h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(1 l in painful)
So? Lots of little postings take up the same amount of space, yet are still read. It might be painful but it's informative and your reading it would make me feel that I've achieved something in the past few years worth relating to someone else. Go on. I'll not tell people about the embarassing use to which you put SeaMonkeys…

well, I'm sorry to inconvenience you. Maybe you will consider it an achievement if you got me to read and understand what that was all about, then?

Let's say I've tried to read a few "paragraphs", and could sometimes agree with what you were saying (as far as I were able to understand it, anyway). But I wouldn't know where to start asking questions about the whole thing... quoting from it seems a crime to me, too. I would certainly unintentionally take things out of context, etc...

Don't worry... those who DO understand what you were trying to say, will be able to reply to it, and maybe I'll catch on, later on in the thread. It's most definately not going to waste.

Well if that's the case (and I totally agree) than how do we measure intelligence? Standardized tests don't work simply because they're not really standard. And what about types of intelligence? Some people are socially adept while illiterate, and others are academically adept while social buffoons. Also, if we don't get egotistical enough to claim RI for ourselves, then who does the trophy go to? (Other than the dolphins) I like to think of myself as intelligent and yet compared to what? What life form is really truly intelligent? Societal creatures like ants and bees who are highly efficient as a group, yet aren't isolated from the "real" world? Carbon-based life in general, since they've all (us included) managed to keeep up wth the changes in the planet for many generations, is fairly successful here, but are they intelligent or just resourceful? I hate to think of the higher intelligence ideas, or the alien intelligence bits, yet some people seem to set their standards by such things.

On that same traim of thought I arrived at yet another station: WHY would we want to measure intelligence? What good is it? After all, you're right. We have only ONE standard so far: HUMANS! And what an example we are

I would say resourcefulness is a PART of intelligence. However, the difference is in being "aware" of what changes one makes (as a species) to ones behaviour, in order to survive and preserve the race.

There's a type of "squirrel" that "flies" from tree-top to tree-top, but did their ancestors CHOOSE to grow more skin, which they could use as sort of a wing to drift on? On the other hand: humans also fly.
We didn't grow special features to enable this (our body perhaps isn't even suitable for such an enhancement), but we CHOSE to create tools for the job. That's a big difference between us and a squirrel.

Still, the question that I see implied in your statement; "do we have the right to call ourselves intelligent", is still a valid one. Does this so called intelligence even matter?

According to the standards we chose to define so far, dolphins and their cetacian cousins truly have intelligence. But there's a grey parrot that can be trained to distinguish colors, shapes, sizes, numbers, textures and materials. When you show them a tray filled with different items, and then set the parameters of the kind of items they should count, you'll be surprised of what they can do.
Yet they aren't considered intelligent. It's rather confusing.

Yes, unfortunately the whole concept is rather confusing. I agree though, there's really no point in measuring intelligence, per se. It only acts as one more thing to separate a specific portion of the population. I still haven't determined whether or not this separation is good or bad for the people being pulled out, but in general it's bad for the whole. I mean, its just one more way to give people feelings of inadequacy, which makes them want to lash out at something or go hide in a corner. Look at all of the civil rights movements around the world . . . people want some degree of fairness and if they don't feel they're getting any, they begin to fight for it. Probably this whole intelligence testing idea is just another devious plot by THEM for control. I hesitate to say that it does any good for the people who are found to be "intelligent" because inevitably the test is biased and it won't change anyone's situation unless they also have the money to assist the change.

Aha--so the first phase of my mission is to halt intelligence testing.

Right! How do you intend to go about it? I mean, so very many systems in the world depend on it, you'll have to try to wean them off!

Perhaps the Y2K bug will help. In the chaos ensuing from the collapse of the world's computer systems, I can surreptitiously erase all references to intelligence testing from the databases thereof.

Well, we'll find out if it worked in about 54 days, I guess. and if not, you could always try creating a virus that does the job

Yay, a backup plan!

Blame Si. He mentioned this thread to me, so I came along.

I was merely going for the big-brain-doesn't-equal-intelligence side of things. All my lecturers steered well clear of the "so, where is the conciousness?" debate, preferring instead to tell us why flies know when it's winter and how mice with no hippocampi can't navigate their way around a tubful of water for shit. All in the name of science.

Are these paragraphs better?

please don't insert my name in the footprint of the virus, ok?

Well, let me $ee...how much i$ it worth to you for me not to?

Well, I'll let you live if you don't

I think you'll also let me live if I do.

test

oops, sorry.... I'm not sure how I managed to post in here

final test, if it doesn't work this time, I'll give up

okay, it's doing it again....