thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Michael Thomas) (06/29/91)
> It seems here you are conflating intelligence with language. That > there is language is a criterion for the claim that there is > intelligence, a language being the sort of thing with rules, syntax, You are correct in that I did not make that comment clear. What I wanted to say was that their form of communication is very different (still conjecture to some extent) from ours which is based on language. language being the way we communicate knowledge. our understanding of the knowledge, is related to our understanding of the symbols (words) which reflect the meanings of our thoughts which are established from our perception of our environment. (like in the case of my first message) the meaning is often lost due to one of the communicating parties.. (in this case me). So in the case of the Dolphins they communicate with direct thoughts (they can recreate the stimulus and transmit that to other dolphins) the implication is that their communication (their knowledge) is extremely pure (universal knowledge/understanding) > etc. There are different forms of language, things that have these > features, such as `math,english,compsci,etc' and, if we knew about its > rules, syntax, etc. `dolphinese' which are criteria, are what gives us > license to say, that an organism is intelligent. So to rephrase the point, a dolphins intelligence will in some way be drastically affected by this universal knowledge/understanding which takes place in their communication. Of course I have still focused on language, by saying communication, but this would relate to other forms of stimulus in both humans and dolphins... I think that it would be comparable to a person showing another person a picture of alot of dead, and mutilated bodies in piles (sorry) this picture communicates an idea instantly (idea = a combination of emotion, meaning, feeling, etc) I feel that in the case of a dolphin the meaning would be more specific but still with the universal and instant understanding of the idea. [I know this newsgroup isn't about dolphins but I want to give another example] Say for instant the dolphin is scouting for a school of dolphins which are sleeping. (he would be circling the group at a distance from the center.) He can use the clicks to pick up other animals, etc Then a large shark comes...Instead of yelling "run bambi, run there's a shark in the forest" the scout dolphin can specifical send the location of the shark but reproducing the model of the environment (created originally from clicks) he can also communicate the shape and size of the animal, if it is a shark everyone in the school will know because they would have at some time received a click signiture from a shark. He could say where to go how far and fast the shark is moving and on and on, all instantly. So the question becomes: how does this affect the way they handle thought, knowledge, information. For humans this instant transmission is better seen through the use of pictures (tv, film, pictures, etc). [hence: indrect reception of comprable stimulus (???)] So I'm basically trying (and failing at it) to say that our foundation (basis) for information and knowledge is sight, visual stimulus. We give labels to things we see (and hear and touch, but sight is the biggie) Dolphins use sound as the foundation (they can communicate sight, touch, etc via sound produced from other than their vocal cords (or whatever)) Like dogs with smell... Another thing with sight could be the way spiders see...they have 5 (or eight?) eyes on their heads. they can see off of the surface of their eyes (instead of the inside like us) so their view of the world is overwhelming...so much stimulus to process. other animals can more their eyes independant of each other so they has two different views of the world at the same time (and hence they don't always have depth perception in their sight) Also keep in mind that dolphins also use their voice to communicate and produce calls and (I guess talk) but they are better with the other form of communication...(like a dog and smell) [okay okay: what's the big point?] Well what I want to know/say is that a computer with its talents will have a different view/perception of the world basically because it is different. If we try to structure it towards human functioning or intelligence (which I am for!) It will still produce a different type of MIND (or intelligence/understanding/view) yet still with a foundation of human intelligence...(is different better? not my problem...8^) ) I am really not trying to say that language is important, (it is but) it is not a building block for intelligence, but rather a way of communicating intelligence/knowledge. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope I at least clarified my overall issue, that we should discuss the potentials of what the computer will be able to achieve with our form (foundation) of intelligence/knowledge ability. a) will their be awareness benifits from having a greater amount of information on-line and accessible at once? Like our discovery of chaos sciences... to see the pattern as a whole of its parts and understand the whole for the parts. (like seeing the forest from an airplane, you can see both the trees and the forest and you don't get lost in either...) b) with the ability the computer maintains with mathmatics could we see an increase in the delopement of mathmatics, physics, computer science....etc... It would like to think that a computer focusing its attention on an area or problem, which required the use of mathmatics, could work on large scale calculations and theories which are hard to keep in view at the same time in our minds. (a refernce to all of mathmatics to caompare and contrast...) c) theory making and relativity of knowledge. With the increase in available electronic knowledge/information a computer would have almost an unlimited amount of information from which to learn and gather and compare and reference for everyday use... d) language. there are alot of languages and words in each which the computer could understand and know and mantain meaning for. (I learned french and it took a long time to THINK in french) e) behavior & psychology. a computer with a complete understanding of all social and human behaviors, might not directly understand them but could use the information to interact amoung groups of people. It could perhaps have a better understanding of us than we will of it... f) time. It would be intresting to see the development of a system with these traits over time... of say a few years to hundreds of years. Its views on life and death and of time itself. Also as computers become faster and the increase of multi-processors and faster and larger data storage devices and increase of accessable memory...will the computers mind become pure also... example it took several years for me to complete and spell out every part of my AI theory... each thought took a certain (lets say uncountable amount of time of 5 seconds [8088]) will the computers of the future [Turbo Cray] be able to allow the computer to complete my several year process in a matter of say 5 seconds? Individual thoughts could be produced in milliseconds...what affect could this have? ghi) what effect would all of this have on the computers personality, emotions, self-awareness, thoughs, dreams, etc... [sorry alot of these things are handled in my AI theory...] -- Thank you, Michael Thomas (..uunet!ckgp!thomas)