4 ms·

What is intelligence anyways? We tend to define it based on ours. But how about collective intelligence? Other forms of intelligence? More specifically, there

What is intelligence anyways? We tend to define it based on ours. But how about collective intelligence? Other forms of intelligence? More specifically, there are two things that bother me with the way we usually look at intelligence: time scale, and individuality. To assess intelligence, we often look at individuals, not at the group. And we tend to do it on our own time scales. But I wouldn't be surprised if the "individual" you have to assess is the ant colony, not the ants themselves. And who is to say that rocks aren't smart? Have you observed them over hundreds of millennia? (I'm just kidding about the last one, though the question is still theoretically valid).

shard972 7y ago
The ability to conceptualize abstract concepts?
wukerplank 7y ago
A few years ago I came accross Systems Theory[1] that seems to explain phenomena (like ant colonies) quite well. But I think they call "systems of higher order" or "emergence", not collective intelligence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
throwawaysea 7y ago
I think we humans commonly use the word “intelligence” as a placeholder for human-like ability to learn new skills, absorb new knowledge, process said information to filter/transform it, and the ability to apply it. It might help to distinguish effectiveness or usefulness from these capabilities - trees are effective in reproducing and useful perhaps, as are insects. But we wouldn’t consider them to be intelligent per my prior definition, unless you consider their species’ changes in response to selective pressure to be semantically similar to human intelligence. However such changes are passive not deliberate/active/intentional, and so I don’t count them as intelligence. Ultimately it’s just about our definition and semantics.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > However such changes are passive not deliberate/active/intentional This is a subjective interpretation. Human "intention" is informed by selective pressures as well, both those that have etched themselves into our genetics and those that have influenced mental development.
proc0 7y ago
DUNE has a perfect example for those familiar. The most intelligent being can see multiple timelines and can shape civilizations over millenia. The more intelligent you are the more you can predict the future and plan accordingly. This isn't to say trees or plants can't be intelligent, but I think in order for that to happen the amount of information processing would have to be comparable, so maybe at best some slow, distributed process that has triggers more so than an internal model of the world.
cicero 7y ago
There are all kinds of intelligence. What is unique about human intelligence, which has been known since Aristotle, is our ability to recognize abstractions and make generalizations, which then leads to human language. Various plants and animals might react to red things, but we can abstract red as a color, thinking and talking about it as separate from the things that are red.
- mnem 7y ago
  The difficulty with that reasoning is that you can say that you can abstract red, but you can't definitely state that I can abstract red any more than other animals may. Interestingly, we're starting to find evidence for grammatical rules in other animal languages: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-that-birds-tweet-using-grammar/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-...
- jbotz 7y ago
  What you say has been "known since Aristotle" appears to be wrong. There is really no evidence that this ability, or any cognitive ability, is "unique to humans". Yes, humans have more of this ability to "recognize abstractions and make generalizations" than pretty much any other species on this planet, but it is not unique to humans. In the contrary, there is lots of evidence that generalization and some amount of abstraction are fundamental to all forms of problem-solving (and "all life is problem-solving") and that the fundamental neural mechanisms that lead to these capacities are no different in quality between different species, just in quantity. This is being demonstrated in objective research again and again... there is no cognitive capacity we humans have that you can point to and say "this is totally different, no other animal has anything like this." Yes, your linguist abilities are orders of magnitude more sophisticated than those of most other animals, but even there it is only a matter of degree, not of a fundamental kind. For a very good treatment of this subject by a highly respected primatologist, see Frans de Waal's recent books. But he isn't alone... until fairly recently it was taboo to say that animals are "intelligent" or "conscious" or "sentient", but this is thankfully beginning to change, and among the current generation of biologists, ethologists and animal cognitive psychologists many consider the notion that animals aren't sentient to be outmoded, or as Frans de Waal puts it, "anthropodenial". But there is one thing that makes us truly different from all other animals and it's only indirectly related to cognition: for better or for worse we are the only animal that uses and controls fire. It's fire that really defines humans, not our big brains (and fire probably came first; cooking made our calorically expensive large brains possible). And it is fire that may be the end of us, as well.
detcader 7y ago
I am wondering if this question puts the cart before the horse. Can we first ask: why is intelligence the thing that makes a living being valuable and worthy of respect? What about being a part of something bigger than itself? Being consistent, strong, rooted, and durable? Being non-judgmental or generous? Happy to exist in stillness right where it is? From the Tao Te Ching to Chris Arnade's "Dignity" I really have found many reasons to become disillusioned with "intelligence" as a virtue.
carapace 7y ago
You might like a couple of books by Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" and "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity" He explores the idea that evolution and thought are the same phenomenon, and that what we call "mind" is ambient.
- bsmitty5000 7y ago
  Thank you for this, I love good book recommendations.
- bcbrown 7y ago
  Fantastic books. I highly recommend Mind and Nature.
- MayeulC 7y ago
  Thank you, I will try to read them when time permits. I forgot to mention evolution in my post, but that's part of the point. Our genes seem like a very long-term memory, trough them species (including ours) can learn new strategies over millennia. I asked my father the very thing I wrote above, and he answered that intelligence was the ability to reuse previously acquired knowledge in a given context. Which would seem fitting, if a bit stretching.
mikelyons 7y ago
Leo Gura of Actualized.org has a really great lecture on what intelligence is that sort of breaks the bounds of other previous explanations of intelligence I've heard. It's available on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQSUu2CRRBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQSUu2CRRBE I only post this because it's a direct answer to the question, What is intelligence, and I find it to be a rather deep explanation compared to many others.
erikpukinskis 7y ago
Intelligence is adaptation on the timescale of minutes. Trees are too slow to be technically intelligent. Although on a larger timescale what they are is indistinguishable from intelligence.

shard972 7y ago

The ability to conceptualize abstract concepts?

wukerplank 7y ago

A few years ago I came accross Systems Theory[1] that seems to explain phenomena (like ant colonies) quite well. But I think they call "systems of higher order" or "emergence", not collective intelligence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

throwawaysea 7y ago

I think we humans commonly use the word “intelligence” as a placeholder for human-like ability to learn new skills, absorb new knowledge, process said information to filter/transform it, and the ability to apply it. It might help to distinguish effectiveness or usefulness from these capabilities - trees are effective in reproducing and useful perhaps, as are insects. But we wouldn’t consider them to be intelligent per my prior definition, unless you consider their species’ changes in response to selective pressure to be semantically similar to human intelligence. However such changes are passive not deliberate/active/intentional, and so I don’t count them as intelligence. Ultimately it’s just about our definition and semantics.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> However such changes are passive not deliberate/active/intentional This is a subjective interpretation. Human "intention" is informed by selective pressures as well, both those that have etched themselves into our genetics and those that have influenced mental development.

proc0 7y ago

DUNE has a perfect example for those familiar. The most intelligent being can see multiple timelines and can shape civilizations over millenia. The more intelligent you are the more you can predict the future and plan accordingly. This isn't to say trees or plants can't be intelligent, but I think in order for that to happen the amount of information processing would have to be comparable, so maybe at best some slow, distributed process that has triggers more so than an internal model of the world.

cicero 7y ago

There are all kinds of intelligence. What is unique about human intelligence, which has been known since Aristotle, is our ability to recognize abstractions and make generalizations, which then leads to human language. Various plants and animals might react to red things, but we can abstract red as a color, thinking and talking about it as separate from the things that are red.

mnem 7y ago
The difficulty with that reasoning is that you can say that you can abstract red, but you can't definitely state that I can abstract red any more than other animals may. Interestingly, we're starting to find evidence for grammatical rules in other animal languages: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-that-birds-tweet-using-grammar/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-...
jbotz 7y ago
What you say has been "known since Aristotle" appears to be wrong. There is really no evidence that this ability, or any cognitive ability, is "unique to humans". Yes, humans have more of this ability to "recognize abstractions and make generalizations" than pretty much any other species on this planet, but it is not unique to humans. In the contrary, there is lots of evidence that generalization and some amount of abstraction are fundamental to all forms of problem-solving (and "all life is problem-solving") and that the fundamental neural mechanisms that lead to these capacities are no different in quality between different species, just in quantity. This is being demonstrated in objective research again and again... there is no cognitive capacity we humans have that you can point to and say "this is totally different, no other animal has anything like this." Yes, your linguist abilities are orders of magnitude more sophisticated than those of most other animals, but even there it is only a matter of degree, not of a fundamental kind. For a very good treatment of this subject by a highly respected primatologist, see Frans de Waal's recent books. But he isn't alone... until fairly recently it was taboo to say that animals are "intelligent" or "conscious" or "sentient", but this is thankfully beginning to change, and among the current generation of biologists, ethologists and animal cognitive psychologists many consider the notion that animals aren't sentient to be outmoded, or as Frans de Waal puts it, "anthropodenial". But there is one thing that makes us truly different from all other animals and it's only indirectly related to cognition: for better or for worse we are the only animal that uses and controls fire. It's fire that really defines humans, not our big brains (and fire probably came first; cooking made our calorically expensive large brains possible). And it is fire that may be the end of us, as well.

detcader 7y ago

I am wondering if this question puts the cart before the horse. Can we first ask: why is intelligence the thing that makes a living being valuable and worthy of respect? What about being a part of something bigger than itself? Being consistent, strong, rooted, and durable? Being non-judgmental or generous? Happy to exist in stillness right where it is? From the Tao Te Ching to Chris Arnade's "Dignity" I really have found many reasons to become disillusioned with "intelligence" as a virtue.

carapace 7y ago

You might like a couple of books by Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" and "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity" He explores the idea that evolution and thought are the same phenomenon, and that what we call "mind" is ambient.

bsmitty5000 7y ago
Thank you for this, I love good book recommendations.
bcbrown 7y ago
Fantastic books. I highly recommend Mind and Nature.
MayeulC 7y ago
Thank you, I will try to read them when time permits. I forgot to mention evolution in my post, but that's part of the point. Our genes seem like a very long-term memory, trough them species (including ours) can learn new strategies over millennia. I asked my father the very thing I wrote above, and he answered that intelligence was the ability to reuse previously acquired knowledge in a given context. Which would seem fitting, if a bit stretching.

mikelyons 7y ago

Leo Gura of Actualized.org has a really great lecture on what intelligence is that sort of breaks the bounds of other previous explanations of intelligence I've heard. It's available on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQSUu2CRRBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQSUu2CRRBE I only post this because it's a direct answer to the question, What is intelligence, and I find it to be a rather deep explanation compared to many others.

erikpukinskis 7y ago

Intelligence is adaptation on the timescale of minutes. Trees are too slow to be technically intelligent. Although on a larger timescale what they are is indistinguishable from intelligence.