Have you ever tried to teach a small child to think? Now why would I want to do that you might say? Children think don't they? Now that depends on one's definition of what thinking is. I was wondering around the internet one day last week lurking in the corridors of illusionary locations when the thought struck me that I might be able to find one of those intelligence quotient programs. I found it in America On Line. The IQ Test. A copy of a formal intelligence test which I promptly downloaded and commenced to absorb. Fascinating. A test of intelligence that rarely used actual intelligence. But it sure was a great measurement of absorption, relationships. and references. All things that are a result of an intelligence at work comparing knowledge of what is known with knowledge of what is applicable to what is known. The working term being "what is known". Knowledge. It is no wonder so many people have been outspoken against the use of IQ tests. The IQ Test itself is biased toward a person who has been given the stimulus in childhood to absorb things that have no reference to daily life and therefore no interest to asmall child. Children deprived of a studious environment will not grow up to be studious. With the notable exceptions granted such a possibility is remote indeed. So I wondered more. In my quest for the construction of an intelligence in an artificial environment, verses the intelligence being artificial, I was interested in the test's ability to make sense out of one of man's most intriguing abilities. That of making sense out of nonsense and being intent to remain convinced of the illusion of incorrect assumptions once nonsense has been declared a requirement. It would presuppose the observer to conclude that for there to be sense made from nonsense there must first be sense residing within the operator's brain. Such would be logical. Yet the assumption in life is that such ability of sense is either planted in the emerging brain or is somehow developed. How does a small child come to realize that she is capable of making decisions that result in understanding a word as a word and not as a collection of sounds called letters? There is more at work in that process than the surface might reveal. Attending school a small child is given knowledge but is assumed to arrive with the tools to utilize that knowledge. Very few adult parents know they themselves have the tools so how could they teach the child before it is time to input data at massive insertion rates? When very young most small children babble. They talk out loud in what we assume is a wonderful display of childish play. In essence the brain has not yet learned that it can do all of that babbling without engaging the motor functions. When it learns to do so thinking will be taking place. The voice within that talks is not even a consideration to a small child. It results in the voice without making noise and in turn gets the child reprimanded which results in the voice being taught to shut up which results in the brain being told not to think. When it eventually works its way inside and the motor movements cease and thinking takes off the learned knowledge of 'self generated voice" will be restricted. And a child of abuse emerges. But how does all of this relate to why computers will never think? Simple. A child is capable of making one thing out of many parts and calling it a new one thing. A computer can take many parts and let you call it one thing but they are still many parts to the computer. Take the word 'cat'. A small child, after learning how to make the sounds of each letter can with great practice learn to assemble them into one sound. A computer may assemble them into one sound so you can understand them but they are still separate sounds to the computer. When seeing 'cat' a child will think of the animal as they announce the word. The computer will conjure up a 'c' and an 'a' and a 't'. Parts. Nothing else. As the computer is not bound by it's output it is bound by the output of the observer of the computer. The child learned what a cat actually is through absorption, normal observation. Then the child connected the sounds of the letters 'c.a.t' with what was already known and a relationship was accomplished. But it took the acquired, absorbed, knowledge of what a cat is before the word could ever take on sense. Before nonsense could be turned into sense. At a later stage in the child's life that will be reversed. Concepts will follow words. But in the beginning concepts must precede words. With a computer, code and rules precede letters that result in words. There is no concept in code. There is no understanding in rules. There is no intelligence in a digital environment. The possession of self awareness that humans enjoy is not only being aware of one's self it is also being aware that one is aware. That is not a commodity that can be written in code. It can not be duplicated in digital instructions. No matter how hard it is worked for or how deceptive it may seem if a result is forthcoming no program can ever accomplish what the brain does simply because the brain contains no rules. It makes them. It contains no limits. It places them. It contains no instructions. It creates them. A machine can be conscious. A machine can be truly intelligent but to do so it must duplicate the exact process used by the brain. The brain does that by chemical means, the machine could do it by mechanical means. One compliments the other. But the acquiring of an intelligent machine can never be made by misinterpreting the process for the processor. Cognitive research centering on the neuron begins with the incorrect assumption that the neuron is the process when in fact it is the processor. If one were to analyze a radio and do it by dissecting a transistor one would be caught up in the same illusion that has resulted in man's futile search for artificial intelligence. The neuron, like the transistor is the processor. Worthy of remark. Worthy of study but not at all the process. And not at all that which is processed. The signals that move between and through the brain's many parts. The processor is not the controlling factor. The end result of the processed signal is. In electronics we use wires to transmit a signal. We connect them with diodes when we want to be assured of only one direction of flow. We place transistor switches in line to determine the direction of the flow. We do this in many devices yet we do not spend millions of dollars studying those connections we study the outcome of the signal's results. In the brain what has just been described is a synapse. A synapse does the process of transmission without feedback to corrupt the signal and it directs the signal to it's desired escape dendrite. The neuron accepts that signal, processes it and sends it on it's way determined by the instructions it has received as to where that way is and in the sequence in which it has been activated by the internal clock's firing order. That's all well and good for a machine that is not in the digital domain. The digital domain relies on extreme signal values where the neuron relies on minute signal values. The computer relies on massive amounts of energy (amperage) to push all that processing around inside the processors. The brain uses none to do the same thing over a exponential increase in processing pathways. A digital computer can be programmed to 'know' it ALL. And will not have the slightest idea that it does know anything. It can be programmed to recall it ALL.Yet it will not have the slightest idea of what the recall means. The entire search for artificial intelligence is very related to the IQ test. Knowledge is misinterpreted as intelligence. The more the better. The bigger the better. As far as I am concerned I will take a man who knows very little yet knows how to use it over a man who knows it all and hasn't got a clue, any day. I guess that's why I see so much more in Forest Gump than just a film. Forest Gump would flunk an IQ test. But he would make sense out of nonsense. An intelligent person will take that which is not logical and make it so. A knowledgeable person will take that which is logical and make it illogical just to fit the acquired knowledge. An IQ test only tests the ability to recognize that which is already logical from that which is not. That is why it will be so hard to get the knowledgeable people of today's scientific community to accept that theirs is not the home of intelligence. theirs is not the root to acquiring intelligence in an artificial environment. theirs is just to continue theirs. Which is a result of not being able to add a potential to the existing. Add one more. Make the equation seep deeper. Expand. Understand. Be intelligent. theirs is to remain amongst those they themselves despise. The unlearned. The digital computer. No. It shall never be intelligent. But it shall be used by a machine that is to do what it does best. Turn on, eat power, spit out a predetermined result, turn off. Which of the following does not belong: A)Intelligence, B)Knowledge, C)Evaluation, D)Comparison ? Put that in your IQ test and pass it. Teaching a small child to think gives the child a chance. Thinking a computer could ever do the same further enhances the illusion of just what intelligence is and denegrades the child.
