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.
So the primary thrust of the OP and Tom’s responses in this thread seems to be to raise the question of whether gravity is in the same category as intelligence. Not so much whether intelligence is real.
But what about intelligence? Is it a concept the likes of gravity? Are we trying to turn this concept into something real with causal power that it doesn’t actually have? I don’t think so.
Barry makes it clear in what sense he is using the term:
Reification (fallacy), the fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing.
Now whether Barry is right or wrong that gravity is an abstraction, intelligence is obviously real, and we are not committing a reification fallacy by believing so.
One cannot intelligently deny that intelligence is real.
You’re about a quarter-century behind in your reading. Rodney Brooks, now selling the famous robot Baxter at a mere $23 thousand per unit, started out with bugs at MIT.
What is gravity a property of?
A little unreasonable to call my remark “insinuation”. I thought I was quite clear. Of course you are under no obligation, but I’m pleased to hear (that is how I’m reading you) that you plan to respond to outstanding comments in earlier threads. Although I guess you could alternatively take the best argument you have for either a young Earth or young life (I’m not sure now where you stand on either claim currently) and put it in a new OP if you think that is important. I will always have the difficulty in seeing why you need to attempt to justify claiming Bible myths are more than mythology. Why should it matter and what has it to do with the core tenets of Christianity?
Yes, Alan, physicists study matter (even though they don’t know what matter is) and biologists study living organisms (even though don’t know what life is) and you’ve given me all sorts of hope that the sciences aren’t absolutely chock full of people studying that which they do not know what it is.
Instead of being such an utter skeptic why don’t you participate in developing an operational definition of intelligence? Or do you think it’s simply not possible? Then we can see how it applies to all life (not that anyone can define life, mind you).
We casually apply the term to a diffuse collection of properties which require different explanations in science.
Correct. I think it is impossible to come up with a general definition of “intelligence”. Prove me wrong and try one out.
Does this mean you think it is not possible to develop an operational definition of intelligence?
Then you obviously will have no problem answering my question in the OP: Would you please explain how they determined that intelligence is real, and not merely an abstraction?
As I said to Gregory, insulting the questioner is a pretty strong hint that you’re scared of the question. It ought to scare you. Do you have the courage to confront it, or will you retreat into sass?
Again, intelligent like a physics professor, or intelligent like a professional basketball player? That’s not a silly question. Basketball players exhibit fabulous cognitive processing on the court. Do you think there’s a single operational definition of intelligence that covers what they do and what physics professors do? I say there is not. The burden is on you to demonstrate otherwise.
Even if you were to succeed, it would not suffice in an argument that intelligence is real, rather than an abstraction.
I have to express some frustration here. It is so bizarre to me that people should think that because we casually apply a single term to a collection of phenomena that there really exists a single something-or-another accounting for all of the phenomena.
Well Tom, I thought I tried very hard not to insult you. I actually completely changed my post. I also thought that I demonstrated that I was trying to take you seriously [actually attempting to understand your argument] by not adopting the same strategy that Gregory employed [not that I disagree with him mind you].
This is analogous to the case of gravity how? Are you agreeing with Barry that gravity is in fact an abstraction and that Zachriel was reifying the concept of gravity as Barry charged?
As to your question:
First, I deny that intelligence is an abstraction.
Second, abstractions are derived from the existence of things that are real.
Third, there is no such thing as “merely an abstraction.”
It was Barry, not I, who said that gravity is an abstraction. My point, which I thought was rather more humorous left unsaid, is that ID proponents have fallen into the hole that Barry identified. I believe there’s much more insight to be gained by considering intelligence and life together. Do living things live because they have life? Do intelligent things “intelligence” because they have intelligence?
Bald assertion. Irrelevancy. Bald assertion, hinting at the reality of abstractions. You need to work on your follow-through, Mung.
Yes Tom, I understand that it was Barry who made the claim that gravity is an abstraction. I also avoided agreeing with him.
But the fact remains that you took that claim as the starting point of your OP and not only did you not contradict that claim but you in fact lent credence to it by suggesting that intelligence is likewise an abstraction
In what sense is intelligence an abstraction? What is it abstracted from?
Perhaps I am missing your point.
Do you affirm or deny that your argument contains the premise that intelligence is an abstraction?
If you’re not actually making an argument now would be a good time to say so.
But if that is in fact a premise of your argument then it is incumbent upon you to address objections to that premise, and not merely dismiss them as “Bald assertion. Irrelevancy. Bald assertion.”
Now I understand the difficulty you find yourself in, I really do. If gravity, or intelligence [or anything else] is an abstraction, what is it that is doing the abstracting?
Did I SAY there is a single operational definition of intelligence? No. Are you taking lessons from Alan Fox? At least you didn’t commit the egregious quote-mine that Alan is guilty of.
Let’s try again:
Do you think it is not possible to develop an operational definition of intelligence?
Note, for the record, That I did not ask:
Do you think there’s a single operational definition of intelligence that covers what basketball players and physics professors do?
Gee. You and Tom should compare notes.
I didn’t say anything about a general definition of intelligence.
Oh, and I think it’s dishonest of you to imply that I did. And I also think it’s dishonest of you to ask me to “proove you wrong” as if you were contradicting something I said. Not that I think an inference to any general dishonesty on your part is warranted, but instead a rather specific dishonesty.
Not that you weren’t posting in good faith.
Here was my original statement, which you obviously quote-mined.
Hi Tom
Do you gain much insight from comparing warmth to life? Do living things live because they have life? Do warm things “warmth” because they have warmth?
Thanks for that. It brought a smile (even though the IDism you still subscribe to is quite clearly the stuff of cranks & crackpots).
You say that as if it would be a bad thing.
No, you didn’t. I added “general” to my statement to clarify what I meant. My statement was terse because I wanted to be clear. Here it is again:Correct. I think it is impossible to come up with a general definition of “intelligence”. Prove me wrong and try one out.
What I might have said less tersely is “I invite you to try formulating a definition of intelligence that makes sense across species, machines, and other entities one might describe as “intelligent”. I suggest you will find the task impossible.”
I asked you to “prove me wrong” as an exercise in seeing how difficult it is to come up with any sort of general definition of intelligence. Now, if you agree with me that such a general concept is incoherent then we can agree and move on.
Good. And neither do I think your allegation of quote-mining was dishonest, just mistaken.
Indeed. I don’t lie when I post, though I’m often wrong.
I can’t see where I took a partial quote of this statement. Do you have a link? However in response to your question, of course it is eminently possible to give an operational definition of intelligence in some specific context, perhaps in studies of human cognition or in experiments involving the cognitive abilities of other species. It is the idea that “intelligence” is some coherent property possessed by sentient organisms that I reject.
Yes, I know. I don’t think that is the issue. I just meant something different by “real” than you thought. As I said on another thread, about materialism, there are lots of things that I think are “real” that aren’t “material” – intelligence, justice and holes being three of them, and thus different from unicorns, pixies and bunyips, which I would describe as “imaginary”.
I absolutely agree that we need an operational definition of “intelligence” if we are going to investigate whether a causal agent of something is intelligent. Dembski’s one is neat, precisely because evolution not excluded (though he didn’t mean it not to be), and thus captures a very important (IMO) feature of the kind of causal agent that produces both watches and heather on heaths: something with “the power and capacity to choose between options”. Given that “choose” and “select” are synonyms, that’s an important insight, or should be.
However, “intention” needs to be included if we want to distinguish between the kind of intelligence evolution has, or, for that matter, that plants have, and the kind of intelligence that most animals have. For me the key difference is that most animals, and we, but not most plants, and not evolution, make forward models. It’s important in any agent that has to navigate an environment, which is why, I suggest, it evolved in mobile things, and why “are robots conscious?” makes more sense than “are computers conscious?”.
To be aware we need to predict, and once you can predict, you can choose actions that will best bring about future states, and so have the beginnings of intention.
And once you have an aware, intentional chooser, I think you have something most people would want to call “intelligent”, and their artefacts start to look a bit different from the outputs of evolution: quicker, cruder, creative.
A few weeks ago, on another thread, someone made a really nice point about anticipation as central to animal intelligence.
That piqued my interest, because I think there’s a very deep connection between anticipation and inference.
As I see it, p -> q means that I am prepared to assert q if I have reason to assert p. I anticipate the assertion of q; I am ready to do so if p is presented to me.
(This is clearer in the cases where the consequent is some action — “if it looks like rain, I shall take my umbrella” — but even so, assertions are at least acts, if not actions!)
In short, I am experimenting with the claim that anticipation — or perhaps better, prediction? — is a primitive form of “animal inference,” which is an evolutionary and development precursor of rational or discursive inference.
Mung:
Devising operational definitions of intelligence isn’t particularly difficult, so long as one is clear on context and interests. Recall that the essence of an “operational definition” is the the replacement of an abstract theoretical concept with an explicit description of the operations by which that concept is measured. To research the question, “To what extent does intelligence determine success in school” I need an operational definition both of “intelligence” and “success in school.” I might settle upon “WISC-V IQ score” as my operational definition of intelligence and “GPA” as my operational definition of success in school. Of course, you may argue that there are problems with these definitions (both omit a great deal) and other definitions better capture the phenomena of interest to you. It would then fall to you to specify the operations by means of which your conceptions of intelligence and success are measured. In short, the appropriateness of a given operational definition depends upon context and one’s research interests, and no specific operational definition can span all possible contexts and interests.
Further, a definition of “intelligence” that spans all of the activities we might think of as “intelligent” (the intelligence of basketball players and physics professors and chefs and psychotherapists and beavers and climbing vines and the processes that originate biological complexity and adaptation) is probably not attainable for the simple reason that while these activities and phenomena bear a resemblance, there is no element common to all of them. This is, of course, Wittengstein’s notion of “family resemblance” as illustrated by his discussion of “games”: although there are many activities we refer to as “games” (chess and baseball and trivial pursuit and bridge and musical chairs and charades and solitaire and tennis and…), there is no single feature common to all. Moreover, were you to somehow devise a definition that captures them all, you’d find it so abstract as to be immeasurable by means of specific operations, and therefore impossible to operationalize.
For that reason, the prospects for finding an operational definition of intelligence that spans both those human activities we regard as “intelligent” and those phenomena in nature that appear to bear a family resemblance to human intelligence are dim. Indeed, even asking for an “operational definition” when your intent is to investigate commonalities across vastly diverse domains of phenomena – from human intelligence to biological origins – is a non-starter.
Possibly relevant aside. California released statistics on accidents involving autonomous cars. All the accidents were attributed to violations by the other vehicle, driven by a human.
That sounds pretty favorable, except that the accident rate was about ten times that of human drivers.
Which suggests to me that the robots are not yet as good as humans in anticipating the stupid behavior of other humans. Running stop signs and such.
This does not look right to me.
As I see it, we have two major forms of decision making. One of those is making decisions based on truth. The other is making decisions based on pragmatics.
I see “inference” as related to making decisions based on truth. However, I see the core of animal decision making as based on pragmatics. So I think your idea is a mismatch.
A couple of related issues: I see “intelligence” as really having to do with the quality of our pragmatic judgments. And it will always be difficult to quantify, because there’s an inherently subjective aspect to pragmatic judgment.
My skepticism of the possibility of AI (computer based intelligence), is because computers don’t do pragmatics. Their core decision making is truth based, and it is the truth of their programmers that is used. Neural network programming tries to get away from basing decisions on truth as imposed by the programmers. But the underlying architecture is still based on logic chips which make truth based decisions. You would instead need an architecture based on low-level homeostasis as a basis for pragmatic decision making.
Reciprocating Bill,
Had I a modicum of your eloquence, I might have said that! 🙂
Neil Rickert,
I’d suggest that awareness and responses must have an aspect of pattern-matching. Sentient organisms can acquire patterns innately or by learned and remembered experience and then react when the pattern is observed.
Tom,
My first undergrad degree was in Computer Science. I was fascinated at first with the disciplines of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. The notion of artificial intelligence was malleable and ill-defined even within the field. It was often defined in terms of its relation to human intelligence, and human intelligence was never defined, it was only sort of assumed as real intelligence from human experience.
I was never quite forgiven at UD for arguing that presumably mindless material mechanisms like robots can fabricate designed objects (objects or systems that would pass the Explanatory Filter).
You won’t hear me say that, at least not now. I’m an outlier in the ID community because of that. I don’t think the claim “information is created only by intelligence” is scientifically defensible. Machines can learn, they can create. Machines are presumed to be mindless material mechanisms.
At least from a proximal standpoint, there is no need for a spiritual type intelligence, whether from an ultimate standpoint there are spiritual realms that are needed to make such machines, that is philosophical and unresolvable by formal proof and beyond the reach of ID’s empirical claims (though many IDists insist they can prove the existence of spiritual realms through ID).
Learning is the key behavior. Evolution and brains learn. The physical mechanism is different, but they share the behavior of learning. As do various implementations of AI.
One good turn deserves another I suppose. Your comment made me laugh.
Absolutely I have a link.
Here again is my original statement, with the part you quote-mined in bold:
Here is the post where you took that line out of it’s original context.
It is obvious from the context that the question was in reference to an operational definition of intelligence.
Then you went on to say “Correct.” As if agreeing that it is simply not possible to develop an operational definition of intelligence. But now we know that you agree it is possible. So why didn’t you just say so in the first place?
Anything can have an operational definition. The trick is to have one that everyone agrees to and which incorporates most of our intuitive meaning. That would be something.
OK, I accept the point that I wanted to answer the question I thought important, that a general definition of “intelligence” is not possible. And I could have added that an operational definition of some particular cognitive ability we might want to study is eminently possible. I don’t think it was misleading but apologies if anyone was misled into thinking that you cannot have an operational definition of… well, let’s take Reciprocating Bill’s example
Defining “intelligence” in school children as the comparative ability to perform some kind of IQ or problem-solving test seems simple enough.
I’m not sure that’s quite right, on reflection. I agree that you can set out some parameters and call it “intelligence” as a place-holder, like you can decide to set out parameters for biological organisms and call it “life” as a place-holder. Describing what you are testing for as “intelligence” or “life” adds nothing to the exercise, as far as I can see.
I accept that it is possible to set out parameters for some cognitive ability or property we wish to investigate and refer to it as “intelligence”. There is no general coherent concept that we can point to across and beyond species that fits under one umbrella.
I hope I’ve made myself clear now.
From Bodily Wisdom to the Knowing Self (Part 3)
Mung,
Yes, the quote seems reasonable. I agree that all life has some degree of intelligence.
In his lastest book (“Being as Communion”), Dembski more-or-less equates intelligence with purpose. And all biological organisms seem to behave in apparently purposeful ways. However, in ordinary language use you cannot substitute “purpose” for “intelligence” without making a mess of the meanings.
Hi Neil,
I have to disagree with you that Dembski “more-or-less” equates intelligence with purpose. For example he writes:
There is a clear demarcation between an intelligence and the advancement of a purpose.
And given that you bring up Dembski’s Being as Communion, this raises another problem I have with Tom’s OP.
I think the clearest refutation of your position can be found on page 64. Read that page and let me know what you think.
That has absolutely no bearing on the OP. It is Dembski who says that information is conserved in material processes. That’s what the “conservation of information” theorem is about. (Only problem is, the “information” turns out not to be information. He and Marks have a big mess to straighten out for NFL, 2nd ed.) There’s no contradiction in saying that the medium is not necessarily material.
What I’m driving at in the OP is that ID is all about reification of the abstract concept of intelligence. If you really want to quote Dembski, then quote what he says about intelligence, and also how we (supposedly) know we have it, in Being as Communion. I was shocked to see such an argument from a philosopher of science. (But not as shocked as to see him associate the Holy Trinity with three blocks of Shannon’s diagram.)
I’m very busy, but I’ll eventually check in to see what you’re willing to quote.
To others who’ve commented, I’m sorry not to have responded. Time for some sleep.
Well, Tom, the 1st questions asked to you in the thread are still unanswered:
Gregory:
Tom responded to your question.
Here
In pointing you to the “dormitive principle” he is saying “intelligence” is a vapid concept. Some use it as a comparative descriptive, more or less intelligent than a norm or more or less intelligent than another. You, in your question, use it as a dichotomy between “intelligent” and “stupid”. Tom is making the point that “intelligence” as a general concept is useless and the need is to focus on particular aspects of behaviour, cognition, consciousness (which has its own issues as a useful descriptive) rather than angst over whether this or that is “intelligent”.
That ‘answer’ was merely a superficial dodge, Alan. Not today, but maybe tomorrow? No *reflexivity* was allowed either way. You both seek a positivist container for your atheist advocacy. Poor outdated HPSS!
I understand what he’s saying and why you keep asking for a definition of ‘intelligence.’ You are both lacking humanity in your approach, yet dare not inquire (for yourselves) why. And his frivolous, throwaway partial-answer to me reveals & demonstrates that.
If Tom wants actually to claim unintelligence for himself, in direct response to my question, that’s his business, not yours to dictate for him. Imo, Tom was not just ‘unintelligent’ on that day, but demonstrates unintelligence on most other days too. That’s his lack of faith involved, as it is also with you, skeptical Alan.
Get to work thinking and reflecting for yourself, Alan, and stop trying to push the burden of answering onto others. That poignant question to Tom is still live and meaningful. But Tom, being the positivist at heart, likely won’t attempt a reflexive answer to his own question.
Sure, you see/feel no ‘Intelligence’ in the universe, Alan. And yes, that puts you in the significant minority of human beings (you do live in currently secular France, after all!). It would not be surprising if this impacted your personal worldview of not seeing ‘intelligence’ even in yourself.
Oh, wait, one might ask: do you consider yourself ‘intelligent’ Alan? If so, how do you ‘know’ you possess intelligence/are intelligent? If not, then please just shut up and let people who ‘know’ they are intelligent speak while you are silently (living in epistemological confusion) stupid.
Stop then making unintelligent (stupid) comments and instead seek wisdom! 😉
‘Wisdom,’ however, is not a usual topic for ‘skeptics’! Anyone here wonder why not?
I hope it was me!
Let’s be clear, Gregory. I feel no emotional need for a personal god. Those currently on offer fall far short of being suitable candidates. My thoughts on life, the Universe and everything are mostly along the lines of how little we are and how little we know and how brief our opportunity to make a mark. but then the sun shines…
My issue with “intelligence” is it adds nothing, conveys no extra information, in a discussion. It seems simpler to go directly to what you want to discuss than use “intelligence” at all as for any meaningful discussion “intelligence” has to be defined using other concepts. Why not go straight to discussing those other concepts?
Well I can’t switch myself on into needing to believe in gods, I suspect, even if I wanted to because it somehow turned out there was some positive evidence of their reality. It would be like eating Christmas cake even though I dislike the taste of dried fruit: it’s not doable and I have tried (the cake I mean).
Where do I look, Gregory?
Give me your own current top 3 sources, Alan. Right now, your question is not worth the time of taking seriously because of your skepticism about ‘intelligence’.
p.s. it’s not about ‘need’; it’s deeper & broader than that. Perhaps one day you might experience or discover why. And ‘the cake,’ don’t worry, it’s not my favourite either! 😉
Mung,
Dembski is all over the map on information. Some of the time it seems to be an intrinsic property of the universe that has to do with meaning. At other times it is Shannon information. He switches between different meanings of “information” depending on which is convenient for a particular argument.
Hi Neil,
You and I were not talking about information, we were talking about intelligence, and whether or not “Dembski more-or-less equates intelligence with purpose.”
Perhaps you meant to say that Dembksi more-or-less equates design with purpose.
Life is such an abstract concept, no wonder biologists treat living things as if they are machines (a much more concrete concept – to be sure).
Is consciousness also a dormitive principle?
ROTFL, IDism promoter ‘Mung’.
IDists are far too often ‘objectivist’ in their ideology. That’s why the Discovery Institute has the reputation of being “the institutional love child of Ayn Rand and Jerry Falwell” according to one of its former donors. And you highly esteem the Discovery Institute, don’t you, Mung?
Indeed Gregory. I do not read anything that does not come from the DI. I don’t even think thoughts that are not approved by the DI. But they still refuse to allow me to speak for them, I have not yet become fully assimilated. But I am hopeful.
You are an IDist so difficult to take seriously, Mung. Double-talking as often as is necessary to deceive people. As if “they still refuse to allow me to speak for them” because you can’t or won’t even tell if you have any contact with the DI at all. Have you? Do you? Silence. Farce.
You really seem to want this to be ‘all about Mung’ (‘read me more closely please’), when that is so egoistic as to be laughable. You are a hopeful fool for IDism, Mung, which is among the saddest & most desperate of Christians today.
Gregory, not only have I had contact with the DI, I have been probed. Do you want the specific details? [I bet keiths wants to hear all about it. Sorry keiths, no lubricants involved. ouch!]