In this post, not a poem, I would like to argue for the value of holding unsupported belief.
I propose that when actual *intelligent* thought occurs, a guess is made, a cognitive leap
that is independent of logic and deduction. Despite lack of sound evidence, the belief
must be held with enough conviction to direct resources towards it. Then, knowledge of
the world and practical success result from effectively checking beliefs against
observation -- rationality.
** Intelligence Has an Inverse Relationship with Classical Computation**
**Or: Intelligence correlates with the wildness of the guessing, not its accuracy. **
A deterministic and systematic machine is easy to build. But we recognize that it won’t
be intelligent.
Intelligence is the obtainment of an answer “without computation”; at least without
resource-intensive *linear* computation. I would like to ask, what is the difference
between the two types of computations I’m distinguishing? What do we know about the
type of computation that is ‘pattern recognition’?
I propose that this could provide some perspective regarding why people – even
intelligent people – feel comfortable holding beliefs that are not only not verified, but not
computed. (Beliefs held with no basis whatsoever.) Finally, I would like to ask, what is
the difference between the two types of computations I’m distinguishing? What do we
know about the type of computation that is ‘pattern recognition’? Is it actually just an
inductive leap of faith, as I suspect? In which case, unsupported belief may be a byproduct -- if not the end-product -- of intelligent thought.
Where we define classical computation as systematic, deterministic, linear computation.
**Argument 1: Intelligence Wants to Minimize Classical Computation”
A good example here to consider is the perhaps-true story of Gauss as a young boy. His
math teacher wanted to keep him busy and told him to add up the numbers between 1 and
100. Gauss added the first number and the last number and divided by 2.
**Argument 2: Population winning in the context of Requires Guessing**
It is the science fiction cliché that a human will always beat a computer because of the
random element characteristic of being human. While true freedom of random choice is
not possible, variability is genetically built into human beings so that they will make
choices that are different from one another, and thus unpredictable.
Suppose that Omega appears and defines “winning” as guessing his integer between 1
and 100. The rules are that a person can submit a guess on a square of paper, and Omega
will tell you if that is or is not the correct number. A group of humans modeled as very
simple computational machines would systematically search through the possibilities for
the solution. They would first submit the guess, ‘1’, then the guess ‘2’, etc., until they
arrived at the correct guess. This is what I would call a linear/systematic/logical
“computation”; a computational search through possible solution space for the actual
solution.
However, now raise the stakes, as real life would do. Now, each human may only make 3
guesses. Suppose guessing events are separated in space and time, so that coordination
isn’t possible. How can the humans collectively win? It would be foolish for all of them
to guess ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’. It would even be foolish for half of them to guess ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’
and half of them to guess, ‘100’, ‘99’ and ‘98’. How can the humans really search
through the space with only three guesses? It seems at first glance that no deterministic
systematic approach should work. Only a random one will work; each human must pick
their own favorite 3 numbers. And they must have conviction in these wild guesses. If
they stop too long to deliberate about their guess, they might settle upon a deterministic
method for making guesses, in which case they fail.
If natural selection works like Omega, than humans will have evolved to make
individualistic, wild guesses, *especially* when the stakes are high and resources are
low. Humans should have evolved to be random wild cards. They systematically search
state space only as a population, as individuals they must be gamblers.
I’ll be developing connections with game theory (population effects) quantum
computing, and the science fiction cliché that a human will always beat a computer
because of the random element characteristic of being human.
First, some housekeeping: as a reductionist, I believe that a human being *is* a computer
and that “intelligence” is (just) a special type of computation that happens to be more
efficient than a simpler brute-force type of computation. Thus “intelligence” is relative,
and while I am loosely claiming that intelligence is non-computation, distinguishing
“intelligence” and “computation” only makes sense within limited contexts that happen
to be of interest to us.