For anyone coming here who doesn’t realize I’m a lunatic, I thought I’d give you a look at my latest post to HLAS.  In it I argue about what intelligence is with Paul Crowley.  No, what I’m now trying to do is get him to agree that such a thing exists.  I believe you will find him unbelievably out of it.  I often believe him to be a computer program designed to see how rational people interact with the completely irrational.  Or perhaps just for the fun of seeing me make a fool of myself trying to refute someone too dense to be refuted.  In any case, I believe my participation in discussions with Paul Crowley (which have been going on for around fifteen years) are near-proof that I am a lunatic.  But there is method in my madness, heheheheheh.  I am the foremost explorer of irrationality in the world, you see!  I’m not out to defeat this boob, but to spark manifestations of every conceivable insanity out of him so that I may list them as a lepidopterist collects butterflies for display!

On Apr 9, 11:48 am, Paul Crowley wrote:

> n 07/04/2012 00:09, Bob Grumman wrote:

> > And if you really think no one discusses intelligence,
> > and who is intelligent, who not, and what precisely it
> > is, and so forth, you’re–why, you’re Paul Crowley.

> The world is much more than the acquaintances
> of Bob Grumman. No one, outside of those born
> in the 20th century in a modern western scientistic
> culture discusses ‘intelligence’ in a manner that
> is remotely similar. To all other societies and
> cultures, the concept is either quite alien or
> utterly strange.

> >>> Is there a necessity to postulate an entity that allows
> >>> us to see–which I would call “sight?”
> >> Certainly not. People and other creatures see.
> >> That is enough.

> > Where did the word, “sight,” come from? (Truly,
> > you’re at your finest here, Paul–I’m sure I’ve never
> > tried to answer such incredibly stupid opinions
> > before.)

> It is convenient, in the English language (and
> in some other languages), to sometimes use
> abstract nouns. I’d advise you not to let that
> fact fool you into believing that such things
> have a real existence — but you are already
> hopelessly lost in a world of fantasy.

> > Ophthamologists should not be concerned with
> > some entity that allows people to see?

> There is no such entity.

What are the eyes?

> >> There is nothing to define. There is nothing
> >> that can be defined. It’s classic case of the
> >> Emperor’s new clothes.

> > Right. There is no such thing as intelligence
> > because there is no such thing as intelligence.

> Sorry, but pointing at the nakedness of the
> Emperor is enough to demonstrate that he
> has no clothes. It’s up to those claiming that
> he really has clothes to demonstrate that fact.
> For example, they could put him on a
> weighing scales and show that he weighed
> more with them on than with some off.
> You can’t off course. The clothing (i.e. here
> ‘intelligence’) exists because you want it to
> exist, so it must exist. You can’t imagine a
> world without it, but you have no conception
> as to how you’d prove or disprove its
> existence.

[note: amazing how much cranks love the dead metaphor of the emperor’s new clothes.]

> >>> And now I’m to what I thought I’d write about just
> >>> now: how we should tackle what I want to tackle,
> >>> which is to determine if each of us possesses a
> >>> mechanism I would call “intelligence” that allows
> >>> us effectively to interact with the environment–
> >>> biologically, I mean: i.e., in such a way as to
> >>> keep us alive and comfortable.

> >> No one in the real world asks such a question.
> >> It’s entirely fake.

[note: one of the most comic of Paul’s traits is his inability to avoid using “no one” and “entirely” and the like every chance he gets. If really pushed on the practice, he will call me too literal-minded to accept that he “really” means “the probability against anyone’s acting in such a way is astronomical,” of the like. But it’s clear he truly means what he says. As a rigidnik, he can’t accept not being 100% on the right side of any significant question.]

> > Yet I have reference books that define the term, and
> > books about it.

> If you had any historical perspective you would
> know that throughout history nearly all libraries
> consisted of books that were nearly all
> worthless junk. Those of the 20th century
> must be by far the worst in this respect, with
> Pssyycholistic and other pseudo-scientific
> ‘works’ being manifestly mindless junk from
> the moment they were published.

“Nearly all worthless junk.” Absolutely incredibly obtuse statement. Since I have something called intelligence, I know that to the contrary no book ever created was worthless junk. Many books about intelligence seem to me not to have very effectively advanced the search for truth regarding it, but the possibility that any of them was discussing something non-existent is ludicrous. But I’ll keep playing this insane game you have me in, the goal of which is to nail you in a contradiction no sane person can deny–although you will.

Here’s a starting question:  What did Shake-speare have that I do not have that was responsible for his creation of plays vastly superior to the ones I’ve written?

> >> You are talking about a nothing.

> > I am speaking of a physical mechanism humans
> > have that allow for problem solving.

> Nope. You are missing every point that can
> be missed. As an analogy, let’s say you
> are explaining to some young person how
> important the New York Times was in the
> 20th century, and what it was like. But, at best
> — and you are even a long way from that — you
> would be saying what kind of ink was used for
> its printing, and where they got the paper.

> >> There is no entity which “allows us to solve
> >> problems”. We either solve them or we don’t.
> >> We either walk or we don’t.

> > Ah, so my legs have nothing to do with my ability to
> > walk?

> How do you come to this conclusion?
> You need a lot of things to be able to walk,
> and working legs are one of them. Being
> able to balance is another. Having a fair
> amount of practice around the ages of one
> or two is another. Having nerve connections
> in the lower spine is another. And so on
> and on

So anything that’s complicated does not exist? What happens to allow a car to move is complicated: does it therefore not have the ability to move?

> Possessing an entity called ‘walking ability’
> does not figure in mind (or the books) of any
> physiotherapist or doctor or other specialist
> in the field. It would only be imagined by some
> specialist in Pssyychologostical bull-shit.

Wouldn’t a physiotherapist investigate certain physical mechanisms and not others? Would he give a person having trouble walking a color discrimination test?

> >> We either eat or
> >> we don’t. You can talk about whole ranges
> >> of pre-conditions that “allow us” to eat, or
> >> walk, or solve problems; for example, being
> >> fit and healthy helps. But none of these pre-
> >> conditions have some over-riding power.
> >> [..]

> > All you’re saying is that intelligence is a mechanism
> > has many constituents.

> NO, I am not. I am saying it is far less useful
> an idea than ‘walking ability’ would be to a
> paediatrician or a doctor in a hospital for foot
> or leg amputees.

I had a bad hip, Paul. It was operated on last June. After the operation I could walk, but not well. All the doctors and nurses and therapists I was involved in were concerned with my ABILITY TO WALK, not with whether it was there or not there as  a lunatic like you apparently would, but whether or not I had an EFFECTIVE ABILITY TO WALK. Certain muscles needed exercise for me to fully to recover THE ABILITY TO WALK. I soon had that ability again, but not a reasonably good ABILITY TO RUN, which they next worked on, and that is nearly back, as well.

> >> There is NO ability. Giving a name to a nothing
> >> and then defining it is (I fully agree) the raison

> >> d’etre of Pssyychologism.

> > Can a normal person solve some problems? If so,
> > what does he possess that allows him to do that?
> > Nothing?

> Take a relatively simple concept like ‘walking’

I can walk because I have legs and a brain that directs those legs.

> or ‘left-handedness’, and ask the same kind
> of question. You will (hopefully) then see that
> such a question is absurd or close to absurd,
> and that it has no reasonable answer.  THEN
> you might realise that to imagine you have a
> meaningful question as regards ‘intelligence’
> is only to fool yourself.

As far as I can make out, you are claiming that there is no such thing as an ability. Or that abilities exist but nothing physical causes them to be manifested.

> >> Not the supernatural. We are what we see we
> >> are. There is no point in trying to pretend that
> >> we are explicable in terms of electrical signals
> >> or whatever. You could say that today’s New
> >> York Times is just a combination of paper and
> >> ink. But to reduce it to ‘paper and ink’ misses
> >> its entire nature, and to respond in the wrong
> >> dimension. You are (somehow) thinking you can
> >> do something similar with human beings and
> >> their brains — reduce them all to bio-electrical
> >> bits and signals. You are simply missing the
> >> point.

Block the bio-electrical bits and signals to the cerebrum and the person involved will have no ability to solve problems. Doesn’t that tell you something, Paul?

> > If it is not bio-electrical bits and signals, and not
> > supernatural, what is it?

> It’s the hopeless inapplicability of your
> reductionist approach to anything human.

Seriously, Paul, have you had a relapse? You seem at least one order
of magnitude more insane than ever before.

–Bob

Few people visit HLAS nowadays, for Paul and I dominate it and there are few who are willing to wade through our exchanges.  I think they are very funny, some of my inept attempts against Paul being close to as funny as his almost-always bizarre irrationalities.  The very few who have commented on Paul or I lump us together.  No one yet has ventured to take sides in this particular thread (or the two or three other threads the discussion has also been going on in).  So I would appreciate it if someone would be good enough to reassure me that it is not absurd to believe that human beings possess a mechanism it makes sense to call intelligence that, among other things, allows them to solve problems (or try to).  I’m curious, too, if anyone finds Paul as hilarious as I do.  Sometimes I think there may be less that a thousand people in the whole world who love the ravings of nuts as much as I.  And, as I’ve said more than once, I empathize with nuts, knowing full well that I may be one myself.  Although I am convinced I am leagues less a nut than Paul Crowley is.  (I’ve tried to find out who he is in the real world and gotten nowhere, by the way; he refuses to disclose anything at all about himself–amusingly, I find it hard not to disclose everything about myself.)

.

Payroll Advance Georgia

Sensors are  at first sensitive to only one stimulus.  If the sensitivity helped its cell, it would be retained by the species; if not it would be not be retained.  Eventually, sensors would become potentially sensitive to more and more stimuli, to hurry the process of finding effective sensitivities.  Sensors always sensitive to a wide vairety of stimuli would not be effective until they were able to limit their sensitivity to the first stimulus they are exposed to.  This would also keep the cell up-to-date–no longer would they automatically have sensitivities to other species that had become extinct or to matter in an enivronment no longer present.

Okay, now comes the detachment of such sensors before being sensitized to given stimuli.  They might not be able to admit neuro-signals then, in which case they would be innocuous accidental superfluous intruders that could well persist–until they became sensitive to neuro-signals.  At that point, they would become “sensor-sensors.”

Once able to become active, they would emit neuro-signals that would turn on effectors, sometimes, beneficially, sometimes not, sometimes neither.  Once an inhibitor joined one of them to make a proto-retroceptual reflex, their cell could inhibit them from activating effectors they should not.

To go back to my earlier remarks: “Another step in the evolution of superior intelligence will be the advent of inhibitors and stimulators–and we know inhibition and stimulation have major roles in the nervous system.  An inhibitor is device which prevents any effector it is connected to from acting in the same manner that a sensor causes the activation of any effector it is connected to.  Like everything else, it would pop up by chance but persist when it happened to be connected to a prey-odor sensor, say, and inhibited an away-from effector.  Ergo, the alphazoa blessed with such an inhibitor would not flee a cell whose predator color it had an avoidance reflex for if the cell had a prey odor, but appropriately flee a cell that had the color of a predator but no prey odor.

Eventually, effectors would evolve capable of causing two actions, or a sensor similarly capable.  Hence, an effector connected to a sensor sensitive to prey odor might both inhibit withdrawel from a cell with a predator’s color and cause advance toward a cell with the odor of prey.  Or a sensor sensitive to prey odor connect to two effectors, one inhibiting withddrawel, one causing advance.

“So, life will now have achieved the ability to choose between advancing or withdrawing in the direction of a gray cell, and be on its way toward more complex actions.  It will still be a very primitive computer, but with something like intelligence, anyway.”  The alphazoan could now, in effect, remember encountering a certain stimulus, what resulted, and whether or not the outcome was beneficial.

Something else is likely to have happened: various effectors sensitive to all neuro-signals from endo-sensors becoming constantly manufactured while inhibited ones are destroyed.   This would allow the cell constantly to find effective new ways to deal with existence.  Only effective reflexes consisting of endo-sensors and effectors would keep alive, and the latter would become more sophisticated in what signals they accepted, for they’d be able to accept lots of difference signals so long as what action they contributed to was pleasurable.  Stimulators would increase this.

The number of sensor-sensors would increase, as well.  The truest form of memory would occur once one sensor-sensor conected to another.   You would then have a memory of, say, stimulus A followed by a memory of stimulus B.  If cellular activity (call it activity C) as sensor-sensor B becomes active is positive, then when stimulus A again leads to sensor A’s activation, Sensor A would activate sensor B–even it no stimulus B was then present.  AB would then, through memory, try to cause activity C and possibly succeed.

More complex arrangements would then have to evolve.  Memory-holders, as I will now call sensor-sensors, would become sensitive to much, then all, “information” transmitted during an “instacon,” or unit of consciousness  They would retain the “information” until having some threshold amount needed for activation–which might come to be variable, dependent of what’s going on in the cell as a whole.  Longer strands of connected memory-holders would come into being.  Effectors would gain variable amounts of neuro-signals, often from more than one memory-cell (and no long directly from a sensor), and need a certain minimal amount to become active.  At some point, too, multi-cellular organisms would evolve or have evolved, relatively soon devoting whole cells to carry out the functions I’ve been giving to organelles.

Consequently, my next step in modeling the evolution of intelligence is going to concern the development of the mnemoducts my theory hypothesizes, as the central organs of memory, and intelligence.  I am taking a break from the project now, however, because of other projects higher on my present list of priorities.

Here’s a revision of what I’ve been fumbling with concerning the evolution of intelligence with some additions:

An explanation of intelligence, starting with its evolution, if by intelligence we mean “choice of behavior” as opposed to random activity.

Let’s begin with the first living cell, a protozoan.  It moves randomly through water.  Eventually it accidentally acquires a sensitivity to light, let’s say, although it could be salt density or temperature, it doesn’t matter.  So, it has the prototype of a nervous system, a single sensor sensitive to light.  The next consequential accident will be its evolving a component–an organelle–that makes it move in some direction as opposed to being moved by environmental forces.  Call it an “effector.”  It may evolve this before it evolves a sensor, it doesn’t matter, What matters is that eventually many protoazoa will have non-functioning but not seriously biologically disadvantageous nervous-systems. They’ll have the potential to be superior (that is, they will have taken a step toward us), so I will call them “alphzoa.”

The first key accident leading to intelligence will be an alphazoan’s forming a linkage from its light-sensor to its effector, allowing the former to activate the latter.  As I see it, the linkage will not be the equivalent of a wire, but will result from two hypothesized attributes of organelles, at least the sensors and effectors I’m speaking of.  First claim: that when a sensor is exposed to whatever it is in the exo-environment that activates it, it carries out some kind of chemical reaction that creates molecules that leave it to flow haphazardly through the cell’s cytoplasm.  This will likely have no particular effect on the cell, so will be ignored by natural selection.

Second claim, an effector will react to the presence of the molecule the sensor transmits by absorbing it.  Eventually. it will absorb a molecule that partakes in a chemical reaction that leads to the effect for which the effector is responsible.  Ergo, a micro-relex is born.  If the action the reflex leads to is a biologically advantageous reaction to the presence of the stimulus activating the sensor involved, natural selection will keep it.  If, as probably the case, the reaction is neither good or bad, it may or may not be kept long enough for nature to find some use for it.  If the reaction is disadvantageous, cells possessing the reflex will die out.

Let me further propose that the organelles I’m speaking of have the equivalent of cell membranes, and call the molecules transmitted neuro-transmitters, which is what they in effect are.  So, if an effector causes movement toward light, and light is beneficial–as perhaps a source of energy–alpazoa with this capacity will soon become dominant.  Alphazoa which light causes to move away from light will die out.  Or perhaps evolve differently, finding something in darkness that makes up for lack of light–concealment from prey, maybe.  In any case, a functional, useful nervous system will have come into being, or what I’d call simple reflexive intelligence.

Eventually some sensor will evolve that is sensitive to the color, say, of one of the alphazoan’s prey and links with an effector causing the alphzoa to move toward the prey, a “toward-effector.”  Ditto, a reflex with an “away-from effector” attached to a sensor sensitive to the color or some other characteristic of some kind of predator on the alphazoan.  Not a technical advance, but certainly a big jump in improving the alphazoa’s biological fitness.

By this time, something of central importance had to have happened, or become ready to happen: the evolution of sensors sensitive to pain and pleasure.  For that to happen, “endo-sensors” (sensors sensitive to external stimuli) would have to have broken free of the cell membrane to become potential “intra-sensors.”  And somehow become sensitive to something of vital importance, a chemical due to damage to the cell membrane, say–probably excessive water (a biochemist would know).  Or maybe the organelle might have become sensitive to pieces of the membrane with which it would never have come into contact unless the membrane were damaged.  If the intra-sensor were attached to an away-from effector, natural selection would select it because of its value in helping its cell get away from whatever had damaged is membrane.

Before or after the evolution of pain-organelles, similar organelles connected to toward-effectors would become sensitive to some by-product, say, of a successful hunt–something eaten but not digested, that would cause  the cell to pursue whatever it had gotten a good taste of, with a feeling of pleasure.

Metaphysical question: why would such a sensation of pleasure be pleasurable?  That puzzles me.  The answer is not because it would motivate the cell to do something to keep the pleasure occurring.  Nothing can motivate a cell.  If it evolves a way to move toward a certain beneficial stimulus, it will do so, whether it feels pleasure or not.  My only guess to account for this is that in the eogotmic universe (or ultimate universe behind all existence), construction (such as the combining of materials to make a membrane) pleasurable, destruction (i.e., fragmentation) is painful, and that construction/destruction here reflects construction/destruction there.   Hence, any living organism will feel pleasure when it is reasonably well-organized, pain when going to pieces (and nothing one way or the other when in between the two states), and its state of organization will reflect its egotomic state of organization.

Another step in the evolution of superior intelligence will be the advent of inhibitors and stimulators–and we know inhibition and stimulation have major roles in the nervous system.  An inhibitor is device which prevents any effector it is connected to from acting in the same manner that a sensor causes the activation of any effector it is connected to.  Like everything else, it would pop up by chance but persist when it happened to be connected to a prey-odor sensor, say, and inhibited an away-from effector.  Ergo, the alphazoa blessed with such an inhibitor would not flee a cell whose predator color it had an avoidance reflex for if the cell had a prey odor, but appropriately flee a cell that had the color of a predator but no prey odor.  Eventually, effectors would evolve capable of causing two actions, or a sensor similarly capable.  Hence, an effector connected to a sesnor sensitive to prey odor might both inhibit withdrawel from a cell with a predator’s color and cause advance toward a cell with the odor of prey.  Or a sensor sensitive to prey odor connect to two effects, one inhibiting withddrawel, one causing advance.

So, life will now have achieved the ability to choose between advancing or withdrawing in the direction of a gray cell, and be on its way toward more complex actions.  It will still be a very primitive computer, but with something like intelligence, anyway.

At this stage of the evolution of intelligence a lot of minor advances would be made: multiplication of reflexes, the addition of sensors sensitive to the absence of a stimulus, the combining of more sensors and effectors so, perhaps, a purple cell with white dots and smell B and a long flagellum will be pursued if the temperature of the water is over eighty degrees but not if it is under.

By this time, something of central importance had to have happened, or be ready to happen: the evolution of sensors sensitive to pain and pleasure. For that to happen, “endo-sensors” (sensors sensitive to external stimuli) would have to have broken free of the cell membrane to become potential “intra-sensors.” And somehow become sensitive to a chemical due to damage to the cell mem- brane–probably excessive water (a biochemist would know). Or maybe the infra-cell might become sensitive to pieces of the membrane which it would never have contact with unless the membrane were damaged. If the intra-sensor were attached to an away-from effector, natural selection would select it because of its value in helping its cell get away from whatever had damaged is membrane.

Eventually similar intra-sensors connected to toward effectors would become sensitive to some by-product, say, of a successful hunt–something eaten but not digested, that would cause the cell to pursue whatever it had gotten a good taste of. I’m now going to name all such components of a cell that carry out functions like those of the sensors and effector “infra-cells” to make discussion easier. Let me add the clarification that the connections between sensors and effectors may begin as physical channels but will soon almost surely come to be made by precursors of neuro-transmitters: i.e., a sensor with “connect” to its effector by a distinctive chemical that only the effector recognizes and is activated by.  The cell’s cytoplasm will act as a primitive synapse.

Various other “neurophysiological” improvements should soon also occur. One would be an intra-sensor’s gaining the ability to activate a toward effector when it senses pleasure but activate an away-from effector when it senses pain. The accident resulting in such an infra-cell would not be too unlikely, it seems to me: simply the fusion of two cells, one sensitive to pain and connected to an away-from effector, the other sensitive to pleasure and connected to a toward effector. Obviously an evolutionary improvement.

It also seems likely to me that intra-sensors would evolve sensitive to the activation of effectors. They would connect to other infra- cells carrying out reactions to, say, a successful capture of prey: a toward effector becomes active due to signals from a sensor sensitive to a certain kind of prey, in which case the outcome should be dinner, so a sensor sensitive to the effector’s activation which is connected to some infra-cell responsible for emitting digestive juices or the like, would be an advantage.

Certain other infra-cells should evolve to allow the step up to memory, but right now I can’t figure out what they might be, so will stop here, for now.

Certain cranks are questioning the possibility that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him on the grounds that he could not have gotten the 10,000 hours of practice at his craft Malcolm Gladwell says every genius needs.  What I want to know is, if Shakespeare had his ten thousand hours when he wrote the Henry VI trilogy, where does it show?  There are serious scholars out there who think Heminges and Condell were lying when they said he wrote them.  Many mainstream critics won’t accept that he wrote certain scenes in them.

I claim that any reasonably intelligent non-genius actor of the time could have used the historians of the time, as Shakespeare did, to have written them.  Add, perhaps, a cleverness with language that some 14-year-olds have.  The only way his histories improved after the trilogy was in the author’s becoming better with words, through practice, of course, but only what he would have gotten from contin- uing to write plays (and doctor plays and–most important–THINK about plays), and getting interested enough in a few of his stereotypical characters to archetize them as he did Falstaff.

It seems to me that the requirements for being a playwright are (1) a simple exposure to plays to teach one what they are; (2) the general knowledge of the world that everyone automatically gets simply by living; (3) the facility with the language that everyone gets automa- tically from simply using them all one’s life.  The rank one as a playwight will depend entirely on his inborn ability to use language, and his inborn ability to empathize with others, and himself.  Of course, the more plays he writes, the better playwright he’ll be, but I’m speaking of people who have chosen to make playwriting their vocation (because they were designed to do something of the sort).

I speak out of a life devoted to writing and having read biographies of dozens of writers.  I would never be able to agree that I’m wrong on this.