studies of human ability to understand and generate complex sentence structures show strict limitations on our ability to handle levels of abstraction. There are many linguistic constructions capable of abitrary levels of recursion, and the level at which we "lose the thread" varies markedly with the type of contruction. Rather than requiring an ability to handle arbitrary levels of abstraction, it seems that human language - as we employ it - is well designed as a means of communication that fits within our strictly limited mental capabilities. -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
mcconnel@zodiac.ADS.COM (Chris McConnell) (08/01/89)
If you are really interested in this whole question, read the book "The Mismeasure of Man" by Stephen Jay Gould. It is a very interesting history and critical examination of the whole question of ranking races/sexes by some linear measure. If you are really in a hurry, just read the conclusion. The studies that you refer to about twins are well known as being bogus. (The guy who did them falsified his results.) The whole idea of IQ as a means of ranking race/sexes is totally bogus since the variation between individuals completely blows away the differences between races.
mcconnel@zodiac.ADS.COM (Chris McConnell) (08/01/89)
For all the people on this thread, if you are really interested in this whole question, read the book "The Mismeasure of Man" by Stephen Jay Gould. It is a very interesting history and critical examination of the whole question of ranking races/sexes by some linear measure. If you are really in a hurry, just read the conclusion. The studies referred to about twins are well known as being bogus. (The guy who did them falsified his results.) The whole idea of IQ as a means of ranking race/sexes is totally bogus since the variation between individuals completely blows away the differences between averages in races.
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (08/01/89)
In article <MCCONNEL.89Jul31165800@zodiac.ADS.COM>, mcconnel@zodiac.ADS.COM (Chris McConnell) writes: > If you are really interested in this whole question, read the book > "The Mismeasure of Man" by Stephen Jay Gould. It is a very > interesting history and critical examination of the whole question of > ranking races/sexes by some linear measure. If you are really in a > hurry, just read the conclusion. The studies that you refer to about > twins are well known as being bogus. (The guy who did them falsified > his results.) The whole idea of IQ as a means of ranking race/sexes > is totally bogus since the variation between individuals completely > blows away the differences between races. That the differences between races/sexes is small compared to the differences between individuals has nothing to do with whether genetic differences are consequential. It is quite possible that intelligence, and the aspects of intelligence, are almost totally genetic, but that racial differentiation has not occurred. As the genetics of the sexes are necessarily almost identical, any non-trivial "inherent" differences here would have to be due to the biochemical and biophysical differences between the sexes, which are clearly non-trivial. A physical anthropologist can usually tell the sex, and very likely the race, from one bone, and certainly from a full skeleton. It is unfortunate that Burt falsified his figures, because the ongoing Minnesota twin study indicates that Burt may have understated the case. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) (08/01/89)
In article <485@edai.ed.ac.uk>, cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550) writes: > I presume that you do not suppose that simply by working at it you could > become an Olympic standard weightlifter. I certainly don't think I > could, even if I had started exercising in the cradle: I come from a > long line of weeds and weaklings, some of whom have made heroic but vain > efforts to acquire Charles Atlas, or even average muscular endowment. Why > should mental strength behave differently than physical strength? Having dabbled in bodybuilding for some years myself, I read all the rags that talk about the superior "genetics" of champions such as Lee Haney, Rich Gaspari, etc. Never mind that nobody can point to genes or protein mechanisms that mediate the ability of the champion athlete's muscles to undergo astounding hypertrophy in response to heavy progressive training. Everyone can readily observe 100 athletes training almost identically (weights, sets, reps, diet, rest intervals), and all 100 display different development. The exact type of training is critically important to an individual's reaching her/his maximum level of development, but the differences between individual potentials appear to overwhelm any nuance of training. The books and magazines present the training programs used by the champions, but they only promise you that you will get *some* sort of positive result, not necessarily of the magnitude you see in the photos. Accordingly, I had thought that the individual's genetic propensity toward athleticism was universally recognized. But a few months ago a newsgroup far, far away (rec.bicycles) hosted a debate on the role of genetics in competitive bicycling. After a decade of bicycling, I am now very familiar with the relationship between how hard an effort I make in training and how fit I become. Nonetheless, I also see that athletes such as Greg Lemond (1989 Tour de France champion) seem to get better results than I do. Never mind that Lemond can tolerate training schedules that would put me into intensive care. Even though I can't identify the "bicycle genes" I don't have any problem believing that Lemond has some inner ability that I simply do not have. However, I found that not everyone thinks so. In the rec.bicycles debate several posters put forward notions that anyone can do essentially anything if they train correctly and have the proper motivation. While I understand that self-doubt can limit one's success, I think I can maintain a positive attitude without closing my eyes to the obvious differences between people. Dan Mocsny dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (08/01/89)
From article <485@edai.ed.ac.uk>, by cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550): >... >A great deal of linguistic experimental evidence contradicts you here. >Studies of human ability to understand and generate complex sentence >structures show strict limitations on our ability to handle levels of >abstraction. Bull. >There are many linguistic constructions capable of abitrary >levels of recursion, and the level at which we "lose the thread" varies >markedly with the type of contruction. ... What does recursion have to do with abstraction? Relative clause constructions are arguably recursive, but the more restrictive relative clauses you stick onto a noun, the more specific the reference. So, if anything, the more recursion is exploited, the less the abstraction involved. Abstract things are hard to understand, but just because a thing is hard to understand, that does not make it abstract. For constructions that make us "lose the thread", maybe you're thinking of center-embedding, as in: *That that the pig squealed surprised John annoyed Mary. But the unacceptability of such examples just shows that this sort of subject embedding is not, after all, "capable of arbitrary levels of recursion". Anyhow, it has nothing to do with a failure to grasp abstractions. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
dbruck@ciss.Dayton.NCR.COM (Don Bruck@ciss.Dayton.NCR.COM) (08/02/89)
I am certain that most of the participants in this discussion have mcuh more training than I in the subjects of himan development, intelligence, and genetics but I feel that I need to put in my $.02. I am assuming that intelligence is known only if it is measured by a test. The measurement depends on my performance in solving a set of problems. I am also limiting the type of problems to x-type, symbolizing the subset of all types of problems in the world. Genetics seem to give us animals a certain start in life. Hairiness, height, propensity to addictive behaviors. It therefore gives the basics for the development of intelligence. Therefore, if this propositon is correct, I am able to learn certain problem types better than other problem types because the selection process of my ancestors has limited my genes to solving the problems that were most important to their society. Following this we may find that *statistically* people of Chinese descent are better at solving a x-type problems than people of Germanic descent. Environment also plays a part. If I had never been exposed to x-type problem I would never learn to solve x-type problems. If I have the same exposure to x-type problem as someone whose genetic make-up gives them an edge in solving x-types I will *probably* solve either slower or with greater error rate. Free will is also important. If I try to learn to solve x-type problems I will *probably* be more successful in taking a test consisting of x-types than if I had concentrated on y-types. It seems to me that intelligence like height is affected by, at least, these three factors. I have a tendency to be tall, my mother nourished me well, I chose to eat what I did. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don Bruck Don Bruck NCR Corp. 4184 Bellemeade Dr. Corporate Data Planning and Administration Bellbrook OH 45305 PCD 6 (513) 848-4420 1700 S. Patterson Blvd. Dayton OH 45479 (513) 445-7603 My opinions and interests are my own.
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (08/03/89)
One way to think about the debate between genetically inherited ability versus education and training is to consider the analogy of the math co-processor or floating-point accelerator. My computer can do floating point math by using software routines running on its native CPU. But it can perform better with floating-point hardware. Similarly, a dancer or athlete can execute her routine using step-by-step conscious instructions. Or she can compile her routine into the cerebellum, where it becomes "second nature". It is clear that the presence of an appropriately engineered neural network (e.g. cerebellum) or an appropriately designed processor (e.g. floating point accelerator) confers a performance advantage. Those unfortunate enough to have inherited selective dysfunctions exhibit corresponding degradations in performance. In rare cases, education and training can yield results superior to performance of unimpaired hard-coded systems. --Barry Kort
cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550) (08/04/89)
In article <4481@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: >From article <485@edai.ed.ac.uk>, by cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550): >>Studies of human ability to understand and generate complex sentence >>structures show strict limitations on our ability to handle levels of >>abstraction. >Bull. >>There are many linguistic constructions capable of abitrary >>levels of recursion, and the level at which we "lose the thread" varies >What does recursion have to do with abstraction? Relative clause >constructions are arguably recursive, but the more restrictive >relative clauses you stick onto a noun, the more specific the >reference. So, if anything, the more recursion is exploited, the >less the abstraction involved. >For constructions that make us "lose the thread", maybe you're >thinking of center-embedding, as in: > > *That that the pig squealed surprised John annoyed Mary. > >But the unacceptability of such examples just shows that this sort >of subject embedding is not, after all, "capable of arbitrary >levels of recursion". Anyhow, it has nothing to do with a failure >to grasp abstractions. > Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu Greg is quite right, abstraction hasn't much to do with linguistic nesting; but I didn't mean to be taken quite so literally. Our parsing engine is a cognitively impenetrable black-box, with a number of well-known limitations, which some computational linguists see as suggestive evidence of hardware mechanisms, e.g., registers and stacks of certain sizes, speed of operation, and so on. What kind of mechanisms underlie our human conscious abstract thinking is a much more subtle and open question, but I wished to suggest, by pointing to the parsing engine as an example, that there were probably hardware limitations here too. There is an important distinction here between limitations of principle and practice. For example, any general purpose (Turing-equivalent) computer can compute anything computable (within limits of memory etc.). In that sense all general purpose computers, and all general purpose programming languages, are equivalent. In practice, however, one computer may be orders of magnitude faster than another; and this can be crucial. In principle my mind is capable of arithmetic of arbitrary complexity. In practice I'm not much better at handling numbers intuitively than the smarter birds, and once the arithmetic gets beyond small integers, the limitations of my mind force me to rely on mental arithmetic - imagining pencil-and-paper processes, remembering multiplication tables. A further step in complexity outruns the capacity of my imagination, and I have to resort to real pencil-and-paper. While my arithmetic processing power, equipped with pencil-and-paper, is large, it is still, in the end, significantly limited by my lifespan, and is negligible compared to computers. I am not suggesting that, for example, large prime numbers are more abstract than small integers; simply that since abstraction is difficult, our in-principle-unlimited powers of abstraction must in practice acknowledge the qualitatively superior powers of those who can do the same thing, but so much more quickly and reliably as to seem to be using wizardry rather than merely improved skills. It is in this sense that I suggest that there are strict limitations on human powers of abstraction, although I am sure that better languages and education could stretch our minds far beyond current levels of performance. Dijkstra has described computer programming as the art of describing processes which are too complicated for our feeble minds to understand, but by careful discipline and method we can nevertheless struggle to an approximation of a correct description. As masters of the English language, we are all in principle capable of writing of Shakespearean quality, but ... -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (08/06/89)
In article <4481@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: > From article <485@edai.ed.ac.uk>, by cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm > cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550): > > Studies of human ability to understand and generate complex > > sentence structures show strict limitations on our ability > > to handle levels of abstraction. I understand that sentence very well. > Bull. I am unable to extract the intended semantic content of that utterance. --Barry Kort
kaydin@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (the vampire) (08/08/89)
In article <865@ciss.Dayton.NCR.COM> dbruck@ciss.UUCP (Don Bruck@ciss.Dayton.NCR.COM) writes: > >Genetics seem to give us animals a certain start in life. Hairiness, height, >propensity to addictive behaviors. It therefore gives the basics for >the development of intelligence. Therefore, if this propositon is correct, I >am able to learn certain problem types better than other problem types because >the selection process of my ancestors has limited my genes to solving the >problems that were most important to their society. Following this we may find >that *statistically* people of Chinese descent are better at solving a x-type >problems than people of Germanic descent. For this to be the case, the inability to solve x-type problems would have to prevent the given race from breeding successfully. Culture would play much more of a role than genetics. i.e. because of the way Culture Y has taught me to think and learn, I am better at solving problems of type X. Physical properties may work differently. The environment of one society may have killed anyone who didn't have a certain strength, while those living in gentler climes may not have been so affected. Also, perhaps the stronger would breed more successfully (the alpha male idea). But I see little evidence that the same is true for intelligence. In history, those with the greatest intelligence may be better at solving problem X, but this does not increase their breeding chances greatly. Does anyone have an example of a society where this HAS been the case? I would be interested in hearing about this. -kerim aydin -- "After a time, they all went away. |kaydin@jarthur.claremont.edu Except the cops. |kaydin@hmcvax.bitnet No way has been invented to |!uunet!muddcs!jarthur!kaydin say goodbye to them." |or send mail by W.A.S.T.E.
markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) (08/12/89)
In article <3612@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes: * Past a certain threshold, which I claim to be the ability to comprehend a * human language and generate it, genetic differences are no longer of any * consequence. The reason being that the ability to infer at arbitrary levels * of abstraction must already be present in order to learn and use a human * language -- an ability which underlies the origin of all other forms of * human intelligence. In article <485@edai.ed.ac.uk> cam@edai (Chris Malcolm) writes: * There are many linguistic constructions capable of abitrary levels of * recursion, and the level at which we "lose the thread" varies markedly * with the type of contruction. Rather than requiring an ability to handle * arbitrary levels of abstraction, it seems that human language - as we * employ it - is well designed as a means of communication that fits within * our strictly limited mental capabilities. You're not being very specific, so allow me to call your bluff. (1) Studies such as what you may be referring to will not attempt to check their results against a control group of people who have undergone training to remove the supposed limitation that the particular study would address. You'll have to be more specific for us to get into any more detail here on this point. (2) You are apparently referring to sentences such as: The worm the fish the boy the girl kissed caught ate died. which means the worm dies, which the fish ate, which the boy the girl kissed caught. And here a very simple experiment would make total mincemeat of the supposed conclusions that such linguistic studies would draw. And the resulting conclusion to be drawn here is that there is, indeed, no inborn limitation on the size of requisite human stack memory needed to process such a sentence. The experiment is simply to practice processing and producing such sentences, but progressively longer and longer. I find that with a little practice one can easily handle sentences like this 2 or 3 times longer. So here: the worm the fish the boy the girl the teacher the government the pilgrims the European monarchy expelled founded established flunked kissed caught ate died. off the top of my head. (This is actually the short version of an entire story). Other supposed limitations that other studies refer to can be disposed of in a similar fashion. ------------------------------------------------------------ But as far as adressing the abstraction issue, I think you hit a foul ball. What I was referring to was the ability to "intelligently apply thought to the thought process" (as one person who responded to me in E-Mail said), in such a way as to learn how to learn, learn how to learn how to learn, etc. Each level of abstraction literally places you on whole new level of intelligence.
cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550) (08/20/89)
In article <3799@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes: [The question is whether there are limitations on the powers of the human mind, the examples discussed being limits on recursion and abstraction, allegedly shown by the fact that we can't understand sentences of arbitrary complexity.] >And here a very simple experiment would make total mincemeat of the supposed >conclusions that such linguistic studies would draw. And the resulting >conclusion to be drawn here is that there is, indeed, no inborn limitation on >the size of requisite human stack memory needed to process such a sentence. > > The experiment is simply to practice processing and producing such >sentences, but progressively longer and longer. I find that with a little >practice one can easily handle sentences like this 2 or 3 times longer. >So here: > >the worm the fish the boy the girl the teacher the government the pilgrims >the European monarchy expelled founded established flunked kissed caught >ate died. > >off the top of my head. (This is actually the short version of an entire >story). > > Other supposed limitations that other studies refer to can be disposed of >in a similar fashion. Ok. I can currently lift about 100lbs with one arm. Studies show that with proper training I can double or treble this. Hence, by your argument, there is no theoretical limit on my strength at all - with proper training I could lift 1,000 tons. Do you agree? > But as far as adressing the abstraction issue, I think you hit a foul >ball. What I was referring to was the ability to "intelligently apply >thought to the thought process" (as one person who responded to me in E-Mail >said), in such a way as to learn how to learn, learn how to learn how to learn, >etc. Each level of abstraction literally places you on whole new level of >intelligence. Am I correct in guessing that you think you know how to train people to reach levels of intelligence which would make today's (accidentally produced) geniuses look like mental defectives? -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK