From: mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de   
      
   On Tue, 06 May 2008 03:52:01 GMT, Kenneth P. Turvey wrote:   
      
   > On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:40:53 +0000, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:   
   >   
   > Second, since we know how long it has taken humans to evolve, we can   
   > develop at least a general idea of the likely complexity of the problem.   
      
   No, because the medium is different. For example, it is known,   
   statistically, how long it would take for silicon atoms to form a   
   transistor through thermodynamic movement of particles. That does not   
   estimate the complexity of producing Pentium IV chips.   
      
   > The   
   > comparison is valid since using evolution to solve the problem is   
   > certainly one way of doing it.   
      
   How so? Evolution is a statistical process. We have just one sample of   
   evolutionary process leading to us. Statistically, this shows perfectly   
   nothing.   
      
   >> It certainly puts some time constraint, statistically. However that is   
   >> probably irrelevant as the event already happened - we call themselves   
   >> intelligent. A real constraint for Turing-complete systems could exist   
   >> if our brain used some incomputable elements.   
   >   
   > Ok, to me this is silly.  Just my opinion.  If it was not computable,   
   > then our brain clearly couldn't compute it.   
      
   This is a different thing. Real-time clock is incomputable, yet any modern   
   CPU has it. The very idea of an incomputable element is to compute   
   something, which cannot be computed otherwise.   
      
   [Relevant here is only whether incomputable elements (if any) could be   
   built using available technology.]   
      
   >> Maybe we could state it as an optimization problem if we knew more about   
   >> what intelligence is, but we didn't so far. We also know nothing about   
   >> the complexity of the problem if stated in this form. Evolution is   
   >> solving a completely different problem and the best solutions found   
   >> (bacteria, insects etc) aren't any intelligent.   
   >   
   > We can state it as an optimization problem already.  We do it all the   
   > time.  That's what standardized testing is all about.  We do it in many   
   > other ways too.  When you got your drivers license you passed a small   
   > portion of a human intelligence test.  We could very easily put together   
   > 100 of these and come up with a metric for what it means to have roughly   
   > human level intelligence.  Not only would it not be hard, most of the   
   > work would already have been done.   
      
   That is not enough. You have to show existence of an optimum, or at least a   
   countable number of local optimums.   
      
   > We may not have a good scientific definition of what intelligence is, but   
   > we have a very good working definition of what it is.   
      
   It is possible that a scientific definition does work (impracticable), but   
   an unscientific one certainly doesn't.   
      
   --   
   Regards,   
   Dmitry A. Kazakov   
   http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de   
      
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