Dear FIS colleagues, very briefly stated (ugh, no spare time, devoured by ugly application forms!), I think that quantification as Guy demands can only occur in some small corners of our discussion areas, but not in the fundamental ideas, not well crafted yet. For instance, I take from a recent response of Raquel to Stan the notion of intelligence as "the capability to process information for the purpose of adaptation or problem solving activities. In the case of cells, problems can be caused by the environment, extracellular aggressions, communications, etc." Well, we can quantify (and have already done) the portions of the signaling system involved, their correlation with genome size, etc., but have not developed a good conceptual integration of signaling with transcription ---and to my taste nobody as done yet, as signaling means the "topological governance" of an enormous gene network... I mean, premature emphasis on quantificationmay backtrack and obfuscate on misunderstanding the big picture.
I understand Joseph lamentations, but do not share them, as logical clarification of an intrinsically evolutionary phenomenon --without any major discontinuity-- as intelligence is (at least in my view), becomes too big or too daring an undertaking. To make better sense of the evolutionary phenomenon of intelligence, I suggested "populational thinking" (see msg. below). Now I ad "optimality" to the mix, meaning the presence or better the emergence of collective principles of optimality that guide the distributed processes by the agent populations participating in the game (roughly, optimization principles running within cells, nervous systems, social markets). And a third ingredient , very subtle one, could be labeled as "doctrine of limitation". It refers to consequences of the fundamental limitations of all participants at whatever level to have a "complete" info on the occurring collective game, or a "complete" processing capability. In my view, this is the most difficult and consequential point --besides, it directly militates against the God's view we attribute to scientific observer... we already discussed a little bit about this in Beijing! best wishes ---Pedro Guy A Hoelzer escribió: > Pedro et al., > > My previous cautionary post did not get much traction in this thread, but I > still think my point was an important one to ensure that we are all talking > about the same thing. My point was that “intelligence” in inherently > subjective (in the eye of the beholder), unless we can agree on the criterion > of performance quality. I think this is necessary if we are to jump from > mere information processing (cascades of effects resulting from the input of > information to a system) to a notion of “intelligence”. We could, for > example, define human intelligence as measured by performance on an IQ test. > We could more generally define intelligence in an evolutionary context as > measured by the fitness effects of information processing. I am personally > not a big fan of either of these criteria. John and Pedro seem to suggest > using the degree of “functionality” resulting from information processing as > a general criterion. I am intrigued by this option, although I’m not sure > how functionality can be measured objectively. > > I wonder whether this point did not get much traction previously because > others disagree, or just don’t think it is important. If my point is both > correct and important, then I think we should agree on a sufficiently general > performance criterion for the evaluation of intelligence early in this > thread. Is there a perspective on “intelligence” that would contradict this > point? > > Regards, > > Guy > > > On 11/19/10 4:11 AM, "Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez" > <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> wrote: > > Dear John and FIS colleages, > > I much agree (below) with the return to the biological; also Gordana and > Raquel had already argued along these guidelines. It does not mean that > things become very much clearer initially in the connection between > information and intelligence, but there is room for advancement. Thus, in > Yixin's question, "What is the precise relation between intelligence and > information?", one of the basic aspects to explore becomes "populational > thinking" --not much considered in AI schools (perhaps very secondarily in > the neural networks school. > > In fact, in all realms of intelligence in Nature (cellular, nervous systems, > societies), we find "populations of processing agents". In cells, it is the > population of many millions of enzymes and proteins performing catalytic > tasks and molecular recognition activities --any emphasis in molecular > recognition will get short of the enormous importance this phenomenon has in > biological organization, it is the "alpha and omega" (Shu-Kun-Lin has > produced one of the best approaches to the generality of this phenomenon). > How populations of enzymes achieve an emergent capability of intelligence? > Unfortunately, we can barely answer... (some googling about the term > "cellular intelligence" will show). The discussion on neuronal intelligence > carries a similar problem, as the neurodynamic underpinnings of animal > behavior and animal intelligence still lack a "central theory" (most of the > debate on consciousness is but an uninteresting quagmire)... Finally, a much > debated contemporary topic related with social intelligence deals with the > problem solving capacity of markets. A very extended conception about social > organization hinges in the faith that the creativity of individuals coupled > with the "invisible hand" of markets can solve all problems, climate change > included... given the magnitude of civilization survival problems of today, > the topic of social intelligence deserves some second thoughts. > > Anyhow, the above were just tidbits. Taken seriously, "populational thinking" > can produce a new discourse in the relationship between information and > intelligence. I keep saying what I argued during the Beijing conference, we > need a new way of thinking. > > best regards > > ---Pedro > > > This is a common situation in > biology. In fact I have been told that some > proteins pass through membranes through > successive conformational changes that remove > energy barriers to the transfer, much like the > simple experiment reported in the article. This > has been known for at least 15 years, I think. > Inasmuch as there is functionality here, semiotic > considerations may be relevant in this case. But > not in the case in the article. Intelligence is a > special case of the biological (so far). > Conformational change is even more important and > less dependent on the energetic substrate, and > more on other conformations and their changes (e.g., in inference). > > > > > > The intelligent systems mainly do the same. > > > > > Everything does the same. It is how it is done that is important. > > My best, > John > > > _______________________________________________ > fis mailing list > fis@listas.unizar.es > https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > > -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
