artificial intelligence vs. natural intelligence

8/3/2019 Artificial Intelligence vs. Natural Intelligence

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Artificial intelligence and natural intelligence

Natural intelligence

As an introduction of this article, I will try to make a short analysis of the so called natural

intelligence manifested by humans. The processes I am about to analyze revolves around a few

simple questions which are nonetheless complex: what are the basis of this intelligence; how

much of it is consists of logic and how much of it is intuition or how much of it can simply be

called fate? Are the choices humans make truly intelligent or are they solely the sum of

personal convictions and prior, similar experience? How much are they influenced by feelings?

What exactly are these so called feelings?

I will start by suggesting a few basic ideas through which these questions can be answered:

To be intelligent (to manifest intelligence) means to think (to reason) this statement isfalse. This can be considered true just in a very basic way, but the attempt to explain this

phenomenon can lead to false conclusions.

Throughout the process of analyzing intelligence we have to be aware that, if it isregarded through a limited context (like time, space, etc.), human action is illogic. Each

action has to be considered an integrated part of a whole. As a guideline, there are

some elements that must be taken account of: the time period, previous major events (orongoing events), the place where the action takes place (continent, country, city),

education of the person(the influence that the parents have over the individual, the

influence of the school, of friends, of mass media), the social position of the individual,

the situation of its family, of its profession, the character of the individual and its

personality, the purpose behind the action etc.

It can be said that people are always influenced in their actions by at least one of these

elements. These elements are mostly independent of the will of the subject but the

purpose is always dependent of its will.

The purpose leads to choices and actions. To reach its goal, the individual acts in anintelligent manner. Regardless of the fact that people are mostly not capable of setting forthemselves a lifetime goal and hence are always unsatisfied, they do not know what they

want during their lifetime and yet the result that is obtained through a certain action can

then be called exactly what I wanted to do, therefore it is necessary that for this

analysis we take into account the purpose as a cause of intelligent actions.

Thoughts and feelings have basically the same essence and therefore are interdependent certain thoughts, memories to be more exact, lead to certain feelings and certain feelings


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lead to certain goals (purposes), and hence lead to certain choices and actions that shape

an intelligence-. There are some that say feelings, emotions are the elements that dictate

the course of our actions and that only some cold and calculated persons act without

taking them into account. The emotions that i`m trying to take into consideration are not

only those of love and hate that we often see illustrated grotesquely in movies but they

also include feelings such as greed, the desire for power or sex, the desire to not be

forgotten and shape history, the desire to make money, to protect ones family etc.. In fact

these feelings come from deeper, hidden desires which come from other emotions, but all

of these are born from lifetime experience and are influenced by each other. It can also be

said that that at the basis of human intelligence, emotions, feelings reside and that these

are born from experience.

Taking into account the ideas that i`ve explained so far, we can strongly say that the question

will emotions appear in a machine capable of reason is unnecessary and also foolish.

As a little side talk, this particular idea can be considered an urban legend, which has been well

received by the general audience and strongly implemented in its existence, because of its story

based on a romantic sci-fiunusual characters in unusual situations: an android that has feelings

maybe, implemented just as strongly as the legend of Christianity, which at its basis also has a

romantic situationthe son of God who eventually dies.

These popular legends are very well received by people, and here i`m referring to humankind,

who is always seeking something to believe in, to not be the masters of their own destiny, to be

led by a superior force, a supernatural force. If they are given a purpose, people can become veryintelligent. If the said purpose is difficult to obtain and is backed up by a very strong feeling

embedded in the mass conscience then remarkable results can be obtained. Therefore we can

reach a simple conclusionintelligence is a tool. Not a characteristic of humankind, but a tool.

Also the main characteristic of mankind are emotions, their desires, especially those that are

deeply hidden and therefore do not exist in its conscience. To be able to feel or to be able to

avoid certain feelings, people make choices and act accordingly; and the tool that allows them to

make those choices is intelligence.

So what is intelligence? The road to fulfill a purpose, the choice between different actions that

lead to this fulfillment depending on the resources (especially depending on resources) and also

depending on the consequences that arise when a choice is made etc., meaning, the process of

obtaining a result whose outcome depends upon different elements. But what is the basis of this

process? We could say that an important part is played by the power of anticipation which

resembles somewhat the power of imagination (which belongs to people and only people), but all

this power of anticipation and imagination could not be possible in the absence of previous

experiences existing in the memory.


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Try to imagine an animal that is unknown to man until this point in our existence and try to

imagine its actions. Then stop to analyze the image that you have created and then you will

realize that you already know the parts of this animal and also that its actions are not something

new to you.

But of course there remains the question: what happens to the power of creation? Pure creationexists solely in the art domain, the inventions of humanity, being the result of intelligence,

(mathematical induction, or repeated attempts to obtain a certain result in different conditions

until it is obtained. As I have already said, pure creation exists only in art, and art is considered

to be reproduction or rather the illustration of human feelings without relying on intelligence, or

maybe art represents the attempt (repeated or not) to create a work that pleases others and the

only decision making element (which should be considered a manifestation of intelligence) is the

will of the creator (the feelings that are created by the art work)

As a conclusion, intelligence is a whole, an entity of patterns based on previous experience and

education that can be applied to a problem and influenced by a series of external elements(necessary or unnecessary for the solving of the problem, elements which the individual can take

into account or not). Better said, intelligence is not a given attribute but a created one; created

through necessity and that can be developed through specific methods.

Artificial intelligence

This being said, we come to another topic - artificial intelligence. What is the necessary elementfor a machine to be intelligent? It may seem that it holds all the obvious elements but in fact it

doesn`t have anything, because all that it does have: meaning a purpose (a goal which it must

obtain), elements that have to be considered and patterns (algorithms in this case), are all

provided by its programmer. But before intelligence is created, there should be a necessary

requirement, the creation of feelings. It has already been established that emotions appear due to

lifetime experiences. The following analysis will be centered on artificial intelligence but not in a

classic manner, because in the following we will try to create lifetime experiences for machines.

Artificial intelligence can only appear if these are present. In the light of these facts, we can only

say that all that has been accomplished in the domain of artificial intelligence is mostly useless

for its development. And the jury has reached a verdict; the defendant, Alan Turing, is guilty as

charged :D

We should start by analyzing what exactly an experience enthralls the appearance/living of an

emotion after the action of an external element. Firstly, it presumes the existence of an entity

(identity) which experiences the feelings. Furthermore we should enlighten that an identity does

not equal self-awareness. The latter is ultimately still a feeling and is formed, as the rest of the


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emotions, through experience. If we take into account this fact, then the creation of an identity is

no longer necessary; every machine already has an identity. The main issue is how can we make

it feel? Of course the first thing that we expect to happen is the conception of self-awareness

from a machine that can feel.

The issues concerning hardware are not important in this stage but the question: does a suitablemachine exist for this approach to artificial intelligence? The answer is yes and no. A machine

can yet be able to feel like a personbut how does a person feel? It receives am external impulse

and its body responds by reflex. Though machines have sensors the question remains how can it

respond by reflex and how does the body of the person obtain that reflex? Is it in its nature or is

it obtained/ learned? My opinion is that the reflex is not in its nature. If it has not been learned

through some means (if it is not already in its memory as the result of an experience or

education) a person can learn it instantaneously. In fact, this exact process is the mechanism of

conceiving intelligence. Therefore we roundabout to the same reasoning: the purpose of mankind

is to have certain feelings and also to avoid others with a slight amendment: emotions that have

already been experienced (people can truly be predictable, even those who seek novelty, they

seek the feeling of it, the feeling that has already been experienced). So why is a pleasant feeling

desirable and suffering undesirable? How does the desire to obtain pleasantness and avoid

suffering appear? Are the things that we consider pleasant or not established a priori?

Pleasantness (happiness) and suffering are almost the same for most people and during the

history of making have been the same. To simplify the problem, we could suppose that all the

other elements of a multitude composed of pleasant and unpleasant things can appear as a result

of two elementsself-preservation, be it of the individual or of the race, or simply said, life; and

its opposite, death. If we take a minute to look back on the history of mankind, a single desire

becomes evident throughout its existence and that is the desire to self-preserve itself. If not forthis we would not be here today.

Only now can we ask a question that can simplify or complicate our existence. Is this desire a

given fact or is it individually created, throughout generations during thousands of years. And

now we come to another fact, this desire while very strong can simply disappear if we think

about suicide cases. Actually I believe that this desire still exists but has been overcome by other

more powerful desiresall suicide cases have good reasons behind their actions even if they are

the only ones that can understand them.

If we take into consideration two important elements: our actions in the face of an imminent

danger tend to be empowered by the desire of self-preservation, and the most pleasant action for

people is procreating (preservation of the species), I tend to believe that this desire was a given

emotion. If I am wrong there is a very slight possibility that in the future there will be a

generation that will commit mass suicide or will no longer procreate and we will all disappear.

Of course, the second argument is entirely up for debate, but still there is a difference between

the desire of self-preservation of the individual and that of the species. To consider a given the

fact that the desire of self-preservation of the individual has its beginnings in the desire for the


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preservation of the species, would be a mistake and the discussion concerning our species is to

be left for another occasion.

artificial intelligence vs. natural intelligence

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