The Best Definition of Intelligence

Brian Piere
Jul 25, 2017 · 6 min read

People will understandably have a tough time providing their benefit-of-the-doubt for this one. Ironically, that’s exactly what intelligence requires and this creates a “chicken and egg” problem.

The following definition is currently the best that has been offered and it should stay that way until someone can find a single valid reason to say why not.

Intelligence = Truth-by-default above a contradiction process.

What About Prediction?

There’s clearly a deep relationship between intelligence and prediction. However it should be asked, “how does a person or a machine determine if a prediction is correct?” It’s makes more sense to assume that prediction is a vital product or output from intelligent thought. That is, as an animal or a machine acquires additional (ideas + mistakes) the better that their prediction abilities become.

Remember, the neorcortex is widely believed to employ a single universal process for all senses and motor controls in all mammals. Such a process can be considered intelligence-at-work. Why wouldn’t that be something which is fundamentally simple and describable?

  1. First it’s necessary to take a guess, or cycle through a database of ideas.
  2. Second a process of contradictions is used to rule things out.
  3. Whatever ideas are left standing can be called “correct”… for the moment in the given context.

The mind is capable of having epiphanies, something related to consciousness. That’s useful for finding the things/ideas/predictions which begin as true-by-default. However intelligence and consciousness are two separate things. Machines aren’t conscious but they can behave intelligently, providing that creative and conscious humans seed them with ideas to be vetted (or permutations thereof).

Vetting the Definition of Intelligence Intelligently

“Right” is not something which can be assembled from building blocks because that would require axioms and authorities to certify them. It’s so much simpler to assume that “right” is something that universally occurs from the outset, relative to an individual in the moment under a given context. After all, this is nature’s way, evident in trusting toddlers.

The Intelligence Algorithm has been used below to demonstrate that the definition for intelligence is currently not-wrong.

____________________________________________________________

(1) (true) BELIEF: “Truth-by-default above a contradiction process” is the best definition for intelligence.

____________________________________________________________

— — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that something is best, worst, better, or worse, and expect that idea to receive unanimous support (+) because those are subjective terms which are merely “relatively true” from the perspective of individuals, not the collective.

— (3)— (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that relative/subjective terms are unable to unanimously describe concepts (+) because there are many ideas described with superlatives which stand undisputed. For example, currently TCP/IP offers the the best protocol for internet communication and if anyone disagrees they are they are welcome to find a mistake before offering an alternative.

— — — — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that the definition of a word is capable or garnering unanimous support the way that a protocol can (+) because if an idea cannot be scientifically measured there’s no way to get everyone to agree upon what constitutes better or worse.

— — (5) — — (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that it’s impossible to logically measure better or worse with regards to the description of a concept (+) because all tangible memories are contradictions which means that less-is-more. If there are two different ways to describe an idea, both of which are collectively mistake-free, it can be said that the smaller version is better.

— — — — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that it’s possible for everyone to reach a consensus over the best definition of a word (+) because if such a thing were possible there wouldn’t be multiple companies producing dictionaries.

— —(5) — — (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that mankind’s reasons for competing in the past apply going forward (+) because the Intelligence Algorithm has recently been discovered and it can be a game-changer for humanity if people are willing to listen. Intelligence has pointed the way to unanimity-over-democracy and collaboration-over-competition.

— — — — — — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that competition is bad (+) because capitalism has proven to outperform communism.

— — — (7) — — — (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that capitalism and competition is good for humanity even if it has proven superior to communism (+) because within ever competing company there is a military-esque power structure which inhibits bottom-up information flow. Capitalism has already proven inferior to Open Source and that was before the advent of the Intelligence Algorithm.

— — — — — — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that competition is bad (+) because mother nature runs upon a form of competition (i.e. survival of the fittest) which has undeniably yielded amazing solutions.

— — — (7) — — — (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that mother nature’s success with evolution is proof that mankind should embrace competition (+) because now it’s possible for humanity to evolve ideas collaboratively. Progress can be achieved at a rate far beyond what fighting is capable for yielding. Every person who competes means less brainpower for problem-solving, or worse, someone who uses their thought-cycles for contemplating destruction of the others’ solution(s).

— — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that there can be a simple definition for intelligence (+) because that would be like trying to describe consciousness, something which is personal and untouchable.

— (3) — (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that intelligence is indescribable in a way that’s similar to consciousness (+) because scientists aren’t trying to create “artificial consciousness”. If people share a goal of building machines that are capable of simulating intelligence then it becomes necessary to accurately describe what that means.

— — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that it’s possible to accurately define intelligence (+) because there’s no way to verify that it’s correct.

— (3) — (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that one needs to verify that that the definition of a word is correct (+) because, by the very definition of intelligence, one should be worried that ideas and concepts are not-wrong.

— — — — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that it’s intelligent to be not-wrong about definitions (+) because that’s not the way that dictionaries work.

— — (5)— — (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that dictionaries are currently vetting the definition of words which they provide (+) because words are defined with other words which means that there’s never an end or a source (like a dog chasing its tail). Since there’s never a way to be absolutely correct/perfect about anything it becomes important to use the power of “inversion” and find ideas/concepts which are not wrong. As long as a person or a collective cannot find mistakes on something then it can be called relatively flawless.

— — — — — — (false) Contradiction: (-) You can’t say that dictionaries should be filled with not-wrong definitions (+) because people would not use something that they are not familiar with.

— — — (7) — — — (true) Contradiction: (-) You can’t conflate the purpose of a dictionary with a method for vetting correct answers (+) because an intelligent process of mistake-avoidance can be considered the scaffolding for deriving things which are right.

Game of Attrition

The “contradiction tree” above is in no way exhaustive, but if more people chose to enter the debate it would become that way. The final outcome is decided by a game-of-attrition.

There’s not a more intelligent way to collectively decide upon something. If there was then people would have to say what’s wrong with the process, and why. That would mean that they are fundamentally using it to help people make intelligent decisions.

Brian Piere

Written by

I’m a full-stack web developer, A.I. researcher, philosopher and a father of four. I live to see the day when people can trust one another by default.

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