Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[athena]

The thread about Darwinism turned into another debate about the supernatural. Perhaps we should discuss, what is the nature of intelligence?

http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-ga ... ence.shtml

The universe is an organization of energy and information. Each stage of evolution is a different stage of organization. Complexity refers to this kind of organization. Intelligence refers to an advanced state of organization. When the universe and our nature are structurally coupled - as they must be - then intelligence exists.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

My dictionary provides the following relevant definitions of intelligence:

a. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.
b. The faculty of thought and reason.
c. Superior powers of mind.

It also defines the adjective form intelligent as showing sound judgment and rationality.

It seems to me that under most definitions for something to be intelligent it must be conscious, and for an action to be intelligently done it must be done by a conscious being. The reason a volcano has a hole at the top might be because hot lava and air squirts out of it. In one sense we could say the volcano remembers or knows that hot lava might come up and thus has a hole at the top, but those words are usually reserved for implying consciousness. In one very odd sense of the word, you could say it is smart of the planet Mercury to travel at the exact speed needed to not be slow enough to fall into the sun or fast enough to travel away from the sun. But again, this word appears to imply consciousness. Even if we use the terms in a unique way that does not entail consciousness, I think it would be better to use a terms that are less confusingly related to consciousness, such as natural order, natural selection, statistical likelihood, etc.

[ape]

The thread about Darwinism turned into another debate about the supernatural. Perhaps we should discuss, what is the nature of intelligence?

Hi Athena!


The nature of intelligence is being in Love with all words and their opposites. We can call it Inlovigence!:)


"The test of a first rate intelligence [or of an intelligent person] is the ability to hold 2 opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
F. Scott Fitzgerald


Aka CS: Common Sense,
or EIQ: Emotional Intelligence Quotient,
or more correctly the LIQ: The Love Intelligence Quotient! That LIQ is the real LIQuor and the real intelligence.


"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together make for genius.
Love, Love, Love, that is the soul of genius."
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

[Martin Ekdahl]

Hi Athena.

For me intelligence, empathy and imagination are all synonymous concepts. All three helps us (beings) to "see" beyond the obvoius. So, the definition of intelligence for me thus is "the ability to sum the reality in abstractions and the ability to see the reality behind abstractions".

A being that empathise with an other being has the ability to imagine how it must feel to be that being.
A being that imagines what it cannot experience through it's sences has the ability to reorganize and recreate the reality in it's own mind.
A being that invents sollutions to it's problems beyond what it's instincts tells it to has the ability to visualize possibilities in the given situation.

A factor that I believe is useful to measure high intelligence in a being is the awareness of it's own transience. If the being mourns the loss of others it has empathy. If it understands the abstract concept of "being dead", then it has imagination. And if it has empathy and imagination, then it has intelligence.

[Meleagar]

Intelligence is the capacity to deliberately discern true statements from false, thus distilling brute information into knowledge, and then being able to apply that knowledge towards an end.

Thus, intellience requires free will. Without free will - i.e., the capacity to at least attempt to deliberately discern true statements - then knowledge cannot be acquired (one would only be programmed with information through cause and effect) and cannot be applied.

[athena]

Thank you all for the stimulating replies. I wish I had more time to go more deeply.

In case everyone doesn't know, Ape's explanation of love goes well with Greek philosophy and the idea that God is love, because manifested reality is the result of attraction.

Are the organizing forces of the universe a form or intelligence? Is the law of energy conservation evidence of intelligent design?

We also need to explore the reality of being. Is the universe a characteristic of being? What else could be characteristic of being? That is, is intelligence innate in being? Not the hole the volcono, which occurs at the weakest spot on the mountain, but how about an acorn will become an oak tree, not an elephant? Might we call DNA an expression of intelligence, because it clearly organizes the product?

Considering the behavior of a proton is change by our observation of it, exactly what is consciousness?

[ape]

..Considering the behavior of a proton is change by our observation of it, exactly what is consciousness?

Hi Athena,


Note that Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainity Principle is very CERTAIN!:)


So by saying 'that an object under observation changes as a result of that observation,' WH was just stating in other words what he really meant:


When we observe anything, that thing changes as a result and by reason of the change in word we have for it in our minds!


See?


Is why we say 'Call a spade a spade' or 'a rose by any other name might as well be something else tho it will smell just as sweet' since a spade is also seen as and called as a shovel or fork or etc, and a rose by any other name might as well be river since a rose flows out of its stem.


Even Einstein did not understand what WH meant and so told him that God does not play dice with the Uni since the location of a planet does not depend on if we think it's there!


But here are 2 examples of what WH meant:


When I look at a river and only see a river and you look at the same river and see a flower, the river under observation changed as a result of being observed by you as the word flower!


When we look at the US flag and you see bars and I see stars, the flag changed as a result of HOW each of us saw it IN our minds.


Here it is again:


"Our earth is round, and, among other things that means that you and I can hold completely opposite [opposites]points of view and both be right.
The difference of our positions will show Stars in your window I cannot even imagine. Your sky may burn with light, while mine, at the same moment, spreads beautiful to darkness. Still, we must choose how we separately corner the circling universe of our experience. Once chosen, our cornering will determine the message of any star and darkness we encounter."
Gwendolyn Brooks: "Corners on the Curving Sky."


And you recall:


"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."


is for the Uni, under observation, to change to a grain of sand,
for a flower to change into heaven,
for our palms to change into infinity,
and for an hour to change into eternity.


With thanks to William Blake for his Auguries of Innocence, (b. Nov. 28, 1757, London--d. Aug. 12, 1827, London)

[Anon007]

When you are intelligent you know you don't know anything.

When you are intelligent you know there is no answer, at least not one to be found in book.

When you are intelligent you are know just how ignorant you are.

When you are intelligent it sucks more than when you were ignorant.

Intelligence only makes you want ....

[Isidorus]

love that quote by Mozart, ape- where did you get it?

[ape]

love that quote by Mozart, ape- where did you get it?

Hi Isi,

I think it might been from the back of a record jacket!

Or the internet.

Here is one:

www.paradise-engineering.com/quotation/love.html

[Isidorus]

Thanks,
I love this one too
"Platonic love is like an inactive volcano"
-Andre P(r)evost.

[NameRemoved]

Athena wrote

what is the nature of intelligence?

Which type of intelligence are you asking about? there are many, emotional intelligence, cognitive intelligence, sensory intelligence, intuitive intelligence, and intelligence in nature.

Gardner's theory. Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences suggests that there are seven different forms of intelligence. They are linguistic, musical, spatial, bodily, interpersonal, intrapersonal and logico-mathematical. In developing his theory, Gardner (1983) attempted to rectify some of the errors of earlier psychologists who "all ignore[d] biology; all fail[ed] to come to grips with the higher levels of creativity; and all [were] insensitive to the range of roles highlighted in human society" (p. 24). So, Gardner based his own theory of intelligence on biological facts. Li (1996) summarizes Gardner's theory as follows:

Premise 1: If it can be found that certain brain parts can distinctively map with certain cognitive functioning (A), then that cognitive functioning can be isolated as one candidate of multiple intelligences (B). (If A, then B).
Premise 2: Now it has been found that certain brain parts do distinctively map with certain cognitive functioning, as evidenced by certain brain damage leading to loss of certain cognitive function. (Evidence of A).
Conclusion: Therefore, multiple intelligences. (Therefore B.). (p. 34)

Athena did you see in the news recently the scientific studies on the brain of people supposedly brain dead or in vegatitve states [comatosed] respond to questioning, through MRI scans..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8497148.stm

Amazing isn`t it..its also very very scary, like how many life support machines were switched off thinking the brain was dead? its a good reason in why euthanasia should not be legalised

[boagie]

"Considering the behavior of a proton is change by our observation of it, exactly what is consciousness?"

Athena,

How about consciousness as reaction, certainly sensation is reaction, sensation, perception of sensation, the processes of the understanding as judgement of perception, all reaction. What indeed is the source of reaction if not stimulus interpreted as information, information of the senses, information of perception of sensation, processes of the understanding as internal reaction of the ordering of information, motivation as reactionary understanding of a given state which requires, A REACTION. Does not motivation infer reaction to, in and of itself?

Certainly it is obvious that the plasticity of biology is in reaction to the changing conditions of physcial reality. I simply contend that it is a continuum, and perhaps that it is, in the case of the photon reciprocal, for apparent reality is relational in nature and the bases of that relation is perhaps reciprocal reaction.