Define Intelligence

It's based on a serious topic, with reasonable serious contribution, but that 1 which I made a comment to ?

Jack wrote:
"Intelligence is the ability to understand Nature in good Time, by using knowledge and concepts stored in a memory."

This is certainly evidence of intelligence. But it can perhaps be said that both nature and time are concepts created by intelligence, and that is problematic if the above is to be a definition.

So far, the best description I have been able to arrive at is that intelligence = information.

Usually autistic savants are precived as utterly stupid, even though they have immense knowledge, the thing is that they don't have any rationallity to use it nor rationallity to precive things in it's right context ..so information/knowledge by itself is useless.

The only thing we know about autistic savants is that they are unable to communicate advanced information to "normal" people.
And the thing they sometimes display is incredible intelligence. Their lack of communication skills is what leads you percieving them as utterly stupid, when they may be the most intelligent of us all...

Yes, some ..but some are not all.

You forgot Get Smart! (comic intelligence)

Hey, you missed "street-wise intelligence." LOL

I think your list is complete!

Thanks Cyracuz.
I appreciate that comment. Time certainly is an abstract concept. Nature i assert is not a concept. Nature the dictionary term is a concept, just like the term 'sea'. But, both, 'sea' and 'nature' exists in reality, and in actual sense of the term.

It is good you brought in concepts in to this, this would help in clarifying the terms used and perhaps help further refine the definition.

Intelligence as normally thought of the conflation of three abilities, learning, reasoning, and creativity.

Learning is the ability to take in and understand information.
Reasoning is the ability to take that information and extrapolate true consequences.
Creativity is the ability to come up with your own information.

Notably, once understood, there's clearly no barrier to machine intelligence.
However, AI should not be confused with AC - artificial consciousness.

I think thats also a pretty good explanation. But i suspect that as it appears that it i s a property of the intellect - a faculty of the mind.

There may be some confusion between the capability of the intellect and the description or definition of intelligence.

Since I find them legitimately identical, I can't agree that it's confusion. Care to elaborate?

I tend to visualize it like this: In animal there is instinct and action. Man is animal. But in man something has come to be in between instinct and action. Intellect. For an animal, external events causes an emotional response which the animal then acts on. Man has the ability to consider the emotional urge and decide wether or not to act on it.
The fact that people have this ability in varying degree, and that we know of certain other animals that exhibit behaviour indicating at least a degree of intelligence, is to me indicative that intellect is something that develops gradually through unconscious observation of the interaction between emotion and action. Thus the concept of self manifests long before the individual becomes aware of it, making a definition to something that is so closely related to "self" very problematic.

In my opinion

I'm not so sure that we can separate emotion and action.

We can with intellect, but I am not sure if the distinction we can make is valid to anyone that doesn't have a similar intellect.

I see many judges and lawyers do that. You should know the term "Devils Advocate" whom will defend even the most hineous crimes committed.

I would like to explain my position a bit further. I should admit that i may not be succesful as i am not good at teaching things as an academic would be able to. I therfore seek your help and insight also, as we go along.

First, there is a general agreement on the fact that 'intelligence' cannot be accurately described as is also evident by perusing this thread alone. Therefore, at the outset we need to converge on a common perspective. A difficult task, you may agree, but not impossible if there is integrity and honesty. If we can approach this problem from a common fundamental POV, then, at least we may see it clearly enough but may be due to want of words may differ on exact definitions.

Let me pick up from your observation. You are of the view that both are identical. It does appear to be so. But i am afraid it is not so. Intellect is a faculty that processes information, and does a whole lot of things. This gives results in what we term as intelligence. To put it simply, intelligence is the product of the intellect. I hope this is simple.

However, and we need to be careful here, it is not necessary that intelligence is dependent upon the intellect. 'Intelligence' can be shown to exist in the most minutest or invisible of beings like the bacteria or germ-cells. In fact, i had argued in another fora, that intelligence make well be replaced by the term 'life'. Without intelligence no life can exist. Intellect on the other hand is an advancement seen in the mammallian species and helps no doubt in comprehending complex issues, problems and mysteries. Intelligence should not be confused by the stimulant-reaction theory.

Intelligence of course as a concept has a positive spin to itself as humans perceive it to be. In a general sense we humans think intelligence means the ability to survive, but with my approach i tend to think intelligence to be without any attributes neither negative or positive. It is concomitant to life. If we are thinking of life, we are thinking of intelligence.

Very insightful.

Please also look at my reply in the intelect-intelligence binary to another post above. let me know your thoughts. Thanks

HH, Are lawyers human? Don't they do everything in their power to win - even at the expense of the victims.

They'r daywalkers!

It is a really nice chain of thought.

I am fond of the idea that intelligence is inevitable where there is life, that they are virtually the same. The most common objection is that a tree is alive, but not intelligent. The tree is perhaps not conscious, but is consciousness a premise for intelligence? Can the "reactions" of the tree to external events be described in terms of intelligence? It depends on how widely you want to interpret the concept. I think that the wider you go the less practical meaning it has.

But there's also quantum consciousness, the idea that intelligence is the only thing that exists, that everything is just consciousness of which the physical world is merely a manifestation. It is described in terms of quantum physics, with "reality" merely as a not-quite-happening state of probability until a quantum measurement, which would be a sensory impression, is made. It is the act of measurement being made that makes one out of all the probable realities manifest. I don't know precicely what I think about it myself, though it certainly is interesting.