Transhumanism.

You keep hinting at some sort of hierarchy of intelligence, but when I ask you to describe it, you refuse. Why is this?

Furthermore, you mix levels of abstraction here. Self-awareness is the state of being aware of one's own existence, which is not necessitated by reaching that logical conclusion through conscious thought. You could argue that we constantly reach this conclusion subconsciously, ergo relatively effortless self-awareness, but you would have to prove this if you did.

So then, would you say you place yourself in the camp that equates intelligence with IQ?

 

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baumgarten,

Because it is so obvious it doesn't deserve a response.

Consider the intelliegnce exibited by a single celled organism and every organism between that and man. Clearly there are many levels of intelligence.

 

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No. That's a cop out. If you are going to discuss science, be prepared to discuss it scientifically.

You are the one who has claimed the existence of these "levels" of intelligence. The onus of demonstration is on you. If it's so obvious, then it shouldn't be too difficult to explain.

 

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Are you suggesting that you cannot see the gross difference between the intelligence of a single cell organism and a human? Surely this is axiomatic.

Also bear in mind at least a basic defintion of intelligence found in a dictionary, e.g.

1 a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : REASON; also : the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests).

Even a cursory sampling of various lifeforms reveals a very distinct difference in levels of ability in this arena.

 

Humor me. Spell it out.

 

Ask yourself the question: Are you more intelligent than a single celled organism?

 

Wrong question.

How much more intelligent are you than a single celled organism?

This is the sort of question that can be answered quantitatively. It is a scientific question. It's also the question I've been asking you to answer.

 

Good, you are making progress. At least now you recognize there are different levels of intelligence.

 

Cris, I have not acknowledged the existence of different levels of intelligence because I have been waiting for you to at least partially formalize them for me. My position up to and including now has been that intelligence is generally assessed qualitatively, and no concrete "levels" exist. For the last page and a half (and probably longer) I have been trying to get you to defend your implication that some quantifiable levels of intelligence exist, but all you do is wave your arms at me. The problem with this is that you can't even discuss the topic of amounts of intelligence from a scientific or engineering standpoint until that quantitative system of measurement has been established.

So I ask you once more, if there are different levels of intelligence, what are they?

 

Baumgarten,

Don't be so dense pedantic and obstinate.

Already answered. If you can't see it for yourself go ask a child.

 

Don't you understand that saying something is "more" or "less" intelligent than something else is not quantifying intelligence. You are making a qualitative judgment of the respective intelligences of the two individuals.

In order to quantify intelligence you must have a standard unit of intelligence, and then you must find a way to measure the intelligence of one individual quantitatively against the intelligence of another individual.

 

Jaster,

Why? For example, when considering the weather, it is quite acceptable to say it is cold or it is hot. The differences are quite discernable. I do not need to consult a thermometer to know there are gross relative differences.

As with intelligence, it is largely irrelevent whether we can measure it precisely or not, but in orders of magnitude differences intelligence becomes easily relatively discernable. E.g the difference between a cell, a mouse, and a human. On that type of scale super intelligence through AI would be seen as the next order of magnitude higher than human. Within the context of this thread and my earlier posts that was all I had in mind.

Another example is computing power. There are many measurements but it is generally acceptable to say the relative differences between chronological advances is a doubling every 18 months.

 

Pedantic? I'm trying to conduct this discussion with a quite necessary level of rigor, as I will demonstrate below.

You never answered. The first time I asked you, the point of your reply was that "the gross differences should seem very clear to most people," implying that I was missing something obvious. When I restated the question, indicating that I was indeed missing it and you would have to point it out to me, you told me that "it is so obvious it doesn't deserve a response." Basically, you told me that I in my obliviousness am unworthy of the allegedly trivial fact I had repeatedly requested. I persisted despite this arrogant remark, and you once again dodged the issue by calling the difference "axiomatic," though apparently still not utterable. If we are to work in an axiomatic system, however, then those axioms must be established, and the only way that can be done is by actually typing them to each other so that they may be agreed upon!

This is not pedantism. This is the very basis of our entire discussion. If a quantitative standard of measuring intelligence cannot be established, then you can't possibly say with any validity that an intelligent machine would be 10 or 100 times more intelligent than a human. And insisting that it would be simply "very much more intelligent" is no way to convince me of the objectivity of your argument.

EDIT: This also applies to your response to Jaster. A thermometer establishes an objective, quantifiable standard unit of temperature independent of the subjective, qualitative measurements of an observer such as "hot" and "cold." I can recall plenty of times when I and another disagreed on whether the weather was warm or chilly, but never did we disagree on the reading of a thermometer.

 

Baum - see my response to J.

 

Cris - I addressed your response to J. Please re-read and reconsider my response.

 

baum - um - if there is ice around most people would agree it is cold, if the tarmac on the road is melting most would agree it is hot.

I'm referencing large differences and you are trying to tie me to an irrelevant micrometer.

 

What's this "most" business? An independent observer - perhaps a conscious machine or a person with different temperature tolerances than the average human - might for whatever reason need to live at temperatures close to absolute zero. If it steps outside on a cold winter day of 20 degrees Fahrenheit, it may complain of scorching heat. Is this observer wrong because you find the weather cold? No. It is too hot outside for that observer, and this is the meaning of "hot."

You cannot introduce subjective data into a scientific discussion about intelligence. As soon as it becomes a matter of opinion, it is no longer scientific. Our discussion is necessarily scientific because I have challenged the notion of an objective standard of intelligence. All you have to do to successfully dispatch this challenge is to present that standard.

 

baum - you've missed the point. It's an issue of relativity. You even emphasize the example of that in your post.

So my point about relative levels of intelligence remains - e.g. cell, mouse, human, super AI. Like night is different to day.

Go figure a measurement scale if you wish but that wasn't necessary for my point or my need, i.e. that superinteligent AI will be a gross difference compared to human, in the same way that a human is to mouse.

 

The only reason why the temperature example works is because there is an independent, objective standard of temperature. If there was none, then it would be impossible to tell whether hot for one observer is the same as cold for another. You still haven't shown where an analogous standard exists wrt intelligence.

 

Aw gee baum - cell, mouse, human - they have different degrees of intelligence, right?

Take it from there.