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I think I've come to an inevitable conclusion that there appears to be at least two "sources" of intelligence, genetic, and (I guess for lack of a better word),
by bane 2y ago
I think I've come to an inevitable conclusion that there appears to be at least two "sources" of intelligence, genetic, and (I guess for lack of a better word), "learned". Learned could mean all kinds of things, the capacity measurement of IQ, the effort by parents to fill that capacity, social normative steering, whatever.
But genetic really means "instinct" in the way that a day old deer can stand, run, graze (I live in an area with lots of deer, so I get a first-hand chance to observe them).
Suppose a sci-fi story, where humans encounter a fantastically advanced alien species. Over the course of the story events occur where individuals in the alien species see not learn anything at all, while later generations seem imbued with those same learnings. What humans are encountering might be instead incredibly advance, and highly encoded instinct.
Is that not intelligence?
I'm reminded of the schools of buddhism, where a differentiation is that you are able to achieve enlightenment in one-lifetime or in many.
The main distinction between life and non-life appear to be the ability to experience the universe. A blade of grass is alive no different than a human, but entirely different from a rock. Experience seems to be some kind of basis for intelligence, without which it cannot exist, thus perhaps, all experiential beings are intelligent in some way.
Every living thing has survived everything its ancestors' environment threw at them and made it to "now".
- Intralexical 2y ago> Is that not intelligence? "Intelligence" should be adaptive, and general purpose. Complex systems that are unable to grow or change are basically the definition of an unliving "mechanism", contrasted against an intelligent mind/being.
- azemetre 2y agoYou should check out the sci fi book Blindsight by Peter Watts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) It's a first contact story about an alien species that doesn't have consciousness.
- fennecbutt 2y agoYeah there's definitely instinctual and then "lived/learnt" intelligence. Not sure about the biological mechanism for the latter becoming the former. I was thinking about this the other day actually, how all of our advanced behaviours and emotions and society are really just formed on the foundation of basic biological principles/evolution. Every supposedly complex behavior can be explained by this. The ultimate meaning of life is to live long enough to pass on genes if you're fit enough to make this happen, then you age and for all your learned experience you will become slow and eventually be the gazelle at the rear of the herd that the lions catch, saving the younger newer generations. With the possibility of one of those younger gazelle also dying beside you, if it wasn't aware or fast enough - preventing it from passing on genes. Even complex and strong emotions were evolved for a purpose, those that could empathise and work together did better, same with language. Then we get side effects like depression etc in the same way that you can physically injure ourself, our minds can be injured as well. Basically spent a couple hours thinking about the future of machine learning.