From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utcsri!rutgers!usc!sdd.hp.com!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert Tue Jul 28 09:41:51 EDT 1992
Article 6500 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Defining Intelligence
Message-ID: <1992Jul23.223809.11316@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 23 Jul 92 22:38:09 GMT
References: <2ZmcoB1w164w@cybernet.cse.fau.edu> <1992Jul23.151338.28804@mp.cs.niu.edu> <14n85cINN9vc@conquest.ksu.ksu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Lines: 55

In article <14n85cINN9vc@conquest.ksu.ksu.edu> khise@conquest.ksu.ksu.edu (Martin Andrew Shobe) writes: [criticizing my comments]
>In article <1992Jul23.151338.28804@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>In article <2ZmcoB1w164w@cybernet.cse.fau.edu> justin.bbs@cybernet.cse.fau.edu writes:
>>>        I. Intelligence requires a memory storage/retrieval system.
>>
>>  Strongly disagree.

>But we do have storage/retrieval systems.  Somehow, I have stored that I was
>born on June 13, 1969.  What this has to do with intelligence is a different
>story.

  I still disagree.  We have some kind of memory.  But that memory does
not have a store operation, and does not have a retrieve operation.
The date of your birth happens to be something that you remember fairly
readily.

  There are some things you would like to learn, so that you could
remember them.  But somehow it never works out.  That doesn't sound like
a storage operation.  There are other things that you can remember today,
won't be able to remember tomorrow (but it will be at the tip of you
tongue, if only the word would come to you), and will easily remember
the day after tomorrow.  That doesn't sound like retrieve operation.

  If there is no store operation, and no retrieve operation, then it is
not a storage/retrieval memory.

>>>        II. Intelligence is about problem-solving.
>>
>>  Strongly disagree.
>>
>>  Intelligence is all about survival.

>So, all else being equal.  If A is stronger than B, A is more intelligent than B?

  No.  All else being equal, if A is stronger than B, then A is stronger
than B.  I never said that intelligence was synonymous with survival.
My point was that the need for survival is the force behind intelligence.
That doesn't prevent the need for survival being also the force behind
strength.

  If man was created by a god in an act of creation, then perhaps it is
true that we were given intelligence to solve problems.  But I happen
to believe in evolution.  The driving force of evolution is survival,
particularly survival of the species.  Simple things that evolved may
have done so out of random luck.  But as the complexity increases, the
probabilities of random luck diminish.  Anything as complex as intelligence
could only have evolved because it aided survival.  The fact that it
happens to aid in solving problems is an incidental side effect, and
merely reflects that the ability to solve certain problems also has a
relation to survival.

  --------------

  Yes, I knew I was being controversial.  However I was not merely trying
to be the devil's advocate on this.  These are important issues.


