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Not an expert, not my field, but this smells like hype. Intelligence is a precisely defined thing that you can't just attach new dimensions to. On top, a key

Not an expert, not my field, but this smells like hype. Intelligence is a precisely defined thing that you can't just attach new dimensions to. On top, a key feature of higher reasoning is mid- to long term prediction. It does not seem clear to me how intuition would help in planning behavior beyond the current situation.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>Intelligence is a precisely defined thing that you can't just attach new dimensions to. I mean everyone is always arguing about what intelligence is or even means, especially on here, so I find this a very strange thing for you say.
- uniqueuid 5y ago
  What I mean is: There is a body of thousands of scientific studies discussing what intelligence means. Yes, some of them diverge in the precise definition, but if you want to add a new meaning that's useful, you need to convince people why the heaps of existing evidence are not sufficient. That's not an easy task.
  - WithinReason 5y ago
    > There is a body of thousands of scientific studies discussing what intelligence means Which don't agree on a single definition. See for example: https://arxiv.org/abs/0712.3329 https://arxiv.org/abs/0712.3329
    - uniqueuid 5y ago
      Yeah, sure, but that's not my argument. My argument is: There are established dimensions of intelligence. There are arbitrarily many potential new dimensions. Coming up with anything and calling it intelligence is not hard and not automatically helpful. The hard part is coming up with something new that makes sense in the context of all the existing findings.
      - throw1234651234 5y ago
        There is not established definitions of intelligence. The closest I can get to is the high level break down of: 1. Crystallized intelligence - stuff you have memorized. This breaks down further with memorized vs experienced, with the latter leading to "wisdom", which really breaks down to how Asimov broke down knowledge - not only knowing the thing, but knowing how you know the thing is true. Because I am dumb, I can't think of a single good example. But it would be something like "We know an object in motion stays in motion because {PERSON} did an {EXPERIMENT} and {PERSON} is credible and you can replicate the {EXPERIMENT} like so". That's "true" knowledge. 2. Fluid intelligence - working memory. The number of things you can keep in your mind at the same time. Declines with age, or maybe disuse, we don't really know. IQ tests are out there. Working memory are out there too in terms of how they affect/correlate with life outcomes and/or IQ. I am obsessed with this topic, but I find nothing concrete past "sleep enough, exercise, learn things, some things, maybe music, maybe lang, we don't know."
        bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        I think there would have to be an upper level of true knowledge where you know it is true because you understand the math behind the theory, and the bottom level true knowledge it's true because it was validated by a lot of trustworthy people running experiments the outcomes of which would be explained by the theory. Also there should be a type of intelligence - conceives abstract ideas that are not just composed of things they have learned.
thomcano 5y ago
But it doesn't justify why you have coined the term as "hype". It doesn't make sense, please can you properly justify on your reasoning?
derbOac 5y ago
So, you're right to be skeptical of this. I think the website maybe isn't the most trust-inspiring one when it comes to this topic. There has been research, though, suggesting that when it comes to certain kinds of decision making, involving complex scenarios with lots of uncertainty, decisions made on intuition often are associated with greater satisfaction later. So I think there's something to it. The other tricky thing is that this is relatively difficult to study from a cognitive perspective. By its nature it's pretty vague but it also involves things that are difficult to capture in a lab. Creativity is sort of like this as well -- everyone has some sense that there's a thing such as creativity or generativity but studying it turns out to be difficult because it's hard to measure. My personal difficulty with intuitive decision-making is that because by definition almost it involves subconscious factors, it's difficult to know what to make of it, or when it is good versus bad. For example, you'll find a lot of articles here on HN and elsewhere about being rational in your decision making, and not letting emotions guide you. So is that "overriding intuition"? On the other hand, I think part of why intuitive decision making can be helpful sometimes is that sometimes there are factors that are difficult for you to fully appreciate the weight of, and your "rational" processes might not entirely grasp the significance of them. So you might later on look back and think "oh yeah that was way worse than I thought at the time; it's no wonder I wanted to avoid it so badly." But how do you know which scenario is which?

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>Intelligence is a precisely defined thing that you can't just attach new dimensions to. I mean everyone is always arguing about what intelligence is or even means, especially on here, so I find this a very strange thing for you say.

uniqueuid 5y ago
What I mean is: There is a body of thousands of scientific studies discussing what intelligence means. Yes, some of them diverge in the precise definition, but if you want to add a new meaning that's useful, you need to convince people why the heaps of existing evidence are not sufficient. That's not an easy task.
- WithinReason 5y ago
  > There is a body of thousands of scientific studies discussing what intelligence means Which don't agree on a single definition. See for example: https://arxiv.org/abs/0712.3329 https://arxiv.org/abs/0712.3329
  - uniqueuid 5y ago
    Yeah, sure, but that's not my argument. My argument is: There are established dimensions of intelligence. There are arbitrarily many potential new dimensions. Coming up with anything and calling it intelligence is not hard and not automatically helpful. The hard part is coming up with something new that makes sense in the context of all the existing findings.
    - throw1234651234 5y ago
      There is not established definitions of intelligence. The closest I can get to is the high level break down of: 1. Crystallized intelligence - stuff you have memorized. This breaks down further with memorized vs experienced, with the latter leading to "wisdom", which really breaks down to how Asimov broke down knowledge - not only knowing the thing, but knowing how you know the thing is true. Because I am dumb, I can't think of a single good example. But it would be something like "We know an object in motion stays in motion because {PERSON} did an {EXPERIMENT} and {PERSON} is credible and you can replicate the {EXPERIMENT} like so". That's "true" knowledge. 2. Fluid intelligence - working memory. The number of things you can keep in your mind at the same time. Declines with age, or maybe disuse, we don't really know. IQ tests are out there. Working memory are out there too in terms of how they affect/correlate with life outcomes and/or IQ. I am obsessed with this topic, but I find nothing concrete past "sleep enough, exercise, learn things, some things, maybe music, maybe lang, we don't know."
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        I think there would have to be an upper level of true knowledge where you know it is true because you understand the math behind the theory, and the bottom level true knowledge it's true because it was validated by a lot of trustworthy people running experiments the outcomes of which would be explained by the theory. Also there should be a type of intelligence - conceives abstract ideas that are not just composed of things they have learned.

thomcano 5y ago

But it doesn't justify why you have coined the term as "hype". It doesn't make sense, please can you properly justify on your reasoning?

derbOac 5y ago

So, you're right to be skeptical of this. I think the website maybe isn't the most trust-inspiring one when it comes to this topic. There has been research, though, suggesting that when it comes to certain kinds of decision making, involving complex scenarios with lots of uncertainty, decisions made on intuition often are associated with greater satisfaction later. So I think there's something to it. The other tricky thing is that this is relatively difficult to study from a cognitive perspective. By its nature it's pretty vague but it also involves things that are difficult to capture in a lab. Creativity is sort of like this as well -- everyone has some sense that there's a thing such as creativity or generativity but studying it turns out to be difficult because it's hard to measure. My personal difficulty with intuitive decision-making is that because by definition almost it involves subconscious factors, it's difficult to know what to make of it, or when it is good versus bad. For example, you'll find a lot of articles here on HN and elsewhere about being rational in your decision making, and not letting emotions guide you. So is that "overriding intuition"? On the other hand, I think part of why intuitive decision making can be helpful sometimes is that sometimes there are factors that are difficult for you to fully appreciate the weight of, and your "rational" processes might not entirely grasp the significance of them. So you might later on look back and think "oh yeah that was way worse than I thought at the time; it's no wonder I wanted to avoid it so badly." But how do you know which scenario is which?