Consciousness and Intelligence

[Blaise (imported)]

There were more posts on this message board, regarding the subject, than on any of the others. Maybe an interest in orchiectomy has more to do with the mind than with the genitourinary system.

A couple of things which were interesting, which were mentioned on other message boards. There was one discussion about idiot savants--a number of people didn't regard their feats as evidence of intelligence. (?!)

Also, one interesting example which was pointed out, was the situation where someone is driving down a highway, then is distracted (typically by a wireless phone.) He stops paying attention to his driving, yet usually continues driving without going out of his lane or having an accident. Is he still driving intelligently, or is it just conditioning? Hard to decide.

I do think a lot thinking is without direct conscious awareness. I think that idiot savants are exhibiting an intelligence.

[theGelded1 (imported)]

Just honk your horn when behind one of these people, then tell me if they exibit intelligence

[Blaise (imported)]

As you stated, it's the problem of actually defining what consciousness is that presents the problem. I have been reading and thinking about this very thing for some time now; and it seems (despite the fact that consciousness is one of the few things science cannot fully define or explain) that what we generally think of as consciousness (i.e., aware of one's self, of one's past and future, of having aspirations and being an entity separate from others, and yet linked to others in familial, societal, and ethical bonds) actually may reside outside the body, and outside the brain itself. The brain, some scientists are coming to believe, is nothing more than a sophisticated receiver, much like a radio or TV set. Sometimes the brain gets jolted, or aged, or disease

d, and ceases to be a good recei

ver....and yet the consciousness and intelligence still resides *SOMEWHERE* intact and whole. There are several things that point to the consciousness existing independent of the body.... out of body experiences (OBEs), near-death experiences (NDEs), lucid dreams, and so on suggest strongly that we can leave the body at will or sometimes due to an accident, a drug overdose, or sometimes on a surgery table, we humans are able to "get up and walk around" so to speak, or move through walls and know and see things that there is no rational explanation for. And if that is true -- that our consciousness is independent of the body, that our "MIND" is really not associated with the brain...then all sorts of things are possible. The most significant of which would be the possibility that we survive what people call "death" and our consciousness simply moves on to inhabit another, higher realm of vibration. There's a fascinating book, out of print now I think, but available free online, called On The Edge of the Etheric by Arthur Findlay, published in 1935 or so. In it he describes his encounters with a well-known medium of the time and his understanding of the etheric body that we all have and how it is really our consciousness, intelligence, and personality, simply inhabiting a physical body, and that at the time of death the etheric body (some might call it the "soul") detaches from the body for the final time and ascends to a higher level of vibration. He says it is this body that travels and leaves the physical body from time to time, as in dreams or out of body experiences...and recall that this was in 1935!

So in light of all that, I suspect that at s

ome level we are all operating at a similar level [

quote="fhunter" time=1217743380]

of intelligence and consciousnes

s, but in our physical forms, we all have handicaps, our brains (our "receivers") might not be as highly tuned as others, so down here we all appear to be different, some highly intelligent, some not so much...but at a higher level, at the etheric level, the p

lace we all go to when we leave this physical plan
[/quote]
e, I think it may be the case that we're all pretty much on a level playing field.

IMHO, of course. Some theories in physics certainly insinuate there is much we simply do not know. The notion that the universe is simultaneously linked with itself somehow outside of space and time intrigues me. I don’t have any use for anthropomorphic notions of theism, but I do retain a slight bias for some form of personalism--not logical at all but intriguing.

[Blaise (imported)]

There was recently an interesting discussion of this idea at a meeting of an organization with which I am affiliated.

The question is a simple one: Is intelligence (or, if you prefer, high intelligence) possible without consciousness?

Of course, you immediately run into some difficulties with this, including the problem of defining consciousness and the intricacies of defining intelligence.

Obviously, someone who is intelligent can be unconscious, and still be an intelligent being, but, for us humans, functional intelligence is only detectable when someone is conscious.

Most people in the discussion took the view that some type of consciousness is necessary for intelligence. But it was pointed out that some of those who design intelligence tests, acknowledge that a computer could theoretically get high scores on their tests, if its processer were fast enough and it had enough memory. It was also noted that computers have been able to defeat chess grand masters.

If consciousness is necessary for intelligence, that conceivably could reduce the likelihood of intelligent extraterrestrial life, since organisms would first have to develop consciousness, and then intelligence.

One interesting observation was that all the major religions, except perhaps Taoism, include the idea of a conscious deity or deities.

I am posting this on a number of message boards to see what different perspectives people have on this question.

The Turning test implies intelligence without consciousness. In 2001, is HAL intelligent? Is HAl conscious?

[fhunter]

The Turning test implies intelligence without consciousness. In 2001, is HAL intelligent? Is HAl conscious?

Intelligent - yes.

Conscious - good question. May be.

Turing test is human oriented. Main goal for the conestant - is to be indistinguishable from human. Or am I wrong?

[Blaise (imported)]

Intelligent - yes.

Conscious - good question. May be.

Turing test is human oriented. Main goal for the conestant - is to be indistinguishable from human. Or am I wrong?

Yes, I think so. The goal is for a tester not to be able to distinguish the machine from the human being.

[erikboy (imported)]

Intelligent - yes.

Conscious - good question. May be.

Turing test is human oriented. Main goal for the conestant - is to be indistinguishable from human. Or am I wrong?

So the main difference between human and HAL is that conciousness and intelligence are layered in completely different ways.

When HAL boot up, it can do things that look intelligent before it regain conciousness. Or conciousness like behaviour.

when humans wake up from sleep they first regain conciousness before they could do anything that may look intelligent.

Conciousness for humans is something so essential. It seem to be a nest from where thoughts can emerge. The source of intelligence.

Of my own experience, near death experince I can tell that conciousness was the last thing that left and first thing that returned, I was able to have limited thoughts before my senses returned. It was I, my conciousness which explored surrounding darkness and wondered whats that. It had no memories either, just pure conciousness wihtout connection to external world.

I keep thinking that all mammals have conciousness. While Ants, bees and termites have something like limited collective mind that the Borg from startrek had.

[A-1 (imported)]

Yes,

...and I miss Blaise and when is someone going to contact him and ask him if he will re-consider his position and come back here to post.

It has been long enough.

[dfinder (imported)]

Here is a recent experiment which bears on this question. A man who is totally blind, due to injury to a specific part of the brain, was asked to walk down a hallway containing various obstacles at random locations. To everyone's surprise, he was able to navigate successfully down the hallway without bumping into anything.

Vision is a complex system with many layers. The "uppermost" layer is that part of the brain that is aware of seeing - not just seeing, but aware of what it has seen. This is the part that was injured in this man. Lower parts of his vision system are intact and perfectly able to guide his progress around the obstacle. However, that act of seeing is never able to report itself to his conscious mind. When he was asked why he changed direction to avoid an obstacle, he answers that he does not know why he did it. He has no conscious experience of seeing.

This experiment was reported several months ago; you can probably do a search for it and get the details. I heard about it on NPR and I think it appeared in NY Times also.

- Finder

[dead_fairy (imported)]

Q-is intelligence possible without conciousness?

*analysing data-intelligence definition processing

(definition found)-

applying conditions to hard memory

looking up defintion

looking up defintion

looking up defintion......(eternal definition search)

*conciousness definition processing

definition found

comparing definition to hard memory

looking up defintion

looking up defintion

looking up defintion

looking up defintion.......(infinite defintion look ups)

in my opinion if this question was given to an intelligent computer it would take it eternity/would never be able, to answer the question

so if you ask me intelligence is possible without consiousness , unless this computer is actually god and manages to ride out eternity to the end hahahahahhahaha!!!

ps the computer is ace n knows physics n stuff n a deducing algorithem thingy so it can learn words n it has loads of sensors n stuff