4 ms·

I consider intelligence to be the ability to predict the future. The average human has reached a level of intelligence that allows them to bypass immediate imp

by edoo 8y ago

I consider intelligence to be the ability to predict the future. The average human has reached a level of intelligence that allows them to bypass immediate impulses for a greater reward at a later time. Also in a way we are a nested intelligence. DNA and the biological structures it creates abstractly speaking exhibit intelligent interaction with the environment. Our self awareness emerges on top of that 'intelligent' biological structure.

placebo 8y ago
I think that there's another way of looking at it. My definition of intelligence would be the ability to tell what is true from what is false. The ability to predict the future is a by-product of that ability. regarding what is the nature of truth and the issue of self awareness - that's a can of worms that I'll refrain from opening :)
- mercer 8y ago
  I'd go more abstract and say that intelligence is about pattern recognition. higher intelligence means increased ability to detect patterns 1) over longer timespans and 2) of increasing complexity/subtlety.
- edoo 8y ago
  And very complex things would have ranges of truth depending on your perspective. All our sensory input and even memory effectively goes through lossy compression algorithms with modifiers for immediate focus. I would like to think getting wiser is those algorithms converging to more optimal performance. I also think working with real logic in science, math, etc, any engineering, is incredibly healthy for the brain and makes it much easier to converge on truth. The only way to be good with logic is to absorb new data into the picture as it becomes available. I've noticed the less people are exposed to real logic the more resistant they are to simple facts that conflict with their assumptions.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  > intelligence [is] the ability to tell what is true from what is false. This is a poor definition. There are very intelligent Christians and very intelligent atheists. They can't both be right. Isaac Newton, one of the most intelligent people in history, believed in all sorts of weird astrological stuff. Etc. My view is that intelligence is a number that's correlated with a wide variety of different measures of cognitive performance. So it's not really possible to give a glib, one-sentence description of it.
  - placebo 8y ago
    >It's not really possible to give a glib, one-sentence description of it. And yet, you just did. My definition is poor if you turn it into something simplistic and not realise the vast number of ways and levels of abstraction in which truth can be distinguished from falsehood, which gives rise to various forms of intelligence. It boils down to having a less limiting understanding of the concept of truth. Intelligent atheists and intelligent Christians can't both be right about what? They can both be right about some things and wrong about other things, but that is true of any two different people, not only any two different groups.
- vlehto 8y ago
  I think you're onto something here. A person who graduates from technical program of good university, but then falls for the first Ponzi scheme and starts selling vacuum cleaners? Not very smart. It's like he has very good processor able to run any math problem you throw at him. But at the same time he doesn't independently do very good job of discerning what is relevant and what is not. On the other hand some of the greatest scientists of all time have been able to maintain certain "what if" state of mind for years. Doing quick and accurate true/false analysis is often a trait of street smarts, but the most genius of all seem to be able to play with probabilities.
alfonsodev 8y ago
Another definition is that intelligence is the ability to manipulate abstractions. We have to do that in order to predict, plan, etc. First we need to hold the abstraction in our minds, and then we can play some manipulations on it to predict what would happen. It could be also our brain is a bit of a story teller. It tells several stories to see what would be more likely to happen.
- fromthestart 8y ago
  The future is an abstraction. I'd say your definition is a superset of OPs.
  - bostonpete 8y ago
    I knew you were going to say that.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
n1000 8y ago
Sad that the collective intelligence of our species appears more limited however. We seem unable to act on the imminent threats of climate change, biodiversity loss, etc.
- zipwitch 8y ago
  Our species' collective intelligence isn't that simple. It appears to me that we are processing substrate for a species-sized game of Core Wars. In turn, because the size of the playing field (aka total human population) has become so large, the outcomes of the game now can produce existential threats, something amplified by the speed at which everything runs. When there were only 200 million humans, communicating by voice and using only muscle power, the ultimate impact of slow AIs running on Homo Sapiens hardware was bounded. Now, closing in on 8 billion of us with considerable upgrades in the form of industrial- and information-age technology, the output of the game can not just break the board, but flip the table.
- candiodari 8y ago
  Any algorithm is going to be bound by time horizons. Obviously any animal mind needs to be able to react in time horizons starting at something like 1/100th of a second (and your central nervous system can do that), all the way up to ... for humans 10s of years (rare, but happens). Things that take longer than that are just not going to be responded to. The fun thing is that if you go back in history long enough, there must have been a period where evolution was actually making this decision. De we go longer term ? Or shorter term. Obviously we know the outcome: shorter term and adaptation is the clear winner, with very few exceptions. But a few organisms do exist with reaction spans that are measured in decades. Even trees take something like a few months to respond to changes in their environment. The difference seems to be that species that run more efficiently as a rule react slower. That does mean, of course, that after expansion they are running much closer to a level where they'd go extinct, which is not true of humans (it would take a true global catastrophe to really reduce human numbers). So this, assuming you have the choice, is probably the better bet to make long term: the bet that keeps you away from situations where you'll go extinct. Extreme efficiency and long-term reaction spans will do the opposite: they'll take a species closer to the point where it'll go extinct. The cost, of course, is that members of such a species will always be adapting. Never ever will such a species be truly steady-state (although I'd say genes, both ours and animals' do a remarkable job of stabilizing our numbers). Every generation has to adapt and the solutions of even a few generations past ... just won't work. Well, not without a few changes at least. And let's please not pretend that which camp you're in matters for this. Both the people against and for climate action (even climate deniers), from a behaviorist perspective, all do it for the same reason : it's a social interaction. It doesn't even have anything to do with science, as such. It has to do with environment. And yes, environment can mean high-priced lawyers and politicians, campus parties, PhD students and academia, protests and the accompanying social groupings, miners and their towns ... and those groups are the real things fighting. But none of the individuals in them are doing it for science.
clairity 8y ago
> "I consider intelligence to be the ability to predict the future." this is the definition i've settled on as well. you see it, for example, in basketball: the best offensive players can predict where the closest defenders will be, as well as their ability to shoot unimpeded, to a high degree of accuracy. the same with the best defenders - they can predict where the offensive player will be going and their options for shooting and passing. the best rebounders can better predict where the ball will bounce after a missed shot. physical ability is a pre-requisite for being a great player, but intelligence is what puts you in the upper echelons.
- onTheOtherHands 8y ago
  You also see it in compulsive gambling. Sooner or later the odds will pay out. Just gotta keep chasing that magic.
carapace 8y ago
The amount of information in a message is defined as the unpredictability of the message.
Farradfahren 8y ago
Thats why we can concentrate for hours and ignore our mobile phones.

by edoo 8y ago

placebo 8y ago

I think that there's another way of looking at it. My definition of intelligence would be the ability to tell what is true from what is false. The ability to predict the future is a by-product of that ability. regarding what is the nature of truth and the issue of self awareness - that's a can of worms that I'll refrain from opening :)

mercer 8y ago
I'd go more abstract and say that intelligence is about pattern recognition. higher intelligence means increased ability to detect patterns 1) over longer timespans and 2) of increasing complexity/subtlety.
edoo 8y ago
And very complex things would have ranges of truth depending on your perspective. All our sensory input and even memory effectively goes through lossy compression algorithms with modifiers for immediate focus. I would like to think getting wiser is those algorithms converging to more optimal performance. I also think working with real logic in science, math, etc, any engineering, is incredibly healthy for the brain and makes it much easier to converge on truth. The only way to be good with logic is to absorb new data into the picture as it becomes available. I've noticed the less people are exposed to real logic the more resistant they are to simple facts that conflict with their assumptions.
umanwizard 8y ago
> intelligence [is] the ability to tell what is true from what is false. This is a poor definition. There are very intelligent Christians and very intelligent atheists. They can't both be right. Isaac Newton, one of the most intelligent people in history, believed in all sorts of weird astrological stuff. Etc. My view is that intelligence is a number that's correlated with a wide variety of different measures of cognitive performance. So it's not really possible to give a glib, one-sentence description of it.
- placebo 8y ago
  >It's not really possible to give a glib, one-sentence description of it. And yet, you just did. My definition is poor if you turn it into something simplistic and not realise the vast number of ways and levels of abstraction in which truth can be distinguished from falsehood, which gives rise to various forms of intelligence. It boils down to having a less limiting understanding of the concept of truth. Intelligent atheists and intelligent Christians can't both be right about what? They can both be right about some things and wrong about other things, but that is true of any two different people, not only any two different groups.
vlehto 8y ago
I think you're onto something here. A person who graduates from technical program of good university, but then falls for the first Ponzi scheme and starts selling vacuum cleaners? Not very smart. It's like he has very good processor able to run any math problem you throw at him. But at the same time he doesn't independently do very good job of discerning what is relevant and what is not. On the other hand some of the greatest scientists of all time have been able to maintain certain "what if" state of mind for years. Doing quick and accurate true/false analysis is often a trait of street smarts, but the most genius of all seem to be able to play with probabilities.

alfonsodev 8y ago

Another definition is that intelligence is the ability to manipulate abstractions. We have to do that in order to predict, plan, etc. First we need to hold the abstraction in our minds, and then we can play some manipulations on it to predict what would happen. It could be also our brain is a bit of a story teller. It tells several stories to see what would be more likely to happen.

fromthestart 8y ago
The future is an abstraction. I'd say your definition is a superset of OPs.
- bostonpete 8y ago
  I knew you were going to say that.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

n1000 8y ago

Sad that the collective intelligence of our species appears more limited however. We seem unable to act on the imminent threats of climate change, biodiversity loss, etc.

zipwitch 8y ago
Our species' collective intelligence isn't that simple. It appears to me that we are processing substrate for a species-sized game of Core Wars. In turn, because the size of the playing field (aka total human population) has become so large, the outcomes of the game now can produce existential threats, something amplified by the speed at which everything runs. When there were only 200 million humans, communicating by voice and using only muscle power, the ultimate impact of slow AIs running on Homo Sapiens hardware was bounded. Now, closing in on 8 billion of us with considerable upgrades in the form of industrial- and information-age technology, the output of the game can not just break the board, but flip the table.
candiodari 8y ago
Any algorithm is going to be bound by time horizons. Obviously any animal mind needs to be able to react in time horizons starting at something like 1/100th of a second (and your central nervous system can do that), all the way up to ... for humans 10s of years (rare, but happens). Things that take longer than that are just not going to be responded to. The fun thing is that if you go back in history long enough, there must have been a period where evolution was actually making this decision. De we go longer term ? Or shorter term. Obviously we know the outcome: shorter term and adaptation is the clear winner, with very few exceptions. But a few organisms do exist with reaction spans that are measured in decades. Even trees take something like a few months to respond to changes in their environment. The difference seems to be that species that run more efficiently as a rule react slower. That does mean, of course, that after expansion they are running much closer to a level where they'd go extinct, which is not true of humans (it would take a true global catastrophe to really reduce human numbers). So this, assuming you have the choice, is probably the better bet to make long term: the bet that keeps you away from situations where you'll go extinct. Extreme efficiency and long-term reaction spans will do the opposite: they'll take a species closer to the point where it'll go extinct. The cost, of course, is that members of such a species will always be adapting. Never ever will such a species be truly steady-state (although I'd say genes, both ours and animals' do a remarkable job of stabilizing our numbers). Every generation has to adapt and the solutions of even a few generations past ... just won't work. Well, not without a few changes at least. And let's please not pretend that which camp you're in matters for this. Both the people against and for climate action (even climate deniers), from a behaviorist perspective, all do it for the same reason : it's a social interaction. It doesn't even have anything to do with science, as such. It has to do with environment. And yes, environment can mean high-priced lawyers and politicians, campus parties, PhD students and academia, protests and the accompanying social groupings, miners and their towns ... and those groups are the real things fighting. But none of the individuals in them are doing it for science.

clairity 8y ago

> "I consider intelligence to be the ability to predict the future." this is the definition i've settled on as well. you see it, for example, in basketball: the best offensive players can predict where the closest defenders will be, as well as their ability to shoot unimpeded, to a high degree of accuracy. the same with the best defenders - they can predict where the offensive player will be going and their options for shooting and passing. the best rebounders can better predict where the ball will bounce after a missed shot. physical ability is a pre-requisite for being a great player, but intelligence is what puts you in the upper echelons.

onTheOtherHands 8y ago
You also see it in compulsive gambling. Sooner or later the odds will pay out. Just gotta keep chasing that magic.

carapace 8y ago

The amount of information in a message is defined as the unpredictability of the message.

Farradfahren 8y ago

Thats why we can concentrate for hours and ignore our mobile phones.