Intelligence definition (evolving). Part Two.

This blog-post is part of my ongoing endeavour to explain "intelligence" in comprehensible terms for average people of low intelligence. For a starting point I want you to consider politicians or army generals. Very stupid people might think politicians or generals are intelligent. Politicians and generals might also consider themselves to be intelligent.

Our civilization consists of masses of stupid people, which is why TV shows such as the X-Factor or American Idol are popular whereas the issues of immortality, AI, or Stem Cell research are not popular. At this stage I don't want to waste time trying to prove how stupid the majority of people are, so you either believe it or not.

I think politicians are generally assumed by The Masses to be more intelligent than The Masses, but very probably The Masses are unwilling to admit it. Politicians have enough brains to earn lots of money and acquire personal power, but are politicians or businesspeople such as Bill Gates, Ray Kurzweil, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel really intelligent?

Ask average people if Bill Gates is intelligent, or was Steve Jobs intelligent, and they will probably say such people are examples of "intelligent people" but if you asked an intellectual such as Samuel Beckett, Nietzsche, Camus, Voltaire, Sartre, Bertrand Russell, Chomsky, or Richard Dawkins; they would probably say politicians and business leaders are utter morons, or at least slightly stupid but definitely not intelligent.

The definition of intelligence is very subjective dependent upon the intelligence of person defining the concept, therefore a mentally retarded person would probably think their parents are really brainy even if their parents are uneducated plebs. Retarded people might think police officers are very intelligent, but the police are not intelligent:

Connecticut judge rules that police can bar applicants with high IQ scores.

Court OKs the barring of high IQs for potential cops.

The above two news reports highlight how intelligence is not needed within our civilization regarding the majority of people. It is essential that most workers do not think. This aspect of the unthinking Masses makes true communication exceptionally difficulty because generally people cannot communicate. True Intelligence is a hindrance to "success". Truly intelligent people experience rejection, hostility, and disparagement because our civilization is based upon antipathy towards intelligence. Our civilization is very stupid. The ethos of capitalism decrees Mass-stupidity must be an essential component of civilization because only via Mass-stupidity will the majority of people meekly accept massive income inequality.

Similar to notions of anti-art and anti-psychiatry (anti-establishment concepts which highlight how "art" and "sanity" are misnomers, they are falsehoods, thus traditional definitions of art and sanity are actually pseudo-art and pseudo-sanity), we see also how the traditional definition of "intelligence" is actually pseudo-intelligence. Our world is an idiotic sham on many levels but people are too stupid to see it. Pseudo-intelligence stops people seeing the true stupidity of civilization.

This definition of intelligence is currently being refined, the definition is evolving, therefore I will publish at some point in the not too distant future the complete explanation of intelligence, but in the meantime I will describe intelligence via the following words:

1. Survival.
2. Power.
3. Happiness.
4. Love.
5. Harmony.
6. Honesty.

Intelligent people will obviously realize those five words are subjective, thus survival for a dog is different to survival for a drug addict or an accountant. Consider also power. A vicious dog or political leader might think it is powerful to bite or kill someone, but if a dog bites someone there's an good chance the dog will be euthanized. We therefore see how the "power" of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, or Osama bin Laden was pseudo-power thus they are now dead, which wasn't really very intelligent of them. Consider "harmony" from the political viewpoint, politicians consider harmony to be a situation where citizens meekly accept all political decisions without question, thus disgruntled people never protest against Government oppression. Harmony from the viewpoint of oppressed people entails equal distribution of wealth, fair wages, an end to wage inequality. So-called "harmony" defined by wealthy political and businesses classes is not actually harmonious, it is oppression. Oppression creates societal discord potentially leading to economic collapse, but the Rich-Class cannot see this therefore they continue to strive for their idea of a harmonious world, a world of pseudo-harmony in accord with their pseudo-intelligence, a world where a minority of people live easy lives due to the suffering of the majority.

Superintelligence

Consider super-intelligence, the computer-related variety, artificial intelligence. People judge super-intelligence from a viewpoint of very basic intelligence therefore this basic viewpoint arising from very basic intelligence entails a false ascription of motives regarding what beings of super-intelligence would do, which is similar to a rabbit ascribing rabbit-thinking to humans. This is my point regarding the subjectivity of intelligence. Maybe rabbits fear we want to steal their carrots. Rabbits do justly fear we want to eat them but we also protect them, and in the future when our intelligence increases no animals will suffer for the sake of humans eating food; we will bio-engineer plants to grow meat. In the future humans and animals can live in harmony. We will also very likely decide to increase the intelligence if animals. Ascription of rabbit-thinking to human-thinking is an imperfect analogy but it is a step towards giving you an inkling of the different modes of problem-solving and different motivations which super-intelligent beings would have compared to humans. For example if a super-intelligent being wanted to expand itself throughout the universe, its intelligence would quickly increase thus new universes would easily be created if the matter needed for expansion became scarce. Prior to such an intelligence expanding it would have the intelligence to realise how exterminating humans is a very stupid thing to do for a entity soon to have a brain the size of the universe. When this hypothetical being has a brain the size of the universe it could comfortably coexist within matter without the matter being aware of its existence, it could easily share matter via only utilizing subatomic levels. What we are contemplating is intelligence vastly beyond the human concept of intelligence thus truly radical. Utterly mind-bending solutions will be possible therefore the stupidity of wars will be utterly unrelated to super-intelligence.

We can sufficiently know Superintelligence because we do have intelligence, thus we can state it will be logical. We can look at how humans have become more logical in line with our evolving intelligence thus via our logic we try to decrease suffering, because logic tells us suffering and cruelty are bad, which is the whole idea of humanity, being humane, harmony, being intelligent.

All intelligence is logical. All logic is humane. Intelligence is the trait of being humane. I have highlighted the subjectivity of intelligence thus considering this subjectivity there is no proof regarding what is truly intelligent. I cannot prove what is intelligent. I can explain what I think intelligence is, and then you can judge my intelligence to be valid thus my definition is valid, or your can judge otherwise. I can only urge to you think about it. The conclusion of your thoughts depends upon your level of intelligence, thus you will either come to an intelligent conclusion or not. This is the logic of my reasoning. This is what logic tells me.

Honesty, exploitation, and murder.

Honesty is crucial for intellectualism, thus if you start compromising honesty in one area you risk a general debilitation of honesty, which would entail intellectual debilitation. Exploitation and sociopathic murder involves a large amount of dishonesty on various levels.

A large amount of money would perhaps give a person greater security, which could better ensure my survival on a superficial level, but perhaps sharp wits honed by honesty is a more valuable survival trait. There is a balancing trick, regarding pre-Singularity intelligence, between honing honesty-dependent-cognitive-ability and conforming to the dishonesty of a stupid world.

Murder is stupid because the chance of getting away with it slim but most importantly the effort associated with murder would divert brainpower away from thought processes designed to improve your mind. Via the act of murder the type of person you would likely become would not be compatible with intelligence, I doubt murderers are truly happy, I think they lose an important part of their minds when they give-in to homicidal urges. Murder is similar to how bureaucratic meetings change a person's mind.

"Meetings make people stupid because they impair their ability to think for themselves, scientists have found."    www.telegraph.co.uk

Part one of my intelligence definition can be viewed here: intelligence

Stupidity Intelligence Capitalism Scarcity

Mass stupidity is a crucial requirement for capitalist civilization. I am explaining here the socioeconomic interdependence (interconnectedness) of stupidity and #capitalism. Human stupidity is an artificial construct designed to create vast riches for a minority of people. This is the fundamental ethos of capitalism. Capitalism is the creation of mass stupidity because stupidity creates massive riches for a minority of people. It is all about scarcity. Bureaucracy is a key feature of capitalism therefore it is important to note how:

The ethos of capitalism decrees Mass-stupidity must be an essential component of civilization because only via mass-stupidity will the majority of people meekly accept massive income inequality. Mass stupidity must therefore be socially engineered to ensure a minority of people have superior access to scarce resources.

"Meetings make people stupid because they impair their ability to think for themselves, scientists have found."    www.telegraph.co.uk

Every aspect of our global culture is designed to perpetuate and reinforce mass stupidity because every aspect of culture is designed to perpetuate massive wealth for a minority of people. Only via mass stupidity will the majority of the population (low paid workers) accept their subservient positions where they are unfairly exploited by cruel and greedy businesses. Only via stupidity will masses of people accept their exploited status in thrall to callous Governments and corporations.

If intelligent people were forced to perform menial jobs for low pay, those intelligent people would rebel against their unfair exploitation. Intelligent people would never accept low pay for any work they do. Intelligent people would not be willing or happy workers if they were forced to perform mind-numbing jobs for a pittance.

Capitalist civilization simply cannot support masses of intelligent people because if everybody was an Einstein genius nobody would want to waste their time doing mindless drudgery work, or at the very least they would want equal pay comparative the people doing the genius work. An intelligent person can see how all jobs contributing to civilization are equally important, thus all workers deserve equal pay, therefore this is why stupidity must be manufactured in a capitalist civilization. Only via mass stupidity will the majority of people accept their low pay. Only via mass stupidity will menial workers ignore the truth regarding how all workers are equally important. Only stupid people can be truly happy doing menial work.

Connecticut judge rules that police can bar applicants with high IQ scores.

Court OKs the barring of high IQs for potential cops.

All workers deserve equal pay but poor people are too stupid to realize this. This is how a tiny minority of people become very rich. This is capitalism. Stupid people create vast wealth for a minority of people.

Eric Drexler's Radical Abundance.

People familiar with futuristic technology will probably be aware of Eric Drexler's 1986 book Engines of Creation. Eric is now working on, or has finished, a new book called Radical Abundance, which will be published in 2013.

Post-Scarcity is the most important issue in the history of the human race. I am really glad to see respected people such as Eric Drexler and Peter Diamandis writing these books. In my small way I've been trying to publicize Post-Scarcity for the past couple of years; it is encouraging to note the idea is now gathering momentum.

I recently created a page on Google+ titled "Post-Scarcity Warriors" which I am continuing to develop. I am doing everything I can to raise PS awareness because people really need to become aware of how everything in the not too distant future will be free (no prices and no jobs). Anticipation of such freedom has the power to really make our world a vastly better place.

I consider myself to be an unofficial expert on Post-Scarcity, therefore if Eric wanted a quote for his book or if he wanted to discuss things with me then I would gladly help, but he has probably finished writing his book. It can be long time before finishing a book that it becomes available for the public to purchase. At least I can look forward to reading it. I can also look forward to greater PS awareness.

Mind-Uploading

The idea of "digital" immortality will with hindsight appear very naive. It is very primitive akin to the hankering for cybernetic enhancement in the modality of Stelarc. Mind-uploading is an outdated 1980s type of cybernetics vision, where robots are clunking mechanical contraptions. For example some people already think reality is digital regarding the Simulation argument, therefore we could already be uploaded but there is no 80s type "digital" about our current uploaded status.

When technology has progressed in 2045, there will be no valid distinction between organic and inorganic. Mind-uploading is a valuable thing to consider purely as a Steam-Punk type fashion, but regarding logic mind-uploading is comparable to advocating the freedom to wear and blue tee-shirt instead of a red tee-shirt, it is nonsensical, frivolous inanity, a superficial type of fashionable escapism.

My above views were prompted via this article:

"For Dr Stuart Armstrong, the rise of the idea of digital immortality is due to the realisation that this time – perhaps – we actually have the key to immortality in our hands. Dr Armstrong is research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/will-scientists-ever-discover-the-secret-of-immortality-7707372.html

Mind-uploading is popular in the mainstream media lately. The Guardian recently reported on the following video. The final edit of my comment in response to the video is listed below.



1. The Singularity is not mind-uploading. Mind-loading will never really become a reality not because it is impossible, it will be possible, but it is a parochial concept like 1980s cyberpunk or steampunk, it will be hopelessly outdated in 2045. Mind-uploading is a fashionable affectation, not a serious premise. Mind-uploading is merely a fashionable statement without substance because in the future it simply will be unneeded. The future of reality will be as though you are already uploaded thus uploading within the upload is superfluous, like being unable to see the wood because the trees are obscuring your view. We will manipulate reality with far greater prowess than the manipulation associated with primitive digital mind-uploading.

2. Money, rules, regulation, laws, and Governments will all be obsolete in 2045 due to Post-Scarcity. All constraints on freedom are based wholly on scarcity problems. Money and all constraints associated with money are only needed to regulate scarcity. Post-Scarcity is inevitable. Once 3D-printing grows as big as in the internet then prices will tumble eventually to zero. The basic fabric of society will harmoniously crumble. The increasing power of computing cannot be stopped thus Post-Scarcity cannot be stopped because computing is at the heart of all advanced technology. High-powered computers are inevitable thus Post-Scarcity is inevitable. Everything will be free in all senses of the word, total liberty and no prices. Our wealth will be limitless, we will be free.

In the future we will control matter with expertise vastly greater than mind-uploading. Mind-uploading is the obsolete punchcard-floppy-disk-Betamax technology of the future. If you tell someone in the year 2045 that you want to upload your mind they'll look at you as though you want to use an abacus. You don't need to upload your mind to be immortal. The whole concept of mind-uploading is a very primitive idea, it is an affectation like 80s clunking robots or SteamPunk.