Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!att!cbnewsh!mbb
From: mbb@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (martin.b.brilliant)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Intelligence (was: IQ), Categorization (was: Racism)
Message-ID: <2568@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>
Date: 25 Jul 89 18:31:01 GMT
References: <3506@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 38

From article <3506@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, by markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins):
# And as for intelligence: the intelligence I have over and beyond what is
# considered normal is SOLELY the result of my conscious efforts and I resent
# anyone who tries to trivialize the considerable extent of my accomplishment
# by saying I had nothing consciously to do with it, even the predisposition
# toward it....
# 
# "Superior" intelligence is solely the product of individual effort, using
# techniques which everyone else (who has fluency in at least one human language)
# can follow.  You learn to integrate your emotional and intellectual minds,
# and you learn to learn things in the context of their use, rather than in
# the abstract totally shorn away from their defining context as things are too
# often presented.

Excellent!  Now all we have to do is program a computer to be fluent in
some language, and get Mark to program its efforts, and it will create
its own artificial intelligence (no previous predisposition necessary).

I wish it were so, but I do not believe it.  If the differences among
people are due solely to differences in the efforts they exert, how
then can we explain why different people exert such widely different
efforts?  Heredity or environment?  Parental effort or predisposition? 
If we are all born with the same capabilities, why do we express them
differently?

I agree with Mr. Hopkins's characterization of what intelligence is all
about.  But I think he was born with an easily integrable mind, and
that his parents, friends, or teachers encouraged him to integrate it.
In the area of artificial intelligence, I think we have to discover and
implement a structure that is suitable for the integration of knowledge
in the way Mr. Hopkins described.

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201) 949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	att!hounx!marty1 or marty1@hounx.ATT.COM

Disclaimer: Opinions stated herein are mine unless and until my employer
	    explicitly claims them; then I lose all rights to them.