Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!uw-june!jsnyder
From: jsnyder@june.cs.washington.edu (John Snyder)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: language, thought, and culture
Message-ID: <4421@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 10 Mar 88 18:48:04 GMT
References: <44@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM> <2894@pbhyf.UUCP> <888@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <326@thirdi.UUCP> <899@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <5776@dhw68k.cts.com>
Reply-To: jsnyder@uw-june.UUCP (John Snyder)
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 33
Keywords: thought modalities

In article <5776@dhw68k.cts.com> doug@dhw68k.cts.com (Doug Salot) writes:
>
>There are currently discussions going on in sci.bio, sci.med,
>sci.psychology, comp.edu, and here in sci.lang that all skirt
>around the question of the nature of intelligence, so I'm cross-
>posting this in the hopes that we can converge on a solution.

HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha. (gasp) Oh, sorry, how rude of me.
I guess it just struck me funny to think that net babble could
`converge on a solution' that has eluded the best philosophers and
scientists since the pre-Socratics.

>Here are some random anecdotes to consider:  [...]
>I've never met a stupid mathematician.  Nothing's more computationally
>powerful than a stupid Turing machine.  

Watch it.  You're presupposing what's in question by positing
`stupid Turing machines'.  If TM's are not intelligent, they can't be
stupid.  

Anyway, I'll bet we can't say what stupidity is any better
than we can say what intelligence is.  Talent in mathematics
(or any other academic endeavor) certainly doesn't make one immune
from being a grade A screaming bloody fool most of the time.
Take Edward Teller for example.  Or Galois, who got himself killed
in a duel; if that's not stupid, I don't know what is (as I've already
admitted ;-) ).  The point is that intelligence is much broader and
harder to measure than IQ tests would have us believe.

jsnyder@june.cs.washington.edu              John R. Snyder
{ihnp4,decvax,ucbvax}!uw-beaver!jsnyder     Dept. of Computer Science, FR-35
                                            University of Washington
206/543-7798                                Seattle, WA 98195