andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2002-12-24 11:46 am
andrewducker) wrote2002-12-24 11:46 am
Intelligence
As usual, ideas float around in my head for sodding ages (about 3 years in this case) before someone asks the right question and they get written down...
In this case, the question was "Exactly how do you describe intelligence?"
Basically: The ability to recognise patterns and extrapolate from them.
Of course, these patterns can be mathematical, social, spacial, etc.
I also believe there are two kinds of intelligence:
Inductive: Subconsciously learnt through repetitive exposure to a situation. This is how we learn that "That thing over there" is a "Dog" and "When I let go of things, they fall".
Deductive: The part of the brain that forms rules such as "Dogs have four legs" and "Gravity follows the inverse square law".
All creatures have inductive learning, deductive learning is much less common and humans have the highest level of all animals. Deductive seems to be more complex and difficult to do for people, I suspect because it's being "emulated" using inductive systems, much as when computers want to induct they have to emulate it using deductive systems.
What makes human thinking special is our ability to convert our inductive learning into deductive rules and then pass them along to other people (via speech, writing, etc.). This means we can take our inductive knowledge of "That's a dog and so's that, that too, not that, but that definitely is.", work out the defining characteristics "has 4 legs, goes woof." and then tell other people about those definitions. Then we can communicate using those definitions and be fairly sure that we're talking about the same things.
(This, of course, leads off into areas to do with mistaking the deductive definition with the thing itself, infinite definition regress problems and possibly Godel's incompleteness theorem if you're dealing with logic and language. Not going there right now)
Artificial Intelligence systems are either deductive(for instance, rules-based expert systems) or inductive(neural networks). I believe the next big breakthrough in AI will come when we develop inductive systems that produce rules for deductive systems, followed by the combination of those into a more closely knit whole. I think that the forebrain in humans is primarily concerned with deductive reasoning and acts as a feedback loop/monitoring system for our induction systems, correcting them when they are contradictory and allowing us to make much larger leaps on understanding than would otherwise be possible.
Ever heard someone say "I wasn't thinking." or "What were you thinking?". That's because, while the inductive parts were working fine, the deductive bits were on hold, because they take far too long to come to a conclusion. The more instinctive, inductive parts of the brain can make good first order guesses, usually using heuristics to short-cut to 'reasonable' guesses, and in an emergency you don't have time to do more than that.
The deductive parts of the brain also seem to be those parts that deal best with the abstract - mathematics, philosophy, physics, programming, etc. Deductions necessarily work with abstract concepts, slightly divorced from the more 'real' inductive pictures we have of reality. Some people have a much greater grasp of these abstract ideas and others can't see why people would be interested in topics that don't apply to their daily life and can't see how these topics do apply.
Oh, and sleep is an important part of this - you learn a lot while you're asleep, as your brain processes things you've experience recently and produces the inductive (and possibly deductive) results for you. Studies have shown that (for instance) if you learn to play something on the piano, you'll advance a certain amount in any particular day and then hit a brick wall where practice doesn't help. Sleep on it, however, and try again the next day, and you'll be up to 20% more proficient, because your brain has been processing the learning overnight.
In this case, the question was "Exactly how do you describe intelligence?"
Basically: The ability to recognise patterns and extrapolate from them.
Of course, these patterns can be mathematical, social, spacial, etc.
I also believe there are two kinds of intelligence:
Inductive: Subconsciously learnt through repetitive exposure to a situation. This is how we learn that "That thing over there" is a "Dog" and "When I let go of things, they fall".
Deductive: The part of the brain that forms rules such as "Dogs have four legs" and "Gravity follows the inverse square law".
All creatures have inductive learning, deductive learning is much less common and humans have the highest level of all animals. Deductive seems to be more complex and difficult to do for people, I suspect because it's being "emulated" using inductive systems, much as when computers want to induct they have to emulate it using deductive systems.
What makes human thinking special is our ability to convert our inductive learning into deductive rules and then pass them along to other people (via speech, writing, etc.). This means we can take our inductive knowledge of "That's a dog and so's that, that too, not that, but that definitely is.", work out the defining characteristics "has 4 legs, goes woof." and then tell other people about those definitions. Then we can communicate using those definitions and be fairly sure that we're talking about the same things.
(This, of course, leads off into areas to do with mistaking the deductive definition with the thing itself, infinite definition regress problems and possibly Godel's incompleteness theorem if you're dealing with logic and language. Not going there right now)
Artificial Intelligence systems are either deductive(for instance, rules-based expert systems) or inductive(neural networks). I believe the next big breakthrough in AI will come when we develop inductive systems that produce rules for deductive systems, followed by the combination of those into a more closely knit whole. I think that the forebrain in humans is primarily concerned with deductive reasoning and acts as a feedback loop/monitoring system for our induction systems, correcting them when they are contradictory and allowing us to make much larger leaps on understanding than would otherwise be possible.
Ever heard someone say "I wasn't thinking." or "What were you thinking?". That's because, while the inductive parts were working fine, the deductive bits were on hold, because they take far too long to come to a conclusion. The more instinctive, inductive parts of the brain can make good first order guesses, usually using heuristics to short-cut to 'reasonable' guesses, and in an emergency you don't have time to do more than that.
The deductive parts of the brain also seem to be those parts that deal best with the abstract - mathematics, philosophy, physics, programming, etc. Deductions necessarily work with abstract concepts, slightly divorced from the more 'real' inductive pictures we have of reality. Some people have a much greater grasp of these abstract ideas and others can't see why people would be interested in topics that don't apply to their daily life and can't see how these topics do apply.
Oh, and sleep is an important part of this - you learn a lot while you're asleep, as your brain processes things you've experience recently and produces the inductive (and possibly deductive) results for you. Studies have shown that (for instance) if you learn to play something on the piano, you'll advance a certain amount in any particular day and then hit a brick wall where practice doesn't help. Sleep on it, however, and try again the next day, and you'll be up to 20% more proficient, because your brain has been processing the learning overnight.
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There's a bit in Heinlein's Friday where she's basically persuaded to read an awful lot of books around the subject of plagues and then is woken up at 3am and asked "When and Where will the next plague happen?", which prompts an awful lot of information she didn't even know she'd been thinking about.
I'm much the same. Lots of stuff floating about until someone pulls it out of me. If I could just find someone to pay me for this, I'd be a happy man.
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You've said yourself you never get around to these things, otherwise.
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Damn me and my having had it easy most of my life.
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By the way, nice one. I never thought of intelligence quite in that way. It's funny: You, and a couple of other friends that I know have been enlightening me above and beyond things I've learned yet in this world. I'm thankful to you for it.
Love,
A.
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But it's always a pleasure to be a help to someone :->
V. cool
Also: I would love to get to the point that marines and 'special' military units reach where, when they are in combat or 'on the job', their deductive bits become as instinctive as their inductive and they just act, in the correct manner, without having to think. Of course, I don't want to have to do all the running through forests at 3am on no sleep and a mouse cracker with a person on my back stuff to get there.
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find.
read.
report.
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(Anonymous) 2002-12-28 04:55 am (UTC)(link)‘The deductive parts of the brain also seem to be those parts that deal best with the abstract’: from the way you, Andrew, communicate (the words you use when expressing yourself) it is evidence that the reason that you can process abstract concepts is that you process primarily visually - you create images for yourself in order to process those abstracts. The reason that many others cannot grasp these ideas is just that – they process kinaesthetically and as such do not have anything to ‘grasp’ onto.
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Most of the time I dream/think in something I can only equate to Morrison/Wilson's emotional/intellectual aggregates. I have gestalt 'intuits' whereby I grasp some idea. I tend to think in words most of the time (I think because I grew up reading, not looking) and have a tendency not to form visual representations. When people said "What does Frodo look like to you?", for instance before the film came out, I had no answer, because I'd literally never tried to imagine his actual being.
It may be that I communicate more visually than not, possibly because I read more visual-tendency writers than kinaesthetic-tendency writers. Or it could be that I have a slight tendency that way. Or it could be your prejudices colouring your view of my explanations. I'll think about it.
'What makes human thinking special is our ability to convert our inductive learning into deductive rules' – this surely is the ability to reason
I'd disagree. Reasoning, I'd say, is the process of deduction, whereby we take our premises and perform logical operations upon them in order to reach our conclusions. I was talking of the stage whereby our internal understanding is converted into these premises in the first place, which I don't think is what most people think of as reasoning.
I'd definitely agree that the more you know, the more you can know - your previous knowledge gives you a context into which you can place your knew knowledge. I grew up reading all sorts of books which went way over my head. I'd happily skim areas which made no sense and assume that I'd work it out later on (or pick up enough to keep me happy). I know several people who give up if they don't understand everything right off, and I think this is an unhealty attitude to have been taught.
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(Anonymous) 2002-12-28 09:55 am (UTC)(link)Meanwhile, are we not taking premises and performing logical operations upon them when converting inductive thinking to deductive thinking? The argument therefore is whether a ‘premise’ is formed as a result of inductive thinking – or are you saying that reason is going one step further from deductive thinking? What do I deduce from this? Be reasonable!
Garthmyl
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Inductive thinking is, in the way that I mean it, entirely subconscious. You perceive things often enough that associations become apparent and you learn to recognise "Dog" when you see one. But there are no rules associates with this recognition (or at least no conscious ones, obviously the neurons are following rules of a sort).
I don't know if you've studied any neural networking, but basically, you have a set of inputs, a web of interconnections which are weighted in various ways, and a set of outputs. Something adjusts the weightings until a given input produces the expected output (i.e. seeing a dog causes the "Dog" output to be set to "True".) Obviously, this is a gross simplification, and in the human brain there's no "Dog" output per se, but hopefully you get the idea. Anyway, the process by which the weights are adjusted is not conscious at all (it can't be), although I currently tend towards the idea that the deductive part of the brain has a strong affect here, telling the inductive part/weight setter when it's going out of whack or producing impossible output.
The conversion of inductive thinking to deductive could, I suppose, be logical in some way, but I can't imagine how it could be deductive, as we don't actually have any premises to act upon at this point. I don't think there is any real understanding of the process at this point.
I do take your point about my visual metaphors. I caught myself with a few of them when I was writing this (and almost certainly missed a few). I think I'll try and cut them out as much as possible, as an experiment. I think (and I'm not sure about this) that what it is is that while I do think at least partially visually, I'm also very aware that what's happening is that concepts are being triggered, and then interpreted visually. So, for instance, when I imagine a chess board, I'm aware that what's happening is that I'm holding up an internal piece of paper with the words "Chess Board" on it, of which there is no detail beyond the most general.
Thanks for all the comments. I thoroughly enjoy talking to someone else about this kind of thing and I'm very aware that I won't hone my ideas without someone to point out where I'm being unclear or just plain wrong. I have an LJ invite code left, if you want an account. Then it would email you and let you know when I commented on things you said.
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‘The conversion of inductive thinking to deductive could, I suppose, be logical in some way, but I can't imagine how it could be deductive, as we don't actually have any premises to act upon at this point. I don't think there is any real understanding of the process at this point’
There actually is research that has been done. It is maintained that automatic recognition (induction) happens when information passes through the limbic system. Emotional content of the information is registered (as is familiarity) – and the reason it is perceived as being unconscious is that it happens so fast that the conscious mind hasn’t time to assimilate what is going on. If you know anything about the brain, you know that different parts of the brain process different elements of information. Any stimulus that reaches these different parts of the brain is then ‘converted’ into conscious awareness.
Given this information it could be that inductive thinking is also deductive thinking, but that our brains do not have time to recognise it as such.
Apropos of visual processing – it is an interesting exercise to express oneself using neutral language. Thus visual, kinaesthetic or auditory adjectives and adverbs do not figure. Not easy to do(for me at least). And that you are holding up an internal piece of paper with the words ‘Chess Board’ on it still indicates that you are visualising….
Anyway, the NLP book, which is on its way, will give you more insight into the way our unconscious processing preferences are expressed through our language.
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These latter are, however, as you say, conscious acknowledgements rather than unconscious.
So far, agreed. Although I should probably make it clear that I think that most of our actions are 'chosen' by the subconscious, with the conscious mind being informed shortly afterwards. But that's a digression.
I was definitely visualising me holding up a piece of paper. But it's not actually what I use as my own internal metaphor. My own internal metaphors all tend to be flow-chart or process based (due to my computer background, almost certainly). I do tend to translate my internal metaphors when speaking to other people, because I know that most people don't understand computers and are instantly put off by any mention of them.
By strange coincidence I was reading a recent issue of New Scientist this morning, which has an article on the effects of language on thought, and manages to be 3 pages long without once mentioning the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. There still seems to be an awful lot of argument over how much effect it has, but I'm hoping for some kind of agreement over, say, the next 30 years :->
I'll look forward to the book arriving, and that will almost certainly prompt barrage of questions.
Thanks!