On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 12:58 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 1/10/2013 3:15 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > > > > On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 1/10/2013 2:28 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 11:15 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On 1/10/2013 1:58 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> Hi Craig, >>> >>> I tend to agree with what you say (or what I understand of it). >>> Despite my belief that it is possible to extract memories (or their 3p >>> shadows) from a brain, I do not believe in the neuroscience hypothesis that >>> consciousness emerges from brain activity. I'm not sure I believe that >>> there is a degree of consciousness in everything, but it sounds more >>> plausible than the emergence from complexity idea. >>> >>> >>> Do you agree that intelligence requires complexity? >>> >> >> I'm not sure intelligence and complexity are two different things. >> >> >> Of course they're two different things. An oak tree is complex but not >> intelligent. The question is whether you think something can be intelligent >> without being complex? >> > > I don't agree that an oak tree is not intelligent. It changes itself and > its environment in non-trivial ways that promote its continuing existence. > What's your definition of intelligence? > > > What's yours? I don't care what example you use, trees, rocks, bacteria, > sewing machines... > If you allow for the concepts of agent, perception, action and goal, my definition is: the degree to which an agent can achieve its goals by perceiving itself and its environment and using that information to predict the outcome of its actions, for the purpose of choosing the actions that has the highest probability of leading to a future state where the goal are achieved. Intelligence can then be quantified by comparing the effectiveness of the agent in achieving its goals to that of an agent acting randomly. But you can only compare intelligence in relation to a set of goals. How do you compare the intelligence of two agents with different goals and environments? Any criteria is arbitrary. We like to believe we're more intelligent because we're more complex, but you can also believe that bacteria are more intelligent because they are more resilient to extinction. > Are you going to contend that everything is intelligent and everything is > complex, so that the words loose all meaning? > I never said that. I do think that intelligence is a mushy concept to begin with, and that's not my fault. > Do you think there can be something that is intelligent but not complex > (and use whatever definitions of "intelligent" and "complex" you want). > A thermostat is much less complex than a human brain but intelligent under my definition. > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
