Comments on: Does Intelligence Float?

By: Caledonian

Caledonian — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:01:25 +0000

Silas, you’ve made my entire weekend. You have no idea what a pleasure it is for me to be defended rationally; the only thing better is to be attacked rationally, but that wouldn’t have been possible here.

By: Douglas Knight

Douglas Knight — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:22:22 +0000

Please note that you can’t close tags except by editing the original comment

The precise statement is that it depends on the web browser. It does improve the display from Safari. I think that there was a change between Firefox 2 & 3, so people have habits from 2 that are no longer useful.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:02:39 +0000

Silas I’m afraid only evidence will provide Robin right. You still have not shared any.

It appears no one has any. I am not intending this to be a flamewar, but only challenging unsubstantiated assertions. Sorry if that is not appropriate for a blog called Overcoming Bias.

By: Johnicholas

Johnicholas — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:14:46 +0000

Um, does Marcus Hutter’s AIXI definition of intelligence float? http://www.hutter1.net/ai/iors.pdf

It violates some of Eliezer Yudkowsky’s requirements, but I think it offers hope that a suitable formalization could be found that satisfies those requirements.

By: Stuart Armstrong

Stuart Armstrong — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:28:28 +0000

entropy , for instance, does not help us think about the evolution of economies and ecologies

As well as Tim Tyler, there is the widespread idea of trophic levels in ecology. This reasoning behind this is implicitly predicated on thermodynamics.

My bad; I was trying to make a simple point that “entropy always goes up in a closed system” is not relevant to a non-closed system. My point overshot simplicity, and entered stupidity, and was wrong.

By: Silas

Silas — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:59:13 +0000

Sorry, I’m going to fall for it, because retired_urologist keeps proving Robin_Hanson right. First of all, when doctors fail to get the Bayesian inference problem right, the problem is *not* that they are bad “mathematicians” or that they weren’t taught how to do *that specific problem*. The problem is that they didn’t recognize the applicability of certain abstract principles, to that particualr problem. Which is — as Caledonian argued — a failure to think abstractly. A failure, like in Eliezer_Yudkowsky’s parable, to be able to say, “Hey, that counting-stones thing — it works for sheep too!”

(In fact, it would be weaker evidence of abstract thought if you gave doctors that problem after specifically showing them how to format such problems.)

So when retired_urologist looks at that evidence, and all he sees is “doctors being tested on something they weren’t taught”, that is in fact (and quite self-referentially) another case inability to abstract.

Robin_Hanson may have been rude to call him out like that, but I must confess he and Caledonian are correct :-/

By: Eliezer Yudkowsky

Eliezer Yudkowsky — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:33:11 +0000

Um, Caledonian is pretty obviously trying to keep the flamewar going after Retired shut it down. Don’t fall for it, please.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:08:04 +0000

I’m afraid you still haven’t provided any evidence for a lack of ability for abstract reasoning. You have an argument that is mildly persuasive, but please refer to the specific study you are basing this on. It would help if the study defines and uses the term “abstract reasoning”. A study limited only to capability of calculating probabilities would be left wanting unless you’ve also got a study showing a strong correlation between that capability and other useful measures of intelligence or abstract reasoning ability.

By: Caledonian

Caledonian — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:44:57 +0000

Hanson said urologist’s behavior illustrated his point.

Do you know what “illustrating a point” means, Cyan? Because that phrase has a generally-accepted meaning in English. A meaning that reduces your complaint to a non sequitur.

You still owe Hanson an apology. Now you owe me one as well.

By: Cyan

Cyan — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:37:39 +0000

Caledonian, Robin Hanson's position could be correct in every particular and retired urologist's position could be utterly false, and still Robin's reply is glib and unfair. Anyone who supports a statement about the statistical properties of a group by talking about the individual members of that group is guilty of fallacious argument.