From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sequent!muncher.sequent.com!bfish Wed Aug 12 16:52:31 EDT 1992
Article 6570 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bfish@sequent.com (Brett Fishburne)
Subject: Re: Communication and Intelligence
Message-ID: <1992Aug6.153250.28517@sequent.com>
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References: <1992Jul31.233457.16966@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> <1992Aug4.152933.2523@sequent.com> <1992Aug4.171443.18771@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 15:32:50 GMT
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In article <1992Aug4.171443.18771@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <1992Aug4.152933.2523@sequent.com> bfish@sequent.com (Brett Fishburne) writes:
>>
>>Clearly the case of an autistic child is one where communication does not
>>normally exist, yet, as mentioned in other posts, once communication is
>>established, intelligence is found to exist.  Are you willing to take the
>
>  I don't believe that is true at all.  Communication may be very abnormal
>and much less effective than with a normal child.  But that does not
>mean that no communication exists.

Perhaps I should be clearer.  It was generally believed by specialists in
the field of autism that the children were not intelligent.  It was only
after dramatic efforts in two-way communication that the children were
considered intelligent.  My point is that the children were intelligent the
whole time, we just didn't know it until they engaged in two-way communication.
It was not the communication which made them intelligent, they already
were intelligent.

If you are arguing that there was external stimuli and that caused the
intelligence, then I concede that this example does not illustrate a response
to that arguemnt and refer you to the end of the article you quoted above.

>>                                I am willing to argue that communication
>>is impossible without intelligence (not vice-versa).  If you care to
>
>  How much intelligence do you find in the communication between the
>button outside my door and the doorbell hanging in my hallway?

I find the same amount of intelligence as there is communication -- NONE.
Are you making the case that because there is communication, there must be
intelligence?  I certainly don't follow.

>>                I make this distinction because communication implies a
>>two-way exchange.
>
>  Most people would consider writing a letter, or sending a telegram,
>or broadcasting on radio or television, to be communication, even when
>there is no reply.

Would they still consider it communication if noone received it?  My argument
is that something is conveyed from one entity to another.  With that
something being some collection of beliefs.  I am trying to be as explicit
as possible in the way I am using communication.  I definitely concur with
the definition offered previously on the net which characterized communication
as two-way (I have not gone back to find the article, but I am certain it
is within the last 40).

-- Brett


