He has reified the abstract concept of gravity and attributed casual [sic] powers to the reified concept. It is easy to fall into that hole, and we should all watch out for it.
—Barry Arrington, June 18, 2015 at 3:10 pm
I hear from intelligent-design proponents that information is neither matter nor energy, is conserved by material processes, and is created only by intelligence. Would you please explain how they determined that intelligence is real, and not merely an abstraction? I’d like to see you contrast it with gravity.
A couple months ago I would have classified mung as a troll.but he’s changed a bit and I’ve changed a bit, and I find him worth reading.
A general definition of intelligence:
“I am only talking about intelligence as generation of new internal models.”
Howard Pattee. Discrete and Continuous Processes in Computers and Brains
Not a general definition of intelligence? Why not?
Thanks petrushka, a couple months ago you may have been right, lol [not sure I was even posting here a couple months ago. I was taking a break from TSZ.]. I’m not going to confess to being a troll though.
But I will grant that my approach to TSZ has probably changed and perhaps even my approach to people who disagree with me in general has changed as well.
I’m much more likely now to just skip over some comments where in the past I probably thought I had to have an answer for everyone.
Discussion has actually become more interesting than tit for tat. Let’s hope it lasts.
🙂
Wtf does that mean? You’re still a self-proclaimed IDist, right? And IDism, as is well known, starts and finishes in the DI. What other ‘centre’ of IDism is there?
No doubt “contact with the DI” to Mung means something as simple as subscribing to their monthly newsletter.
That whistling sound you hear just above you?, that is the sound of the joke parting your hair.
Really, the irony and humor impaired ought to stay off the internet.
Are you going to show us where you got that from?
From Being as Communion:
Tom E:
And you’re as confused about burden of proof as Elizabeth. I say you are wrong about who has the burden of proof and the burden is on you to demonstrate otherwise.
I don’t know about that, but they may want to avoid my posts.
I was putting together a post on how the DI is a front organization for aliens who in normal circumstances might not appear to be intelligent to humans and so were resorting to a campaign to convince the vast majority of humans (those gullible religious people) that science (the way of obtaining knowledge that everyone agrees is objective) can be used to show they are in fact intelligent beings.
The antagonist, oddly enough, was going to be named Gregory
I hope you haven’t ruined it. 😉
From Being as Communion :
(contra Elizabeth)
As far as how we can know we have intelligence, I’d have to assume it follows from his conception of the activity of intelligence.
If no choice is made there is no act of intelligence.
If a choice is made, but that choice does not involve the actualization of one possibility to the exclusion of another, there is no act of intelligence.
If a choice is made, and that choice does involve the actualization of one possibility to the exclusion of another, but the choice is not “in order to advance a purpose or intention,” there is no act of intelligence.
Now what I find interesting about all of this is that it allows that the simplest living beings may in fact be intelligent.
[From which it would seem to follow that the human abstraction “intelligence” that Tom’s argument depends on is not well-founded in biology, but instead depends on human psychology.]
I cannot see how brainless entities do things in order to advance a purpose.
They can’t obviously (heh) if you happen to include “a property possessed only by brains” in your definition of “intelligence”. Yet an E. coli bacterium will endeavour (hard not to use any word that does not imply purpose) to maintain itself in a location of optimum nutrient concentration.
Should we consider the possibility there are two Mungs, though s/he doesn’t refer to her/himself as “we”. 🙂
Perhaps we, as individuals, can evolve* after all! (We refers to all participants here 😉 )
*in the Gregorian sense.
Well the answer to that could be an obvious yes, a categorical no or a maybe, depending on how you define “intelligence” when you make the claim that “the simplest living beings may in fact be intelligent”.
It rather depends, I suggest, on whether you agree with Tom that there is no good yet universal definition of “intelligence”.
I think to have purpose you need some apparatus for modelling or imagining futures. This is difficult to pin down, but an attempt was made in the animal self-awareness thread.
Imagining is not mystical, and it should be possible to define operationally.
For different reasons, mainly just happening to pick up on links to previous threads, I’ve found myself re-reading old threads and with my poor memory, they read as fresh as new! There must be a way of making the good stuff that’s already been written in OPs and comments easier to find.
Regarding modelling the future, I’d agree that E. coli isn’t doing that, but it must carry some memory of the past in that it must store a previous “reading” of nutrient concentration with which to compare to the current reading and tumble or run accordingly.
Mung:
You need to decide if you want a “general” definition of intelligence, an “operational” definition of intelligence, or an operationalized general definition of intelligence.
“The generation of new internal models” would omit phenomena that many would recognize as a species of intelligence, so it is not really very general. Nor is it an operational definition, which you ask for above: there is no indication of the operations by means of which one would decide whether “new internal models” are present and account for observed behavior.
Also good to consider Minski’s viewpoint:
“What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle. —Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind, p. 308
So just two minor hurdles* for the Intelligent Design Movement, then – they are unable to satisfactorily define “intelligence” or “design”.
*Still have to redefine science a bit, too.
They have a lot of “movement”, though. 😉
Oh, right, as well as the bluffing IDists.
Maybe Mung is suggesting the Discovery Institute is an ‘alien’ organisation? Unless Mung clarifies himself (which he really hates to do in defense of IDism, because he knows that outside of UD & mainly evangelical protestant churches in the USA, he looks the fool) no one will really know what Mung’s relationship with the DI really is. That’s surely how he likes it, PR points as the DI orders its vassals.
Well, Mung, rest assured you won’t be an antagonist in anything I publish. You really have no credible defense of the ideology you are pushing. Sadly, that you can’t ‘get outside’ of yourself to see this is a telling symbol of the IDM’s decline.