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Author | Topic: Instinctual Behavior Vs Intelligent Decisions | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Jon Inactive Member |
An animal merely repeating the behaviour of all other members of it's species is not doing anything intelligent regardless of how complex it seems. If it's capable of solving a problem that it's never encountered before it's got a measure of intelligence. If it creates and uses a tool to do it and none of it's species has ever done before, then it's pretty damn smart (relatively). How is this any different than what Crashfrog mentioned back in Message 6?Love your enemies!
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Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Crashfrog pointed out that behaviour that all members of the species do is likely be instinctual and then made the distinction that not all humans design skyskrapers thereby implying that humans have diferentiated behaviour and that may show intelligence.
I'm saying (quite repetitively) that inteligence can be shown to be an ability to solve new problems in new ways. Using yours and Crashfrog's analogy, I said that a Skyscraper designer is also likely be able build you a bungalow or a bridge if pushed. As a skyscraper designer, he doesn't build the same building that his dad built Or that his partners built, he has to come up with new ideas and new designs in new materials. I'd say that that requires a degree of intelligence.Life, don't talk to me about life.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
How is your use of "intelligent decisions" different than just the single word "decisions"? Intelligent decisions require intelligence. Intelligence is broadly defined in this context as being reflection, rumination, simulation etc of the problem before finding several possible solutions and deciding between them based on an simulated understanding of the outcomes and a comparison to goals. Non-intelligent decisions would be the decision to remove your hand from a fire. It basically just happens without minutes of rumination and simulation etc. We don't need to learn to remove our hand, our hand pretty much just gets moved when it experiences pain. Since it isn't a learned behaviour it is instinctual. It is my position that we don't learn to think. That behaviour is intrinsically part of our makeup.
Sorry but I still don't get your use of the word "intelligent decisions" as being instinctive; it seems to have no meaning. It means that making decisions after thinking through the possible consequences of each of the perceived possible options is something that happens whether we want to or not. It is an instinctive behaviour of humans to think about things. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
You don't have kids and have never been around kids have you?
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
You don't have kids and have never been around kids have you? I have been around kids. You could have saved us both some time had you explained your point. Now I have to waste my time asking you to explain it, and you have to waste time reading my request. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Sorry but all the evidence I have seen shows that humans do NOT make decisions after thinking through the possible consequences of each of the perceived possible options is something that happens whether we want to or not. In fact they make most decisions without consideration at all.
So far I simply totally disagree with your position.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Sorry but all the evidence I have seen shows that humans do NOT make decisions after thinking through the possible consequences of each of the perceived possible options is something that happens whether we want to or not. In fact they make most decisions without consideration at all. I have already granted that humans make plenty of decisions without intelligent thought. To deny that humans make some decisions by thinking through the possible consequences etc., seems the height of foolishness. If you deny that fact, there is probably no use discussing it further.
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Of course I have never denied that fact, the issue is whether it is a learned behavior or instinctual.
If you have ever had children or spent much time around children, you would see that decision making, the idea that there are options or consequences or that you think things through are learned. Granted much of the hardware needed for such things is there, but not from the beginning. We grow and our brains evolve as we grow, and certain parts, particularly those parts needed to learn decision making just ain't there for a long, long time. Kids stick things in electric sockets. Kids find that "Billy did it" is a valid reason. Kids understand they had to do it because they were "double dared". Many adults are not really much different and do not make intelligent decisions, decision they have considered or thought through.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
If you have ever had children or spent much time around children, you would see that decision making, the idea that there are options or consequences or that you think things through are learned. I don't disagree that there is much learned behaviour surrounding decision making.
Granted much of the hardware needed for such things is there, but not from the beginning. We grow and our brains evolve as we grow, and certain parts, particularly those parts needed to learn decision making just ain't there for a long, long time. I agree, but it is an integral part of our developmental processes. We might not have it all from birth, but there is much that we lack at birth that will inevitably develop as we grow older. Just because some behavioural structures of the brain develop later than birth does not make it learned.
Kids stick things in electric sockets. I'm not suggesting that knowledge of the dangers of electric sockets is instinctual. But experimenting with the unknown to learn about it is.
Kids find that "Billy did it" is a valid reason. I said intelligent decision making is instinctual, not sound reasoning, not good decision making, not well informed decision making, not high IQ decision making. Our instincts can make us make very poor decisions for terrible reasons. I'm not using intelligent to mean 'good', 'smart' or 'correctly reasoned'. Kids may well be 'stupid', having not learned much important information that is necessary to make informed decisions. But at least some of the decisions they make are intelligence based, even if they are not correctly reasoned or made in ignorance of vital facts.
Kids understand they had to do it because they were "double dared". Yes, kids and adults both have an instinctual desire to be socially accepted, and they soon learn how to do that. And sometimes that means doing dares. This isn't smart, but in some cases it might be intelligent.
Many adults are not really much different and do not make intelligent decisions, decision they have considered or thought through People can make unintelligent decisions, and they can make poorly reasoned decisions and they can make decisions that result in consequences that are contradictory to their intentions. What people figure out is learned. The urge to figure stuff out is itself instinctual. The act of making decisions using parts of the brain associated with intelligence comes naturally to us, it is instinctual. Nobody has to learn to use intelligence - they just have to learn the relevant information and the skills to analyse that information well.
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
You can make up all the definitions you want but I still disagree.
No one uses intelligence. It is not a commodity or hammer. We use our brain, and we learn how to do that. Sorry.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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zi ko Member (Idle past 3620 days) Posts: 578 Joined: |
The urge to figure stuff out is itself instinctual. The act of making decisions using parts of the brain associated with intelligence comes naturally to us, it is instinctual. Nobody has to learn to use intelligence - they just have to learn the relevant information and the skills to analyse that information well. So are you suggesting, according to current theory, that all these innumerate "instinctive" behaviors man shows with their innumerate grades and combinations, are inherited, coused by random mutations in specific DNA areas?--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
We use our brain, and we learn how to do that. I still don't disagree. But my point is that using the parts of the brain that are regarded as intelligent is instinctual. Of course, we learn specifics - but the general use of our brains to intelligent ends is instinctual. There is much to be learned before we can make good/right/correct decisions, but using the intelligent parts of our brains just comes naturally to us.
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I don't see much evidence of that unless you are reducing it to a conscious decision of which parts of the brain to use, and I do not see that as instinctual at all.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
So are you suggesting, according to current theory that all these innumerate "instinctive" behaviors man shows with their innumerate grades and combinations, are inherited, coused by random mutations in specific DNA areas? Yes, we inherit our intelligence. Much of this is caused by the genome we inherit - along with the environment of our development. This genome has mutated since it first came into being. The current theory would predict that the first life was not intelligent. So intelligence has arisen through the mechanisms described by the present theory of evolution. There may be further mechanisms that are as yet unknown.
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I do not see evidence that we inherit our intelligence, sorry.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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