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Article 6999 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: My (arbitrary) definition of intelligence
Summary: On defining before understanding...
Message-ID: <exukjb.202.717034633@exu.ericsson.se>
Date: 21 Sep 92 00:17:13 GMT
References: <1992Sep9.025119.15500@uwm.edu> <1992Sep9.032813.19773@uwm.edu> <hb4n6km.stas@netcom.com> <1992Sep19.164232.24652@Princeton.EDU>
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In article <1992Sep19.164232.24652@Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>From: harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad)
>Subject: Re: My (arbitrary) definition of intelligence
>Summary: On defining before understanding...
>Date: 19 Sep 92 16:42:32 GMT


>"Intelligence" is an arbitrary word denoting clever performance that
>ordinarily requires "X" (where "X" is the mental state that allows humans
>and animals to do those same clever things). This simply shifts the burden
>from "intelligence" (now trivially "defined") to "X," which is not only
>still undefined, but clearly something that is so completely
>un-understood that our "defining" it now would be as sensible as 
>Aristotle's "defining" gravity, 2000 years before Newton. (Even less
>sensible, because of the extra dimension of perplexity added by the
>mind/body problem.) 

>So don't bother trying to define intelligence; it's an empty, arbitrary
>exercise. Focus instead on what it takes to generate the clever performance
>that ordinarily requires X.

>Harnad, S. (1992) The Turing test is not a trick: Turing
>indistinguishability is a scientific criterion.
>SIGART Bulletin 3(4) October
>(Retrievable by anonymous ftp from host: princeton.edu
>directory: pub/harnad filename harnad92.turing]

>-- 
>Stevan Harnad  Department of Psychology  Princeton University 
>& Lab Cognition et Mouvement URA CNRS 1166 Universite d'Aix Marseille II
>harnad@clarity.princeton.edu / harnad@pucc.bitnet / srh@flash.bellcore.com 
>harnad@learning.siemens.com / harnad@gandalf.rutgers.edu / (609)-921-7771

Intelligence is not the same as gravity in respect of intelligibility and 
susceptibility to analysis.  Intelligence is not a term of art like '
gravity' is.  It is not a word flushed out by some field scientist working
with mathematical formulae. It must clearly be possible to formulate a 
sensible definition.  It isn't something we discovered in the last few
decades with the help of AI research. 
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