A) Defining intelligence
1. This is the definition of intelligence according to Google search:
- The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
- The collection of information of military or political value. [1]
2. This is the related article of Wikipedia:
Intelligence has been defined in many different ways including as one’s capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, and problem solving. It can be more generally described as the ability or inclination to perceive or deduce information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.
Intelligence is most widely studied in humans, but has also been observed in non-human animals and in plants. Artificial intelligence is intelligence in machines. It is commonly implemented in computer systems using program software.
The definition of intelligence is controversial. Psychology and learning researchers have suggested definitions of intelligence such as (Alexander Wissner-Gross):
“Intelligence is a force F, which acts so as to maximize future freedom of action, or keep options open, with some strength T, with the diversity of possible accessible futures S, up to some future time horizon, τ. In short, intelligence doesn’t like to get trapped.” [2]
B) Intelligence and information
3. For me, intelligence could be identified with the degrees of freedom n available to a system of information I. The degrees of freedom would correspond to the different ways intelligence can deal with the information available. Commonly information is given as the logarithm (either decimal or natural) of the degrees of freedom,
The entropy S of a system is proportional to its informational context,
where kB is Boltzmann’s constant.
Intelligence in turn can be related to the degrees of freedom n by setting,
where we may call the factor Γ, free will.
In order to introduce the physical notion of energy E, we may suppose that information can be given in relation to the energy of the system (instead of the degrees of freedom n),
so that the total energy of the system E0 can be expressed in relation to its informational content plus the degrees of freedom of the system,
Setting
we take
where we may call the constant 𝒞 consciousness. [3]
4. A measure of intelligence commonly used is the IQ. This is a related article:
IQ’s are expressed on a scale with a general population mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15. They refer to scores on adult tests only, by adult norms. The exact cut-offs for the ranges are arbitrary, and one should realize that functioning may depend on more than IQ alone. In addition it is known that IQ has the greatest significance to real-life functioning at its lower and average ranges, and becomes less important as one goes higher; the more you have of it, the less important it gets, just as with money. It is unknown whether IQ’s beyond about 140 have any extra significance.
This is a brief overview of the IQ ranges, according to the same article:
Incidentally I made some modifications to the original table so that the characterizations correspond to the range of the standard deviation (15 in this case). We can also have partial characterizations for the categories below and above average.
5. A significant aspect of IQ’s is that they are normally distributed:
Normal Distribution & IQ Scores
50% of IQ scores fall between 90 and 110 (0.67σ)
70% of IQ scores fall between 85 and 115 (2σ)
95% of IQ scores fall between 70 and 130 (3σ)
99.5% of IQ scores fall between 60 and 140 (4σ).
[5]
According to the previous site, Einstein was considered to have an IQ of about 160.
6. Perhaps more important than the IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is the EQ (Emotional Quotient). The mental and social abilities of a human being are two completely different things. A person can be very clever but autistic or antisocial, while you don’t need to be extremely clever in order to be successful in your career. Also artistic or musical talent cannot be measured with IQ tests.
7. Beyond IQ measurements on a human scale, the advancement of a civilization as a whole can be determined by using the Kardashev scale. According to Wikipedia:
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to use for communication. The scale has three designated categories: a Type I civilization- also called planetary civilization- can use and store energy which reaches its planet from the neighboring star, Type II- also called a stellar civilization- can harness the energy of the entire star (the most popular hypothetic concept being the Dyson sphere), and Type III civilization- also called a galactic civilization- can control energy on the scale of their entire host galaxy. The scale is hypothetical, and regards energy consumption on a cosmic scale. It was proposed in 1964 by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev. Various extensions of the scale have since been proposed, including a wider range of power levels (types 0, IV and V) and the use of metrics other than pure power.
The three levels of civilizations, based on the order of magnitude of power available to them, are:
Type I
Technological level of a civilization that can harness all the energy that falls on a planet from its parent star (for Earth-Sun system, this value is close to 7×1017 Watt), which is more than five orders of magnitude higher than the amount presently attained on Earth, with energy consumption at 4×1012 Watt). This is a civilization with an energy capability equivalent to the solar insolation on Earth.
Type II
A civilization capable of harnessing the energy radiated by its own star- for example, the stage of successful construction of a Dyson sphere- with energy consumption at 4×1026 Watt). This is a civilization capable of utilizing and channeling the entire radiation output of its star.
Type III
A civilization in possession of energy on the scale of its own galaxy, with energy consumption at about 4×1037 Watt. This is a civilization with access to the power comparable to the luminosity of the entire Milky Way galaxy.
Carl Sagan suggested defining intermediate values in Kardashev’s original scale, which would produce the formula
where K is a civilization’s Kardashev rating, and P is the power it uses, in watts.
Using this extrapolation, a ‘Type 0’ civilization would control about 1 MW (106W) of power. In 2012, total world power consumption was on average 17.54 TW (or 0.7244 on Sagan’s- Kardashev scale). Michio Kaku suggested that humans may attain Type I status in 100- 200 years, Type II status in a few thousand years, and Type III status in 100,000 to a million years. [6]
8. This is a table of mine with orders of magnitude, and the type of civilization corresponding to these orders:
[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(mass)]
[3] [http://ixo.gsfc.nasa.gov/resources/Paris2010/22_Porquet.pdf]
[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huge-LQG]
*The value 1054 is hypothetical.
The value 1054 was set one order of magnitude greater than the estimated mass of the observable universe (1052-1053kg) for comparison purposes (so that the values in the 3rd column successively rise by 6 orders of magnitude).
The last column refers to an alternative way with which we might estimate the type of civilization, using the mass equivalent of the energy the civilization consumes (E=Mc2), instead of power (energy per time).
9. If we take for granted the value of 17.54TW≈ 1013W, which was the total world power consumption in 2012, then, the same year, the world total primary energy consumption annual growth rate was 1.5%. [7]
Given the compound interest formula
where here P0 and P(t) are the initial power consumption, and the power consumption after some time t, respectively, while r is the annual growth rate of power consumption, we may estimate when humans will reach the status of a type 2 civilization. A type 2 civilization corresponds to a power consumption of P= 1026W. Setting P0=1013W (starting from the year 2012), and solving the previous equation for t, we have
Therefore, with that annual growth rate, humanity may hopefully become a type 2 civilization in just a couple of thousand years.
10. After having introduced the Kardashev scale, now we will be concerned with the intelligent quotient of extraterrestrial civilizations, what I call ETIQ. This is a related table:
A problem here was to fit the IQ scale into the 3rd row. Here for simplicity I made a slight modification with respect to my original paper, Drake’s equation and Fermi’s paradox, (see link below). In any case the ETIQ can be calculated as the product of the Kardashev type K of a civilization by a factor of 100:
According to this, while by human standards (using the common IQ scale) our ETIQ would be 85-100, by universal standards our ETIQ will be 72.4 (simply the type K= 0.724 of our civilization multiplied by 100).
Cosmic microwave background [8]
Another point we should make is that the common IQ scale is already mitigated. This is because the distribution of IQs may not be exactly symmetrical to the vertical axis, as is the case for any real distribution (see for example the previous graph about the CBMR (Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation). In that sense the value of 100 will be displaced to the right of the mean, while the mean will be lower (than 100).
11. Here is a table with a possible characterization of intelligence on a universal scale:
If our own ETIQ right now is 72.4, corresponding to a type K=0.724 civilization, then we should consider ourselves retarded on a universal scale. This is not too far- fetched. Taking into account that many people still believe that the Earth is flat and that the Sun orbits around the Earth, that people are discriminated according to their skin color, or that we destroy the environment and experiment on other animals for the sake of ‘progress,’ or just eat them, then our IQ as a species may not be greater than 70-85, and probably it is as low as 70 (at the limit of being retarded), as our civilization repeatedly makes the same mistakes, and surrenders to primordial instincts.
This is by comparison with the ETIQ, which may reach 200 for a type 2 civilization, while an IQ above 145 is incompressible to us right now.
12. Some people may suggest that computers will surpass by far the capability of the human mind. However our mind is much more than computational power. Properties such as creativity, ingenuity, predictability, inspiration, fantasy, anticipation are incomprehensible to a computer.
There is a related theorem in mathematics which was formulated by Curt Gödel, the so- called incompleteness theorem. The theorem goes like this:
Suppose you build a computing machine, and you give the order: “You will never say if this sentence is true.” If the sentence is true, then the machine should say that the sentence is false. If it is false, the machine can tell the truth that the sentence is false. So we will never know the correct answer. This is a problem that Gödel introduced, showing that logic is not immune to inconsistencies. Logic is not a ‘perfect machine of truth.’ Gödel even quantified his theorem, which simply says that for each theory Τ there is a sentence G which states that “G cannot be answered by theory Τ.” If G could be proved by the axioms of Τ, then Τ would have a theorem G, which is contradictory, so Τ would be inconsistent. But if Τ is consistent, then G cannot be proved by T, thus T is incomplete.
According to the following article, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is actually comprised of two related but distinct theorems, which roughly state the following:
- Any consistent formal [axiomatic] system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e. there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F.
- For any consistent system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out, the consistency of F cannot be proved in F itself.
The first theorem basically states that all axiomatic systems that are expressive enough to perform elementary arithmetic contain statements that can neither be proved nor disproved within the system itself, i.e. neither the statements nor their negations can be obtained by iteratively applying the inference rules to the axioms. The second theorem states that the question of whether or not an axiomatic system is consistent belongs to those statements that cannot be proved within the system. [9]
13. An early argument about AI stems from the British philosopher John Lucas, put forward in a scientific paper with the title Minds, Machines and Gödel. Lucas argues that, by definition, cybernetical machines (which includes computers in particular) are instantiations of a formal system. Now, since human minds can do arithmetic, a formal system F that adequately models the mind would also have to be capable of doing arithmetic, hence there are true statements that the machine is incapable of producing, but which the mind can. [10]
Basically a computer cannot reproduce the human mind because the latter is more than a simple material object. It seems that human thought operates holistically and non- locally, aspects which we will discuss right now.
G) Emergence of Consciousness
14. How did the universe begin? One might say that it has existed forever. But such an option transposes the problem of creation to infinity. An alternative opinion is that of the multiverse. But again the aspect of many universes of different ages does not explain how the first of them appeared. Of course neither God can solve the problem: If God created the universe then who created God?
One might argue that the universe is a huge time machine which somehow created the conditions of its own existence and then run backwards in time to manifest itself. However we can get rid of a time travel paradox by considering the aspect of simultaneity. This can be shown with the help of the following mechanism of Projection- Reflection:
Here the Mirror is Consciousness itself. We may say that Consciousness projects an image which is reflected back to Consciousness as a real object. The process is simultaneous so that locality (the direction of time) is not violated. [11]
In order to have any kind of realization we need two things to happen simultaneously: An observer and an object which is observed. Without the observer the object cannot be realized. Without the object the observer has nothing to observe. On a fundamental level the observer and the object can be one and the same: Consciousness which projects an image (an object) which is reflected back to itself. Consciousness arises in the whole process.
H) The self- observing universe
15. John Wheeler devised the following sketch in order to illustrate the aspect of a conscious universe:
Ouroboros [12]
He explained the image as follows:
“Symbolic representation of the Universe as a self-excited system brought into being by ‘self-reference.’ The universe gives birth to communicating participators. Communicating participators give meaning to the universe … With such a concept goes the endless series of receding reflections one sees in a pair of facing mirrors.” [13]
But the Universe is just the sum of all things which Consciousness perceives and attributes to itself.
16. According to Pierre Teilhard, the noosphere is the sphere of thought encircling the earth that has emerged through evolution as a consequence of this growth in complexity/ consciousness. The noosphere is therefore as much part of nature as the barysphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. As a result, Teilhard sees the “social phenomenon as the culmination of and not the attenuation of the biological phenomenon.” These social phenomena are part of the noosphere and include, for example, legal, educational, religious, research, industrial and technological systems. In this sense, the noosphere emerges through and is constituted by the interaction of human minds. The noosphere thus grows in step with the organization of the human mass in relation to itself as it populates the earth. Teilhard argued the noosphere evolves towards ever greater personalization, individuation and unification of its elements. He saw the Christian notion of love as being the principal driver of noogenesis. [14]
J) The g factor
17. Apart from the mathematical definitions or philosophical considerations about intelligence, there is the common sense of what finally intelligence might be. This is a related article:
Most of the other answers seem based on popular ideas that are speculative extensions from our current understanding. As someone who takes this topic very seriously I find these such a hindrance to the topic that I will address them first.
Is it valid to say “humans are the only animal who have designed Moon rockets, so we must be the most intelligent”?
Just 10,000 years ago humans began to gather in agricultural civilizations and build permanent structures. Those people were just as human as us today, yet, if anyone took the above argument seriously, they would not recognize our recent ancestors as in the ‘human class of intelligence.’ Worse still, since that time, average human brain size has shrunk. Some explain this as our need for individual intelligence being lowered by the advent of agriculture, the intelligence of the group as a whole thereafter becoming more important to their survival. The point is we underwent a unique transformation after which our accumulative intelligence became uncoupled from that of the individual. Species whose niche prevents them from attaining critical population densities (e.g. because they are very large animals or because they are carnivores) could never undergo this transformation, no matter how clever.
Can we say that “other animals don’t pollute therefore they are smarter than humans”?
In just the same way as we have a collective intelligence that is no reflection of individual ability, so that we have a sort of collective stupidity that is beyond our control. For the logicians among you who are curious as to the mechanisms that explain such a paradox, two of them are the prisoner’s dilemma and the tragedy of the commons.
Now comes the big one. Is it true that “because there is no universally recognized definition of intelligence there is no way to measure it, so we can never say if another animal is as intelligent as us.”?
This is exactly the same situation that we have for intraspecific comparison among humans, yet IQ is widely used to predict cognitive performance. The answer to how we can have such a highly predictive measure as IQ, yet no universal definition of intelligence comes from a very important statistical trait. Every single facet of human intelligence (say, your ability at music) is positively correlated with every other (such as your ability at maths or language). Even such very different fields of intelligence covary in such a way as to suggest that much of that connection is due to their association with a universal factor, rather than due to clusters of ability. Thus, from empirical observation, arises the concept of the general intelligence factor, referred to as ‘g’ by psychometricians. The relevant question is whether such a universal intelligence factor manifests interspecifically also. Unfortunately, the only group on which we have sufficient data to test this, to date, is the nonhuman primates.
So, “can we measure human intelligence in the same way that we measure the intelligence of other animals?...” [15]
18. As far as the g factor is concerned, here is the related article of Wikipedia:
The g factor (also known as general intelligence, general mental ability or general intelligence factor) is a construct developed in psychometric investigations of cognitive abilities and human intelligence. It is a variable that summarizes positive correlations among different cognitive tasks, reflecting the fact that an individual’s performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person’s performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks. The g factor typically accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the between-individual performance differences on a given cognitive test, and composite scores (‘IQ scores’) based on many tests are frequently regarded as estimates of individuals’ standing on the g factor. The terms IQ, general intelligence, general cognitive ability, general mental ability, or simply intelligence are often used interchangeably to refer to this common core shared by cognitive tests. The g factor targets a particular measure of general intelligence. [16]
19. I personally believe that intelligence is imposed on members of society for the needs of the same society.
The g factor brought to mind another aspect- that of the gravitational field g: Gravity is something imposed on all living beings (in fact on all objects). Is also intelligence imposed on human beings by the society (not to mention other physical or psychological factors)? If this is so then the comparison between the intelligence of animals and people is irrelevant because animals are not supposed to be intelligent by human standards (although they can be smart enough if necessary). But as technology guides our evolution through accidental discoveries, so intelligence drives our thoughts (of which the largest part is unconscious).
Most if not all of technological discoveries have been made by accident. We are used to believe that technology is a product of our ingenuity. But in fact the opposite may be true. Take for example the discovery of fire. We did not invent a method of producing fire by first principles. On the contrary we discovered fire by chance. The same is true for the use of stone tools or for any tool thus also for technology. Even if we have finally split the atom this has been the result of physical experimentation, not of foresight into the microcosm. We should not forget that the atomic model is based on the planetary model which in turn is based on observation. Thus in reality observation and technology define our evolution and not the opposite. As a consequence the intelligence of a species cannot surpass its own evolutionary level.
In that sense the fact that we have evolved instead of dolphins for example is due to coincidental factors. In general as soon as one species advances a bit more than other species, it represses the advancement of these other species, occupying for example their niches, eating them, or just killing them for sport. But what is even more important to consider is the question whether one species can evolve on its own or if its evolution is interrelated to that of other species. Are the skyscrapers we build more advanced than the mounds of the termites, or are our flying machines more elegant than the birds? Won’t we lose the wonder of evolution if we drive other species, with their special abilities, to extinction?
We see therefore that our own intelligence and level of advancement is complementary to the evolution of all the other species. By destroying the environment and causing other species to disappear we underestimate our intelligence, we degrade our way of life and we threaten our own existence. Intelligence is a collective phenomenon involving all the species in the physical landscape. To put it in few words each species as well as every human being is unique and irreplaceable.
20. The important question is not how smart we are or if other living beings are smarter or not, but what is the necessity of being intelligent, and what is the deeper cause which drives our evolution- the demands of society on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the evolution of information (thus the problem of Consciousness) in the Universe.
[1]: [https://www.google.gr/search?q=intelligence]
[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence]
[3]: [https://archive.org/details/DrakesEquationAndFermisParadox/page/n19]
[4]: [http://paulcooijmans.com/intelligence/iq_ranges.html]
[5]: [http://www.wilderdom.com/intelligence/IQWhatScoresMean.html]
[6]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale]
[7]: [https://www.indexmundi.com/energy/?product=total-primary-energy&graph=consumption-growth-rate]
[8]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background]
[9]: [https://www.scribd.com/document/168411043/The-Origins-of-Thought]
[10]: [http://www.deepideas.net/godels-incompleteness-theorem-and-its-implications-for-artificial-intelligence/]
[11]: [https://archive.org/details/TheoryOfTheForm]
[12]: [https://www.pinterest.com/pin/192599321538994733/]
[13]: [http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/BellsTheorem/BellsTheorem.html]
[14]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere]
[15]: [https://www.quora.com/Are-we-humans-the-most-intelligent-species-on-Earth]
[16]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)]
7/1/2020
Image: [https://teilhard.com/2013/08/13/the-noosphere-part-i-teilhard-de-chardins-vision/]
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