Re: What IS Intelligence

From: Programmer Dude (Chris_at_Sonnack.com)
Date: 12/09/03 

Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 11:59:36 -0600

Roedy Green wrote:

>>>> We have decoded perhaps 20 words of orca speech, and discovered
>>>> each pod has its own dialect.
>>>
>>> Gee, 20 words, is consciousness even possible with only 20 words?
>>> No, anything stuck with 20 words is still a non-conscious device
>>> that only communicates like a machine by instinct, and has no
>>> internal self-modeling.
>
> How many words of Chinese have you decoded? Perhaps 3 or 4.
> Does that reflect on Chinese or you?

The difference that strikes me is that, if I spent a year with a
Chinese person, at the end of that year we would very likely be
communicating pretty well. We'd have picked up much from each
others' languages and would have established a *high* degree of
communication bandwidth and accuracy (in other words, we would
be able to "say" a lot and get it right).

I've lived with my dog for nine years, and the level of
communication isn't anywhere near as high. We've actively
studies dolphins and whales much longer than that, and the
communication bandwidth and accuracy just isn't there.

Exactly what that means, however, may be a different question. 

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