On 21 Sep, 18:10, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote: > What is the significance of intelligence in a universe with > deterministic laws? > > Your performance on any IQ test is not due to your possessing some > property called "intelligence", but rather is an inevitable outcome of > the universe's initial conditions and governing causal laws.
it is of course both > The questions you are asked, the answers you give, the problems you > are presented with, the solutions you develop - these were all > implicit in the universe's first instant. > > You, and the rest of the universe, are essentially "on rails". The > unfolding of events and your experience of them is dictated by the > deterministic causal laws. > > Even if time flows (e.g. presentism), the causal structure of the > universe is static...events can only transpire one way. > > So, what can be said of intelligence in such a universe? Well...only > what the deterministic laws require you to say about it. What can be > believed about intelligence in such a universe? Obviously only what > the deterministic laws require you to believe. yep. and it's still nintelligence, just as a deterministically falling stone is still falling > Solving a problem correctly is no more impressive or significant than > rain falling "correctly". You answer the question in the only way the > deterministic laws allow. The rain falls in the only way that the > deterministic laws allow. so your actual conclusion is not that intelligence isn't intelligence, but that intelligence isn't an achivement > The word "intelligence" doesn't refer to anything except the > experiential requirements that the universe places on you as a > consequence of its causal structure. > > =*= > > What about the significance of intelligence in a universe with > probabilistic laws? > > The only change from the deterministic case is that the course of > events isn't precisely predictable, even in principle. > > However, the flow of events is still governed by the probabilistic > causal laws. Which just means that to the extent that the flow of > events isn't determined, it's random. > > Again, the analogy with poker comes to mind: the rules of poker are > stable and unchanging, while the randomness of the shuffle adds an > element of unpredictability as to which cards you are actually dealt. > So, to the extent that poker isn't determined, it's random. > > The questions you're going to be asked and the problems you're going > to be presented with in a probabilistic universe aren't > predictable...but neither are your answers or your solutions, which > result from the exact same underlying rule set. Again, to the extent > that any of these things aren't determined, they're random. > > Adding a random component to an otherwise deterministic framework does > increase the number of possible states that are reachable from a given > initial condition, but it doesn't add anything qualitatively new to > the content of those states or to the process as a whole. Nothing new > is added to the deterministic case that would give the word > "intelligence" anything extra to refer to. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
