Summations Only

Hi Taq,
it reminds me saying that everythink has a rudimentary "intelligence"! Do you realise that?

Well, you can't very well have an unconscious decision, can you?Either some intentional choice is made or there is no decision making process taking place.That would be my position: there is no decision being made; simply inevitable, mechanical processess. No need for decisions, intelligence or intentional activity.Do I win 5 pounds?Abe: Taq is pointing this out to show how stupid the idea is, not to lend support the idea that everything is intelligent, obviously. Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

Nobody has been talking about "planning or forethought". It seems there is no diversity of opinions about "innate intelligence" in this thread! Edited by zi ko, : No reason given.

It is your vague approach to the word intelligence that is causing others to take your meaning in various ways.You're rubbish at communication: that is the problem.

Well Shadow71, who is who that reply was directed at, was. If you look at the post to which it was a reply, Message 263, you will see they say ... So you may well be in disagreement with Shadow on this but there is someone who is talking about planning. I agree, there are only 2 camps, those who adhere to some definition of intelligence as it is usually understood and you and Shadow (and Shapiro outside of this thread) who wish to redefine the term to such an extent as to make it into something completely unlike intelligence as it is usually understood and so broad as to encompass virtually anything.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

Hi Zi Ko,I was offline for a few days when this was posted, so I'm only responding now. You're asking questions about how evidence evolution affects instinct, yet you've already concluded that evolution poorly explains instinct? Aren't you putting the cart before the horse?You wanted to know how instinct evolves, I told you. If you want specific details then I suggest you look them up instead of asking others to do your research for you, research that must precede the drawing of conclusions. Except that there wasn't any learning going on, see the Wikipedia article on the Domesticated Silver Fox. The foxes weren't being taught to behave in a domestic fashion. Rather, foxes were selected for breeding on the basis of qualities associated with domesticity, and in this way successive generations of foxes became increasingly domesticated. Learning had nothing to do with it.It would indeed be wonderful if we were born knowing what had been learned by our parents, but what is learned by one generation is not inherited by the next. DNA is the vehicle of inheritance, and anything not committed to DNA is not passed on. What we learn is stored in our brain, not our DNA. What is learned during any organism's life time is lost when it dies. There is no evidence that evolution is driven by neural systems.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

The difference between me and you is that you see and criticise things from the narrow human standpoint, while i view things through evolution from the whole animal scale. So decision making in humans being evoluted from rudimentary "decision making" in cells and lower animals is basicaly the same funnction in all cases.So we can have unconscious decisions.

There is not any vagueness. Just a different approach.
Iquote from the O.P:
"Intelligence: I don’t give it the original meaning of the word (namely, to choose between contingent alternatives). What I really mean is: in response to environmental and other factors, a naturally inside organism pre-existing mechanism, and by force of chemistry and physics, causes changes in the genome. So I think of it as a mechanism, but not intelligence in any traditional sense. Of course we have then the eternal question to face here: how was this made?" But this is a second level question."Edited by zi ko, : No reason given.

But as I pointed out earlier, your definition makes no sense...
Message 248
So - using your definition of 'intelligence' - - the 'intelligence' of rocks and clouds causes changes in their genomes.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

Hi Zi Ko,You're going in circles with your definitions of intelligence. First you offered a definition in your opening post, which was rather vague. Then during discussion you became more specific and said that everything in the universe has intelligence. Then later you endorsed Swain's definition as quoted in Message 194. And now you're back to your original vague definition again.This thread does not have much longer to run, this is no time to reset to square zero. If you have any useful and unambiguous definition of intelligence to offer, tell us now.--Percy

In smmation: I was right about how this thread would turn out.

As I pointed out in Message 9, a hydrogen atom does not decide whether or not it wants to attach to an oxygen atom. So far there has been zero evidence presented in support of Nature's innate intelligence.

Unless there's a bug, you should have received an alert that read something like this: So it's too early for summations. When the thread enters summation mode you'll get this alert: AbE: If you click on the "Thread Details" link at the top you'll see summation mode information in the box on the right hand side.Edited by Admin, : AbE.

I quote from wikipedia:
"Belyaev believed that the key factor selected for in the domestication of dogs was not size or reproduction, but behavior; specifically, amenability to domestication, or tameability. He selected for low flight distance, that is, the distance one can approach the animal before it runs away. Selecting this behavior mimics the natural selection that must have occurred in the ancestral past of dogs. More than any other quality, Belyaev believed, tameability must have determined how well an animal would adapt to life among humans. Because behavior is rooted in biology, selecting for tameness and against aggression means selecting for physiological changes in the systems that govern the body's hormones and neurochemicals"
Selecting for flight distance and behavior means that he was selecting for mainly learnt staff. The short time of the experiment imply that there was not any mutations involved. Anyway Belayev have not said anything about it.
It is important to note that he talks about hormones and neurochemicals, both of which are related to messaging, particularly the neurochemicals directly lelated to neural system and learning.(rememper my neuro-genic theory of evolution)

Your ability to misinterpret plain English and read into a passage what you want to see is amazing and incredible. It isn't like the passage you quoted is ambiguous. I can't explain it any better than Wikipedia and won't try.Any progress on that definition of intelligence? You're running out of time.--Percy