N.Wells
Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005
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Oh good, the diagram again.
As one example of Gary's muddles, intelligence does not require the ability to "guess". A guess in terms of bacteria alternating random tumbles with straight-line travel, or even his bug doing a random walk until a better option comes along, does not require intelligence. What may require intelligence is the ability to apply past experience in deciding how to respond to a new stimulus. The prior experience could have been the result of a considered (i.e. intelligent) guess, but also of a stochastic/random decision or an externally imposed experience. Chemotaxis, phototaxis, and the like are not learned and considered responses: they are just the output of biochemical pathways.
Although the earliest mobile creatures may have allocated some neurons in some sort of one-to-one correspondence with reality, it is unclear that this is necessary: over uniform and featureless sea floor if the food is moving or you are tumbling and have no useful landmarks, a one-to-one map is not very useful. Refined infaunal deposit feeding does not need a map, but it does benefit from an algorithm that covers the maximum volume within a zone of food concentration with the least wasted movement. This is more likely to use an evolved algorithm than on-the-fly analytical geometry. For a mobile critter that is hunting mobile food, what is more useful than a map and constantly re-evaluating prior experience and confidence levels is an algorithm for constantly resensing any signal of food, and heading toward the strongest signal for a while, with continued resensing and refinement until you get to it. Evaluating confidence levels based on prior experience and application of mental maps need not be relevant: "last year, my food item turned left here" is not helpful, especially compared to "he's moved - I now see him to the left of straight ahead".
Also we are still waiting for answers to fundamental questions like "what are the units of intelligence" and "how do we measure it" (as well as your opinions about poor old Bob). Also, just for grins, how does your definition of intelligence permit the existence of an intelligent god, Gary?
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