Well, one question I can answer (assuming it is intended as a question
and not as rhetoric, emerges near the bottom of this comedy of errors:
"what kinda business are you in, doc?"
ANSWER: I am a neuropsychologist (both clinical and experimental); in
terms of livelihood, I am in the rehab business, i.e. am a member of
the General Medical Staff of a physical rehabilitation hospital (our
patients include those with stroke, traumatic brain injury, MS,
epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and a few other neurological disorders
particularly relevant to brain function, as well as conditions such as
arthritis, pulmonary and/or cardiac problems, spinal cord injury,
etc.).
My research "business" (funded by my hospital) includes presentations
of my findings and my theories mainly to the International
Neuropsychological Society, and to the Society for Neuroscience;
occasionally to other groups.
Unpaid "business" includes presidency of the New York Neuropsychology
Group and various positions in several sections of The New York Academy
of Sciences. Among other things, this involves selecting distinguished
speakers in a wide variety of areas in neuroscience, neuropsychology,
and (recently) psycholinguistics, choosing themes for and organizing
conferences (e.g. last year's "Neuropsychology and the Neuroimmune
Dialogue", for which NYU granted continuing education credits for
physicians and APA granted CE credits for psychologists).
NYNG webpage: www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/6117/index.html
NYAS webpage: www.nyas.org
As for the rest: I have no interest in defining "intelligence". Some
people have an implicit notion of something or other which they for
various historical reasons like to call "intelligence", but which
cannot be discussed meaningfully unless and until they define it
explicitly. I am lampooning the naive assumptions that there is some
"thing" or some "process" or some "whatever" called intelligence, and
that it is our job to discover what it is--or, in the case of some poor
earnest and confused souls (v. infra), that it is their job to tell
people what it" is or is not.
It is one thing to rhapsodize over the unfathomable mystery of life and
to assert that it is beyond analysis or replication, but quite another
thing to do the hard work of discovering even the smallest part of
exactly HOW living creatures cope with their environments
"intelligently". The extent to which we can understand these
processes, and the extent to which we can devise systems which can
duplicate some aspects of these processes is to be empirically
determined. An a priori rejection of the enterprise suggests an
implicit definition which I can only suspect (the definition being
implicit and inferred, not made explicit) is a simple tautology:
"Intelligence is intelligence; further "clarified" or "elaborated" as
"intelligence is the intelligence of living beings; the intelligence of
nonliving beings is not intelligence".
WHATEVER "intelligence" is, by your (so far implicit), this offers no
hope of understanding it; if understanding it rather than rhapsodizing
over it is your intent, this is a poor start.
F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
In <7lv2g1$ka9$1 at its.hooked.net> Bloxy's at hotmail.com (Bloxy's) writes:
>>In article <7ludt3$3si at dfw-ixnews11.ix.netcom.com>,
flefever at ix.netcom.com(F. Frank LeFever) wrote:
>>>Well, I do recognize that by-now-classic insight, right at the
>>beginning of this diatribe: "There is no gravity; the earth sucks".
>>Hey, what a royal opening.
>>>However, I think it goes downhill from there.
>>Sure?
>>>Let me pluck this one thing from the romantic rhapsody: I think I see
>>something like the scandalously
>>What are you, a power maniac?
>>> dishonest use of an implicit (never
>>explicitly defined) concept of "consciousness" (maybe not even a
>>concept, maybe just a sentimental bias) pervading that new growth
>>industry, symposia on "brain and consciousness" (Searles, et al.)
>>Well, may be you suck worse than a black hole?
>Could that be?
>>Would you define it [consciousness]?
>>>Well, sorry for the convlouted sentence or whatever.
>>>He seems to be saying, "you can't analyse or duplicate intelligence,
>>because you just can't.
>>Oh, you talking to me, doc.
>What a royal touch!
>>Nope, that is what YOU are saying.
>What me is saying is that you don't even have a slightest clue of
>what intelligence is, or do you, doc?
>>Forget about "duplicating" it.
>It is unique, non duplicatable.
>>Now, instead of sucking worse than a donkey ass here,
>why don't you pick up zome specific points and argue
>YOUR case?
>>Do i have to remind you? Can't figure it out?
>And you wanna talk about what here?
>>Intelligence?
>>Oki, doki.
>Go ahead.
>>You present yer royal argument,
>but...
>There is a catch here, and a condition attached:
>Either you take what i said and present yer royal views
>on the subject, or point out flaws, or move yer active
>neurons a little bit,
>cause you have no case right now from what you presented here,
>or you just get lost in the depts of this giant sucking machine.
>>All you got is pure horseshit, or did i miss something?
>>Where is yer sucky case?
>>> I don't care how intelligent it seems to be,
>>if it's not natural intelligence, it really isn't!"
>>No, you donkey.
>I say:
>>1. There is not a single example of intelligence but in nature.
>>2. Even the arguments you derive or present are based on biological
>intelligence.
>>3. The only tools you have are those, rooted in biological
intelligence.
>>4. What you call intelligence is not intelligence,
>but a functional mechanical level,
>invalid as a general case for intelligence.
>>5. Your notions of intelligence can not be proven to provide
>the reasons to be, to exist and to continue as entity.
>The most fundamental principles, assuring your very survival,
>are missing, and once they are missing,
>there is simply no impetus to be.
>>There are more points, but let us see yer royal comments first.
>>> And then he goes
>>on about how wonderful it all is.
>>IT what?
>What it?
>>What kinda business you are in, doc?
>>One more time:
>You better comment on specific points,
>or get lost in the giant sucking machine.
>>>F. LeFever
>>>In <7lrknh$jqv$1 at its.hooked.net> Bloxy's at hotmail.com (Bloxy's)
writes:
>>>>In article <3781235b at news3.us.ibm.net>, "Sergio Navega"
>><snavega at ibm.net> wrote:
>>>>F. Frank LeFever wrote in message
>><7lr2jg$cdo at dfw-ixnews8.ix.netcom.com>...
>>>>>[commenting on Mentifex diagrams]
>>>>>I wouldn't bother looking beyond the diagrams he posts from time
to
>>>>>time: they are "armchair" or "common sense" notions of how the
brain
>>>>>"should" be organized that show absolutely no sign of being
>>influenced
>>>>>by what we know of actual brain organization on the basis of
>>>>>"experiments of nature" (e.g. lesions due to stroke), formal
>>laboratory
>>>>>studies, experimental cognitive psychology, etc., etc.
>>>>>>Seems to me I saw somebody's comment to the effect that AI systems
>>do
>>>>>not HAVE to mimic natural systems and can stand on their own; but
>>>>>unless more novel/elegant/interesting as pure creations than these
>>>>>simplistic diagrams seem to imply, I see no point in pursuing such
>>>>>schemes even as a hobby or game...
>>>>>>F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
>>>>>New York Neuropsychology Group
>>>>>I largely agree with this opinion. Some years ago, I used to think
>>>>that AI systems should pursue their own destinies, creating
>>algorithms
>>>>without regard to their "biological" counterparts (read: us), just
>>>>by knowing what is required to make a system intelligent. This is,
>>>>in fact, the predominant working model of the majority of the AI
>>>>researchers that came from Computer Science departments.
>>>>>However, it became clear to me that the problem of "intelligence"
is
>>>>much, much more complex than our naive illusions led us to believe.
>>>>>Today I see no point in doing anything related to AI without a
>>>>strong biological plausibility. One line of argument is that we
must
>>>>follow the path of the natural intelligences until we grasp what
>>>>are the core points of intelligence, because we *still* don't know
>>>>what they are. Only after that we will be able to "propose" new
>>>>methods and algorithms to enhance biological intelligence with
>>>>functionally equivalent
>>>>"Functionally equivalent" is a definition, inapplicable to
>>intelligence.
>>>It is the same absurd view of the world, based on a model
>>>of giant sucking machine.
>>>>Unless you can show that the playfulness, art, beauty,
>>>love and plenty of other aspects, are functional,
>>>there is no way to reduce intelligence to a function of ANY kind,
>>>as most exciting aspects of intelligence seem to be quite
>>>"useless" from the standpoing of maximization of the rate os
sucking.
>>>>> (but better) processes.
>>>>And that is just a result of this continuous obsession with
>>>"improvements" of ALL THERE IS,
>>>never quite even beginning to conceive
>>>that it is forever the best it can possibly be,
>>>never quite comrehending the grandiour of it
>>>AS IT IS.
>>>>Before you can even begin to conceive the notions of
>>>"better" processes or whatever you can invent,
>>>first you need to learn to appreciate the glory,
>>>tremendous vastness and multidimensionality of
>>>ALL THERE IS.
>>>>You have not even begun to appreciate what you already posess
>>>and what is already available,
>>>and you don't have even a criteria
>>>opon which you can assert that one alternative is "better"
>>>than the other,
>>>because, first of all,
>>>the systems of logic and reasoning of yours
>>>are incomplete and could be quite misleading
>>>as to the very purpose of it all.
>>>>The rules of enclosure, or reduction of an opent system
>>>to a closed system, do apply to your reasoning,
>>>of which you don't even have any at the moment on this point.
>>>>"Better" is not universal criteria.
>>>It is custom tailored to each individual
>>>from the standpoint of improving the clarity of vision
>>>and getting in touch with the inner validity and grandior
>>>of each entity.
>>>>You are still using the outdated models,
>>>limiting the multi-dimensional ALL THERE IS
>>>into a single dimensional system of evaluation,
>>>which can not be proven to universally hold.
>>>>>This does not preclude experimentation: often we'll have to create
>>>>"strange" things, based on unlikely methods.
>>>>And often you are simply pooled into something.
>>>The "reasonable" observer may say you are craving for something
>>>crazy, endangering your own survival, "asking for trouble",
>>>or all sorts of things,
>>>but you persist.
>>>You can not resist that pool.
>>>>"In fact", creativity, as manifesting aspect of intelligence,
>>>is forever interested and looking at things "out of normal"
>>>scope.
>>>>They jump essentially into nothingness of the "future".
>>>There is absolutely no certainty that they will ever
>>>achive what they intiutively crave for.
>>>Quite often they even starve their entire life,
>>>pursuing that, which they can not avoid,
>>>as they still posess the most necessary element within,
>>>honesty, innosense and love [of life].
>>>>They can not prostitute that, which they FEEL as significant,
>>>for any amount of comfort, the others may posess.
>>>>> What is important is
>>>>not to lose the goal of obtaining plausible results,
>>>>Even a notion of "plausible results" is vague.
>>>>> comparing
>>>>our results with children's ways of learning and adult's methods
>>>>of tackling new problems.
>>>>Yes, children are a very good reference.
>>>They are still uncorrupted, pure.
>>>They still have that necessary innosense,
>>>quriocity, joy of inquiry, regardless of a "reward",
>>>that ugly trick of manipulation,
>>>programmed into these children's minds
>>>from the very early stage.
>>>>>In summary, the road to intelligent systems is too elusive for us
>>>>to waste time with implausible and risky methods: we ought to
follow
>>>>the steps of our brain, the best example of intelligence on Earth.
>>>>And you need to expand that notion of a "brain".
>>>Right now it is just some kind of logic machine.
>>>The most interesting aspects are not even adressed.
>>>>>Sergio Navega.
>>
