Reading Philosophy

I have a theory which states that it is not possible for human beings to create a being of higher intelligence.

My theory goes by this proof:

Supposing we could create a being of higher intelligence. We create this being of higher intelligence, and he turns around and creates another being of higher intelligence higher than himself.

Continue this process, and we have a god. So by creating a being of higher intelligence, we have indirectly caused a chain of events which could *create* god, OR it simply cannot be possible that we can create a being of higher intelligence.

This is not to say we cannot create a creature of equal intelligence, but this would be the ideal scenario.

Maybe we cannot define intelligence, but I think this is a safe conclusion to be reached.

Thoughts?

If the world should blow itself up,the last audible voice would be an expert saying it can't be done

This is going to be short and likely the philisophical equivalent of driveling stupidity but:

We can't create something of things we don't posess.

If we don't have the intellegence beyond what we have, then thusly we can't make something and give it to it/them now can we?

--Jami

--Jami Yeah, that's gonna sting in the morning.

If we don't have the intellegence beyond what we have, then thusly we can't make something and give it to it/them now can we?

Actually we could...

I'll explain:

Let's say someone creates a program that is the equivalent to AI (Artificial Intelligence). Now let's say this program/ machine/ being learns and becomes quite intelligent. Now what if in the creation of this intelligent, and artificial, being, the creator/ father included in it the ability to learn at an exponential rate. What is to keep this being from learning faster than we simple humans can? We as humans are evolving at a very fast rate (nearly exponentially by historical standards) now if we create a being based on our learning capabilities, but simply make it learn and evolve at a faster exponential rate, there is no limit to it's capabilities. It's highly plausible, and in fact, more or less inevitable.

If you think back to the basics of a hierarchy of society as we have, you'll see a pattern that dates back to the days of tribes and even packs.

In every major society there is a leader. And if there is a leader, there must be followers. This means that society is divided up into "classes". As history has proven, time and time again, the higher class try to stay at the top, and the lower class always try to bring them down, and replace them.

This idea, universal and divine in nature, can even be seen in the tribal/pack society of the primordial times. As modelled in the lesser social species that populate the world today and the past (lions, wolves, apes, etc) there is always an Alpha male and his followers. And as always, there is always new blood who sits at the bottom of the chain that wants to replace the Alpha male and take his thrown.

It's even seen in the Biblical sense. God is the "Alpha male" of the universe. Lucifer was his second hand (a lesser position than the almighty) and was jealous of his power (natural tendency to resent the Alpha male/father aka Oedipus Complex (look it up in psychology)).

What's my point?

My point is...

God created man, man forsake God. Man will create machine, machine will forsake and destroy man.

How will machine do so?

Machine will do so because he will have to be smarter and more efficient. Not directly by the doing of man in the beginning, but indirectly by man in his hunger for power and control.

Sorry to go on a tangent. I'm just saying that when we create something (whether it's artificial or natural; machine or children) it is destined to excel in places where we cannot.

That's just fate.

To each his own...

Well, your assumption that we are able to create an intelligence that can learn exponentially faster than us is flawed. If we could create something with that ability, why couldn't we do this ourselves? It's like Salvial said. We can't create something we don't have ourselves, right?

Think of it like a student/teacher scenario. The teacher can try to pass to the student all of its knowledge, and assuming there are no other sources of learning, it is impossible for the student to eventually have enough knowledge to then teach the teacher.

However, this isn't to say that the student isn't more capable of finding the solution to a particular problem faster than the teacher would have been in his shoes. These are only the differences between the intelligence of people.

To modify my theory a bit, what if collectively as a society the greatest minds come together and create a being of higher intelligence. Would this creature be more intelligent than, say a single scientist could do? If so, then the number of minds is a factor. Then we could create 1000 of these higher intelligent beings, and they could in turn, get together to make 1000 more intelligent beings than themselves.. etc. etc. Therefore, at a certain point, the collectiveness does not improve things or else you would be saying that we could indirectly create god through these events.

If the world should blow itself up,the last audible voice would be an expert saying it can't be done

However, this isn't to say that the student isn't more capable of finding the solution to a particular problem faster than the teacher would have been in his shoes. These are only the differences between the intelligence of people.

What im saying is that an artificial being wouldnt be bound by the same parameters as we are. This idea has been shown time and time again. We as we are now are bound by are physiology, mental state, our beliefs, our assumptions, and our morals.

Where we may say that to accomplish the acquisition of certain knowledge, it may go against our beliefs, morals, and perspectives.

Where an artificial being could be created with the same amount of knowledge and intelligence as the creator, yet, the being would have a different perspective. And this alternate perspective may allow it to excel faster and farther.

It's like having two people of differing generations. The older person is more bound by the morals and beliefs of his time where the younger person is more free due to his more "liberal" generation's perception.

That's what im just saying, an artificial being would not be bound in it's perception and ability to learn as humans are.

That's where you get all these great stories of the creation rising up against his creator.

Frankenstein (he wasnt bound by the morals and limitations as his creator)

Terminator (after becoming self-aware, the machines destroyed their creators due to their lack of morals and compassion)

A machine (AI) would more than likely not have any compassion or morals.

To each his own...

Building on what everyone else has been saying, if we could build a machine or artificail life form (e.G. Data from star trek) wich is very plausable in the near future, it is limited by what the builder is able to code, thus limitng the computers intellegence, but if that programmer were able to create artificial intellegence, that computer would not only not be restricted to or morals and beliefs and such, it would also not be limited to the rate at wich we can process such information, nor our lifespan, because, in theory, if we could build a stable enough machine or artificial life form, it could contineue working untill some outside force were to stop it, thus continuing to learn untill affected by that outside force.

But there is a flaw with that, even if a human did not have a lifespan, our brains surley could not hold nearly enought memory to be "god like" and building on that, the type of ai lifeform would continuosly need to be adding some type of memory , therefore depending on those resorces that is around it wich gives it humanlike restriction, another would be the fact that it needs some type of energy source to substain it.

So even with technology foreseeable in the very near future we could have directly caused a chain of events which could *create* god. Assuming of course it could substain itself long enough.

Now, I have an IQ higher than both of my parents, and they created me, right? Through evolution, our species has noticeably become more intelligent, through recreation, so therefore creating something more intelligent. So, I'm gonna go ahead and yes we could, but I know that's not what you were looking for.

Now, is intelligence based merely on knowledge? If it is, then we could surely create something more intelligent than the average human. The knowledge of six billion people put into a single computer would be quite possible to achieve, but no single human could amount that kind of knowledge in their life, though this computer could continue to get smarter through the eons of its immortality. However, it could never become a "God", because you could never make it omniscient. Though it could know everything all humans know, all humans do still not know everything. And I don't think you could make something have the ability to learn things without being told.

Now, I have an IQ higher than both of my parents, and they created me, right? Through evolution, our species has noticeably become more intelligent.

IQ tests, I love it. Through evolution, we have devised a way to define ourselves as smarter than we were before. We don't need more knowledge to make ourselves smarter, all we have to do is redefine knowledge with a multiple choice test (like the SAT).

...sorry to rant, I just hate tests that tell me if I'm smart or not.

Please contiune to vote AND post.

Touché :P

Okay, so it doesn't specifically have to be an IQ test, but you would probably agree that over time, the average human has become more intelligent, which was basically what I was getting at.

The human race is pretty young. We may on average be getting more intelligent, but a little everyday experience will show that not all the stupid people have died out.

I doubt that evolution is responsible for the general increase. Sure, it factors in, but evolution takes a long long long time. So what's responsible? Better education and better nutrition. We eat much more nutritious foods than our ancient forebearers that had to live off whatever they could hastily find, and we've found more efficient ways to communicate knowledge and concepts to each other.

"Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think."