No, because there is nothing that prevents us from making erroneous associations. Superstitions, for example, are the erroneous association of one thing with another. Science, the discipline of testing associations to try to find the objectively accurate and important ones, arose in order to obviate our tendency to make erroneous associations.scott_alexsk said:Is it the ability to apply information from past situations to future situations the main if not only sign of intelligence?
I think that you will find there are and have been plenty of very intelligent people with superstitous ideas. I've been inclined to believe at times that intelligence may breed such notions since more intelligent people are more likely to perceive the more subtle and complex associations. I don't think this is at all accurate as a generalization anymore but I think it may attribute to the severity of psychological afflictions of such a nature in more intelligent people.DaveC426913 said:Uh, OK zooby...
What prevents us from making erroneous associations is the level of our intelligence.
The ability to which someone/thing can successfully make meaningful associations correlates directly with a positive level of intelligence. Those who do poorly at making meaningful assocations would be proportionately less intelligent.
I think the quality you're talking about isn't intelligence but something that would better be called sensitivity. This is a double-edged sword, because while it causes people to pay much closer attention to things that others don't notice, it also causes them to be bothered, annoyed, irritated, and even frightened by things that don't affect others this way. Hence you get your Teslas and Newtons, who are excessively observant people, but who are also psychologically unstable since everyday life is often oppressive to them.TheStatutoryApe said:I think that you will find there are and have been plenty of very intelligent people with superstitous ideas. I've been inclined to believe at times that intelligence may breed such notions since more intelligent people are more likely to perceive the more subtle and complex associations. I don't think this is at all accurate as a generalization anymore but I think it may attribute to the severity of psychological afflictions of such a nature in more intelligent people.
The greater complexity of our associative powers just enables us to make more complex erroneous associations. Aristotle, with all his gross errors, reigned supreme in Physics for 2000 years, unchallenged. Yet each Aristotelian Philosopher, I'm sure, felt himself to be vastly more intelligent than any animal.scott_alexsk said:But what separates us from animals is that we can make such complex associations, since our brains are essentially just larger (though that is a bit of a broad generalization).
Yes, as Hypnagogue might say: the ability to make associations is necessary, but not sufficient for intelligence. You have to have that ability, but you need something else also on top of it.DaveC426913 said:The ability to which someone/thing can successfully make meaningful associations correlates directly with a positive level of intelligence. Those who do poorly at making meaningful assocations would be proportionately less intelligent.
At the level you're talking about, not touching things that closely enough resemble the thing that burned you, it's more to the point to call it conditioning, and, as I pointed out, it can be done to dogs, and even birds. Recall the poisonous butterflies with the bright markings. Once a bird has tried to eat one and gotten a mouthfull of its bitter taste it won't try to eat another with the same markings. Humans are somewhat more sophisticated. We can inform each other,through language, about what foods are poisonous, allowing us, for instance, to spread the erroneous information that tomatos are poisonous, which is a reputation that food had for a long time in many places.scott_alexsk said:It is my mistake for not making myself clear that I am referring just to brain cells, rather than the human mind. My point is at the base of the brain cells success is its ability to make associations with past situations to different future situations. Its called learning.
Tomatoes were recognized as members of Solanaceae, whose only European relatives were the poisonous mandrake and nightshades, hence the strong aversion to eating them
No, the really remarkable thing about brain cells as opposed to other kinds of cells is that the activity of brain cells somehow adds up to consciousness.scott_alexsk said:I am not just talking about the human mind, I am just talking about the abilities of brain cells. The basis ability that makes brain cells great, and the brain a successful evolutionary trait is its ability to learn, by applying information from past situations to future situations.
You want me to simply stop disagreeing with you even though I know your thinking is muddy and off the mark? Good luck with that.And could you please quit making reference to incorrect associations.
I don't know that this one to several proportion is correct, but stipulating that it is, does being right more often than not constitute intelligence? That is valuing quantity over quality. Intelligence, it seems to me, is much more a matter of being accurate about things that are important. Misplacing a dollar bill on one day while carefully holding onto a penny for several days in a row, is hardly an advantage despite the fact that the quantity of times you got it right exceeds the quantity of times you didn't.For every one that is wrong several more are right.
Neurons are remarkable cells, to be sure. But is a cat "better" than a sponge? It's safe to say it's a lot more sophisticated than a sponge but I'm not sure it follows that makes it somehow "better".You need to understand that I am not talking about intelligence in just terms of a person, but in terms of intelligent creatures such as cats. Advanced communication is the sign of high intelligence in humans, but I am looking at the basic characteristic that makes a cat better than a sponge.
I think you have to do a lot more pondering about how to define "intelligence". It turns out to be a controversial word, and there have been a large number of discussions and arguments around here as to what it means. If you want to do a search, just punch in "I.Q." and see how people disagree about, and have a hard time defining, the concept.scott_alexsk said:I should have used more intelligent instead of better. A cat can better react to its enviorment than a sponge because a sponge only has a simple nerve net. It is not capable of doing much of anything. Let me rephrase my query. What makes the brain cell successful? Once more I have to say, it's its ability to learn and to apply information from past situations to future ones. To me this is as basic as you can get as to why neurons are successful. Once more your definition of intelligence is different than mine. I believe intelligence in something is just when it is able to do enough to get around problems and obstacles in its enviorment and survive. It (my definition of intelligence) is not to understand everything superiorly well or to be able to be self-aware, but just to survive.
Hm, this opens a whole cans of worms that you probably didn't intend to open. Let me digress for a moment - I'll come back.scott_alexsk said:I believe intelligence in something is just when it is able to do enough to get around problems and obstacles in its enviorment and survive. It (my definition of intelligence) is not to understand everything superiorly well or to be able to be self-aware, but just to survive.