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Author
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Topic: The Origin of Intelligence
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RalphW
Member
Member # 116
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posted 27. March 2002 00:03
In a purely naturalistic worldview, intelligence must necessarily be entirely a product of natural causes. If this is true, then the phrase "intelligent design" is simply a convenient shorthand for a kind of natural process with distinctive results, and talk about "the appearance of design" is unnecessary, since there is no ground for distinguishing between the appearance of natural design and the reality.
It has frequently been asked, however, whether natural processes are adequate to account for intelligence. Experimentally, the creation of anything resembling intelligence has thus far required a sophisticated engineering effort unlike anything we could expect to occur naturally. Philosophically, there is a question of whether a process determined entirely by natural causes could ever provide credible knowledge about the universe. As C. S. Lewis pointed out, the more confident we are that we can account for a person's thinking as the result of mechanical or environmental causes, the less seriously we are likely to take it. To say "you only think that because..." is to discredit a person's thinking. An analogy I have used before is to compare the relationship of one's intelligence to one's brain with the relationship between the meaning of a book and its materials (the paper, ink, binding, etc.). Though each influences the other, neither is explained by the other, and attempts to do so commit a category error.
If this distinction (or one like it) is valid, then natural causes are not causually adequate to account for intelligence. In that case, some being outside of nature is required account for intelligence. Such a being might well account for other features of terrestrial biology as well.
What evidence can we supply to support either side of this argument? Either experimentally or philosophically, what can we say with confidence about the source and cause of intelligence?
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Micah Sparacio
Member
Member # 6
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posted 31. March 2002 17:36
RalphW,
This is an important question, and I'm glad you brought it up. If I recall, there was another thread on which a discussion developed around the relevancy of specified complexity if one of the chance/law hypothesis in the reference class of relevant possibilities included the chance/law origination of the human intellect. After all, intelligence would then be enveloped in chance/law.
The words I type here, as distinctive as they may seem in contrast to our "normal" encounters with chance/law, nontheless, could possibly be traced back to a very slow and painful origin that involved the random change of our genome and lots and lots of deaths.
If this is indeed the case, then it calls into question the very nature of intelligence. Should intelligence be considered as an alternative explanatory device to chance and law? Or should we develop some notion of intelligence as "chance, one step removed" and by doing so reduce intelligent causation back into the two pronged explanatory device of modern science (law/chance)?
I think that even if the origin of intelligence is best explained by evolutionary development (the typical story of a neural system providing an organism with a better method for interpreting and responding to its environment, progressively honing in on more complex neural features, developing a central processing unit or multiple processing units, and consciousness ultimately being the "function of the brain") then we still ought to treat it as a unique type of chance/law explanation. In fact, the human intellect is capable of producing things with unique characteristics and features (which law/chance do not repeatedly produce in the same time frame). This should not be disputed. Even if we grant the evolutionary development of human intelligence, we can still identify the unique features of this intelligence and at the same time develop a general set of properties that would identify any object/system which was produced by an intellect which is similar within a certain qualitative and/or quantitave range to the human intellect.
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LePlage
Member
Member # 221
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posted 03. April 2002 16:00
Micah,
for whatever it´s worth I think that your conclusion is reasonable.
If nothing else I believe that there is strong pragmatic reasons for not reducing intelligent causes to pure chance/law explanations. If there´s no intelligent causation then it´s hard to imagine the difference between a peer-reviewed article in Nature and a blob of ink on a paper.
One major question, I believe, for those who studies complex systems is the question of conscioussness and intelligence. I think that investigation unburdened by traditional reductionism could prove fruitful. Could it be that there actually exists irreducible principles that emerge from the complexities from the neural system? Do these principles imply top-down causation and thus true intelligence?
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Mike Gene
Member
Member # 149
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posted 04. April 2002 23:25
We use our brains to analyze the brain. After all, which is the real brain? The examined or the examiner? - Sakire Pogun
[ 04 April 2002, 23:26: Message edited by: Mike Gene ]
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complex
Member
Member # 259
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posted 29. April 2002 21:17
A mechanical description of any system cannot have an "I" in it. Because which part of the system would support the "I" and which part not? Saying that any part or set of parts understands an idea makes no sense linguistically. See the postings on "What is intelligence".
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warren_bergerson
Member
Member # 262
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posted 05. May 2002 07:26
Ralph W,
RW: It has frequently been asked, however, whether natural processes are adequate to account for intelligence. Experimentally, the creation of anything resembling intelligence has thus far required a sophisticated engineering effort unlike anything we could expect to occur naturally. Philosophically, there is a question of whether a process determined entirely by natural causes could ever provide credible knowledge about the universe.
Your question might be reformulated as ‘Is or was there some naturally occurring intelligence which is capable of creating other more sophisticated intelligence which creates more sophisticated intelligence until it reaches the point of creating the complexity and design we observe in nature today?
This question can in turn be divided into two questions- 1.Are there forms of intelligence capable of generating more complex, more sophisticated forms of intelligence? and 2. Does there exist, or has there ever existed, a naturally occurring, non-living form or this ‘self-improving’ intelligence.
It would suggest that
1. There is a mathematical/logical form of intelligence which can in theory operate to improve or redesign itself.
2. There are at least 2 and possibly four major examples of this ‘self improving intelligence’. [The two clear examples are from ‘cellular intelligence to nervous system intelligence and from nervous system intelligence to human intelligence].
3. Although we do not currently know if self-improving intelligence occurred or occurs in non-living forms, it is possible to identify the criteria that need to satisfied to create self-improving intelligence.
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