I define intelligence as the ability to make optimal decisions to achieve some goal. The goal, clearly, is left undefined. This extends beyond the typical application of the word on humans, although I believe it fits nicely. A conventionally labeled intelligent person is capable of achieving conventionally defined "smart" goals such as performing well on tests and solving problems. However, things that are not seen as conventionally intelligent, such as the ability to distinguish between colors, would also fall under this definition.
One implication of this thought is that most people (may) have roughly the same amount of intelligence. Our brains and their biological neural networks can be trained in various ways to do certain tasks "better" and it is a matter of luck if those tasks align with conventional views of intelligence.
This isn't too revolutionary, perhaps the rough equality argument is somewhat controversial, but it got me thinking about how this definition extends to move complex entities. Specifically, I've been thinking about groups of people. In light of the recent British exit from the EU, many people argued that democracy had failed. A quote attributed to Winston Churchill was tossed around frequently: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Democracy attempts to find the average decision of each voter, so obviously it wouldn't be more intelligent than the average voter. In terms of raw intelligence, therefore, I would argue that a single voter picked at random is just as effective for decision making. I am of course ignoring the goal of democracy, which is fairness.
Another entity worth exploring with this definition is the economy. My thought is that the economy is very intelligent. I haven't been able to boil down exactly why, but the premise I've considered is that it works evolutionarily: the fittest companies survive. This is much unlike a democracy because each mind participating in the economy is effectively competing with every other mind. Each decision that is ultimately made is collaborative in nature, and I would argue that in the economy we don't see an average intelligence but rather a summation (to be vague with the mathematical model) of all the intelligences interacting with it.
I haven't explored any of the immediate parallels too much. An example would be neurons in neural networks functioning similarly (competitively) in their contribution to a full decision. It seems consistent with how most neural nets are set up: a correct decision backpropogates to increase that neuron's weight for future decisions.
I define intelligence as the ability to make optimal decisions to achieve some goal. The goal, clearly, is left undefined. This extends beyond the typical application of the word on humans, although I believe it fits nicely. A conventionally labeled intelligent person is capable of achieving conventionally defined "smart" goals such as performing well on tests and solving problems. However, things that are not seen as conventionally intelligent, such as the ability to distinguish between colors, would also fall under this definition.
One implication of this thought is that most people (may) have roughly the same amount of intelligence. Our brains and their biological neural networks can be trained in various ways to do certain tasks "better" and it is a matter of luck if those tasks align with conventional views of intelligence.
This isn't too revolutionary, perhaps the rough equality argument is somewhat controversial, but it got me thinking about how this definition extends to move complex entities. Specifically, I've been thinking about groups of people. In light of the recent British exit from the EU, many people argued that democracy had failed. A quote attributed to Winston Churchill was tossed around frequently: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Democracy attempts to find the average decision of each voter, so obviously it wouldn't be more intelligent than the average voter. In terms of raw intelligence, therefore, I would argue that a single voter picked at random is just as effective for decision making. I am of course ignoring the goal of democracy, which is fairness.
Another entity worth exploring with this definition is the economy. My thought is that the economy is very intelligent. I haven't been able to boil down exactly why, but the premise I've considered is that it works evolutionarily: the fittest companies survive. This is much unlike a democracy because each mind participating in the economy is effectively competing with every other mind. Each decision that is ultimately made is collaborative in nature, and I would argue that in the economy we don't see an average intelligence but rather a summation (to be vague with the mathematical model) of all the intelligences interacting with it.
I haven't explored any of the immediate parallels too much. An example would be neurons in neural networks functioning similarly (competitively) in their contribution to a full decision. It seems consistent with how most neural nets are set up: a correct decision backpropogates to increase that neuron's weight for future decisions.