clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:

> I totally agree. I'd say the slime mold is an /elegant/ solver of
> certain problems, but not necessarily an /intelligent/ one.

Yes, I knew when this was first posited that there would much to say about - the
history of man and literature and philosophy have all been exploring this for
thousands or millions of years.
The researchers are intelligent, the slime mold is a mechanism - a tool that
they are using.
They could have used been using anything that would adapt to the proper shape to
solve a problem, slime mold was just particularly suited to this one - because
it's kinetic and can iterate.


> "Intelligence" derives from the Latin verb "intelligere" - to
> comprehend, or perceive.
>
> So in its original meaning intelligence is not about /solving/ problems,
> but /understanding/ them (or the world as a whole, or one's own existence).

I was thinking about that as well, and I thought it useful to comment that some
interesting aspects of understanding a problem are employing seemingly unrelated
phenomena to formulate a solution (soap bubbles, minimal surfaces, mathematics,
architecture), understanding that there may be a "best" way to solve the
problem, considering if it's worth it to solve it the "best" way or the most
practical way (isolated instance, or something to be solved millions of times -
cost/benefit of optimization), whether it's worth solving the problem at all,
and whether a solution can even exist.
There are also _levels_ of intelligence, and being able to abstract a situation
to think about the problem is an important concept.

I was also thinking about the attributes we might ascribe to "intelligence", and
in considering how an intelligence would interact with its environment
(otherwise how would we be able to assess its intellect?) I wondered about the
how the ability of something to perceive and manipulate its environment ties in
with its potential and real intelligence.

Taking away those things made me think that an interesting attribute is being
able to communicate with other intelligences to organize and accomplish tasks
that one might not be able to independently.
Ayn Rand famously explored this aspect when she wrote about the difference
between the work someone does with their mind vs what some can only do with
their hands (figuratively). By working together, the thinker is freed from
performing the tasks that don't require an elevated level of understanding,
while the workers who have the understanding of the organization and the
equipment, and the physical capability to do what the thinker might not be able
to strength-wise perform another set of tasks.  As a result everyone benefits.
Someone designing a computer processor would not be able to build and run an
entire facility themselves, and most people don't have the amount of knowledge
and intelligence to design that kind of advanced electronic architecture.


> In that qualitative sense, "intelligence" is not about /if/ you can
> solve problems, but /how/ you do so -- it is a certain /approach/ to
> solve problems.

I would say that might tie more into the level of intelligence idea - the slime
mold isn't aware that it's solving a problem - it's just mechanically searching
for food and avoiding areas where it doesn't find any.  A blind, brute force
algorithm driven by chemotaxis.
Every new maze will start with the searching and end with an optimized matrix.
An intelligence would be able to abstract the idea and optimize its method
_before_ being presented with a new maze.
This also brings up the question of the degree that that memory plays in
intelligence.

We make tools that help us perceive things we can't naturally, manipulate things
we can't, and make records to enhance our memory.  We can discover problems that
exist but are not directly recognizable, and have solutions that take decades or
more to understand an implement the solutions for.  We're even building machines
to "think" so that they can single "minded"ly focus on solving the given problem
with great speed and without distraction (food, cold, mate, shelter, etc)

I'd also like to say that one of the greatest things I've explored in thinking
is that thinking is a function of _asking questions_.  "Why?" being the most
pervasive and important.
Also "why NOT?"

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