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Topic: The Characterization of Intelligent Causation
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IF
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Member # 1904
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posted 18. April 2007 20:03
LifeEngineer: quote:
No matter how often it is repeated, most people seem to have a very hard time accepting that scientific concepts and properties are formulated and defined by human scientists.
What other kind of humans are more qualified?
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aiguy
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Member # 3736
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posted 18. April 2007 21:52
"No matter how often it is repeated, most people seem to have a very hard time accepting that scientific concepts and properties are formulated and defined by human scientists."
"What other kind of humans are more qualified?"
One might also ask, what other types of scientists? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Zarathustra
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Member # 3407
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posted 19. April 2007 00:48
quote:
LifeEngineer: However, every serious and competent scientist recognizes that any objective scientific definition of intelligence must be in terms that can be applied to phenomena other than human behavior.
Please name one of the scientists who has actually presented such a definition, and give a web link to his work. If you can't do this, Life Engineer, I will have to take your claim as another one of the fabrications that you present in order to mislead our readers here. Your next post will resolve this issue.
Since there are a large number of serious and competent scientists at work in this field, I am sure that it will not trouble you too much to make good on your claim, surprising though it is.
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zokj
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Member # 4936
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posted 19. April 2007 06:58
aren't men the source for intelligent causation? that from varied opinion "truth" is obtained and that it is asserted by the fallibility of our reasoning in that we humans are always going to intelligently try to explain ourselves out of the potential pitfalls of our present reasoning.
i guess my argument is that we are sources for new information based on the subjectivity of our fallibility.
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Zarathustra
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Member # 3407
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posted 19. April 2007 08:51
quote:
Zokj: aren't men the source for intelligent causation?
Not yet, apparently. In the past, ignorant desert nomads found many things too difficult to understand, and therefore enlisted the aid of imaginary super-beings to provide an explanation. Fortunately for everyone else, human knowledge expanded to give sufficient naturalistic explanations for things like weather, disease, and planetary motion. This in no way daunted the supporters of the Theory of Imaginary Beings, since those entities could simply be re-purposed as a solution to successively more arcane and immaterial problems.
The apex of such a strategy is seen right here. Since the advocates of "Intelligent Design" themselves can neither explain nor understand the proposition they have posited, it is guaranteed that their favourite non-existent entity will be granted permanent tenure as an alternative to rational explanation.
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zokj
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Member # 4936
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posted 19. April 2007 09:01
i think the collision of these two theories is what Marx called "human emancipation"
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 19. April 2007 11:25
quote:
Fortunately for everyone else, human knowledge expanded to give sufficient naturalistic explanations for things like weather, disease, and planetary motion.
Zarathustra, could you define “sufficient” and “explanation” scientifically so that all reasonable researchers will agree?
-Mel
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LifeEngineer
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Member # 3446
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posted 19. April 2007 11:50
Human scientists ‘define’ concepts like intelligence. Human scientists don’t just describe what they observe. Science does not suggest that intelligence is some type of abstraction existing in the world independent of the definitions created by human scientists. Most people, including apparently most of the posters on this thread, have a very hard time accepting that abstractions like intelligence and gravity are created or invented by scientists.
The fact that aiguy and IBM and lots of other people would like to see intelligence limited to a mental process occurring only in humans and Gods (and maybe aliens) is absolutely meaningless from a scientific perspective.
Scientists can and do define intelligence and intelligent causation in terms of results and in terms of logical abstract mathematical processes. These scientists don’t need and don’t look for the approval of IBM or aiguy or some peer review process in developing and using a definition of intelligence.
There can be and are legitimate disputes about types of intelligence. One scientist, for example, might define results based intelligence in terms of ‘chess playing ability’ and a second scientist might define results based intelligence in terms of ‘ability to design objects that fly’. A lot of time and effort can be wasted arguing about whether it is acceptable to compare human and computer chess playing intelligence or whether it is legitimate to compare human and biological engineering intelligence. The relevant point is that if a scientist defines intelligence in terms of chess playing, then human and computer chess playing intelligence are measured and evaluated against the same standard and definition of intelligence. Similarly, if a scientist defines intelligence in terms of engineering design intelligence then human engineers and biological systems can be measured and evaluated against the same standards and definition of intelligence.
Most practical definitions of intelligence are task specific. Typically, intelligence or intelligent causation is defined in terms of some task like performance in school, playing chess, translating text, walking, or solving complex engineering problems. Generally, there is no dispute that task specific definitions and measures of intelligence should be applicable to both humans and non-humans. There is also no dispute that the intelligent processes in humans are not identical to intelligent processes in computers or in non-human biological processes.
Again, there is no substantive dispute in real science that objective task specific definitions of intelligence can be developed and applied to phenomena other than human behavior. While scientists are certainly not going to reject the possibility that there MIGHT BE substantive differences between human and non-human intelligence, there is no hard evidence supporting the assertion of substantive or material differences.
Once you go from the question of task specific intelligence to the question of general or universal intelligence you get into some different issues which I will address in a separate post.
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2ndclass
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Member # 1979
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posted 19. April 2007 13:45
Zarathustra: quote:
Please name one of the scientists who has actually presented such a definition, and give a web link to his work.
Zarathustra, LE's religion prohibits him from providing references. Please be more sensitive to that in the future.
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Daniel Smith
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Member # 3004
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posted 19. April 2007 14:57
aiguy:
quote:
What you are talking about is not causation by "intelligent agents", but rather causation by "human beings". You pretend that there is a whole class of things called "intelligent agents", and that we can all agree on what things belong to this class and what things do not. But that is simply not the case. Since you can't give me a way to decide, for any X, if X is an intelligent agent or not, then you can't use the concept as a scientific explanation of anything.
That is the basic question:
Are there now, or have there ever been any other intelligent agents besides humans?
And if so, how would we go about determining that?
The only way I know of is through the perfectly reasonable (and scientific) comparison of analogous characteristics of the artifacts in question to artifacts known to be the result of intelligent causation.
This type of comparison is done all the time in science. Archaeologists compare artifacts of unknown origin to artifacts of known origin and determine - not only their human origin - but also what tribe or class of people produced them. Biologists also utilize this method in the classification of new found species. Features are compared with known species and the origin of the new species is mapped.
What we are up against here is the mapping of features that have no conceivable natural precursors, but which do share many analogous characteristics with human designs. From things like DNA, and the inner workings of the cell to complex organs such as the human brain, or the mammalian eye; the more we learn, the more we are forced to use human engineering terms in the description of their functions.
Just pick up any molecular biology textbook or read any paper that deals with complex biological systems; the analogies to human systems are plentiful throughout (and the attempts to explain the origin of these systems via chance mutations become more and more forced and feeble).
The truth is, what we are dealing with here is technology of the highest kind. LifeEngineer and I both agree that the best definitions of "intelligent causation" have to do with the ability to solve problems. Any careful study of the solutions utilized at life's molecular level reveals an ingenuity that makes your head swim!
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Daniel Smith
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Member # 3004
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posted 19. April 2007 15:03
Zarathustra:
quote:
Give me an example of intelligent causation (other than by humans or animals) in which the "intelligence" of the phenomenon can be verified.
Whatever caused the phenomenon of overlapping genes must have been intelligent.
Whatever caused protein synthesis must have been intelligent.
That's two. If you have another, better explanation for the origin of these things, please share it.
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aiguy
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Member # 3736
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posted 19. April 2007 15:37
Daniel,
quote:
That is the basic question: Are there now, or have there ever been any other intelligent agents besides humans?
Daniel, are there now, or have there even been, any other interesting things besides humans?
What's that? You need to know what interesting means? But everybody knows what that means! Obviously humans are interesting... can't you provide an objectively verifiable answer to my question?
Don't you see, you can't possibly even ask these sorts of questions until you provide a means to decide when things are interesting - or intelligent. Take Darwinian evolution, for example. This is a process that incorporates negative feedback, and so by the definitions we use in cybernetics, evolution is purposeful and works toward a goal (the goal of producing species which optimally reproduce in their environments). Evolution also learns (since it preserves successful adaptations), and responds to changes in the environment. So if we happened to think that purposeful, responsive behavior and learning qualifies something as being intelligent, then Darwinian evolution itself is intelligent!
quote:
And if so, how would we go about determining that?
Determining what???
quote:
From things like DNA, and the inner workings of the cell to complex organs such as the human brain, or the mammalian eye; the more we learn, the more we are forced to use human engineering terms in the description of their functions.
Yes, but we know that humans did not engineer the eyeball or the flagellum or the brain. The question, once again, is how are you attempting to characterize whatever it was that caused these things? If it wasn't a human, then what was it? Saying it is "intelligent" simply does not tell us anything, since all you mean is it was capable of doing what we observe.
quote:
The truth is, what we are dealing with here is technology of the highest kind. LifeEngineer and I both agree that the best definitions of "intelligent causation" have to do with the ability to solve problems. Any careful study of the solutions utilized at life's molecular level reveals an ingenuity that makes your head swim!
You need not convince of me of the wonder of biology. But saying "intelligent causation" is "the ability to solve problems" isn't going to cut it. Evolutionary processes solves problems, as we can demonstrate in the laboratory. Are you saying that evolutionary processes are intelligent?
Please don't make the mistake of arguing that evolution couldn't generate the complexity we see - that is not my point. My point is that if your definition of intelligence is "solving problems", then ID's "intelligent causation" would include evolutionary processes!
[ 19. April 2007, 17:30: Message edited by: aiguy ]
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2ndclass
Member
Member # 1979
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posted 19. April 2007 16:02
quote:
Daniel, are there now, or have there even been, any other interesting things besides humans?
Of course there are. Here's the reasoning:
1) Humans are interesting.
2) There are things of non-human origin that have similarities to human artifacts.
3) Therefore, whatever made those things must be interesting.
By the same logic, whatever made those things must also be bipedal and mammalian.
Edited to Add:
Daniel may object to the application of his argument to properties like bipedality, since there is no causal connection between humans' bipedality and the "human-like" nature of their artifacts. If so, I would say that his objection is valid, but that it also applies to intelligence. Until Daniel tells us what intelligence is and explains why it's a necessary condition for the creation of human-like artifacts, his argument can't be applied to intelligence any more than it can be applied to bipedality.
[ 19. April 2007, 18:48: Message edited by: 2ndclass ]
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zokj
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Member # 4936
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posted 19. April 2007 20:24
"Whatever caused the phenomenon of overlapping genes must have been intelligent.
Whatever caused protein synthesis must have been intelligent.
That's two. If you have another, better explanation for the origin of these things, please share it."
Daniel, aren't you saying that our inevitable explanation of the phenomenon will be intelligent not necessarily the mechanism itself?
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aiguy
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Member # 3736
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posted 19. April 2007 21:35
2ndclass, Daniel -
quote:
Daniel may object to the application of his argument to properties like bipedality, since there is no causal connection between humans' bipedality and the "human-like" nature of their artifacts. If so, I would say that his objection is valid, but that it also applies to intelligence. Until Daniel tells us what intelligence is and explains why it's a necessary condition for the creation of human-like artifacts, his argument can't be applied to intelligence any more than it can be applied to bipedality.
Ah, but most people would agree intelligent might just mean "able to create human-like artifacts". Isn't that so, Daniel? Isn't that why you call humans intelligent - because they are able to do things like build complicated machines?
Ok, then - we have our definition of intelligence: It means "can create complicated machinery". I'm fine with that; I have no trouble here with identifying complex machines, and we'll agree that anything that can build a complex machine is, by definition, intelligent. Does that sound reasonable? Fine, good. It seems reasonable to me too.
Now, let's take a look at what ID claims: "Complex biological machinery is best explained by intelligence". That is what you think, right? We now have a good definition of intelligence, and a clear statement of what ID is saying.
Daniel, can you see the problem here? Subsitute your definition of intelligence for the word in that sentence:
"Complex biological machinery is best explained by that which can create complex machinery".
Do you agree that this is a completely empty proposition? We might as well explain the formation of black holes by "that which can create black holes", or the existence of crop circles by "that which can cause crop circles".
How does anybody take ID seriously?
[ 19. April 2007, 21:36: Message edited by: aiguy ]
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