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Physicist Proposes New Way To Think About Intelligence
An anonymous reader writes "A single equation grounded in basic physics principles could describe intelligence and stimulate new insights in fields as diverse as finance and robotics, according to new research, reports Inside Science. Recent work in cosmology has suggested that universes that produce more entropy (or disorder) over their lifetimes tend to have more favorable properties for the existence of intelligent beings such as ourselves. A new study (pdf) in the journal Physical Review Letters led by Harvard and MIT physicist Alex Wissner-Gross suggests that this tentative connection between entropy production and intelligence may in fact go far deeper. In the new study, Dr. Wissner-Gross shows that remarkably sophisticated human-like "cognitive" behaviors such as upright walking, tool use, and even social cooperation (video) spontaneously result from a newly identified thermodynamic process that maximizes entropy production over periods of time much shorter than universe lifetimes, suggesting a potential cosmology-inspired path towards general artificial intelligence."
http://xkcd.com/793/
This is what it seems to be from a quick read. It would also explain why he would publish an AI paper in a physics journal, rather than in, you know, an AI journal: probably because he was hoping to get clueless physicists who aren't familiar with existing AI work as the reviewers.
Which isn't to say that physicists can't make good contributions to AI; a number have. But the ones who have an impact and provide something new: 1) explain how it relates to existing approaches, and why it's superior; and 2) publish their work actually relevant journals with qualified peer-reviewers.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I grew up right next to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. My dad and the vast majority of my friends moms and dads worked there for a long time as physicists. Being around these people for 35 years has taught me something. They are morons. They know physics but literally nothing else, besides of course math.
Its one of those strange situations where they can be utterly brilliant in their singular field of study but absolutely incompetent at literally everything else. I've known guys with IQ's in the 160's that couldn't for the life of them live on their own for their inability to cook or clean or even drive a car. I know one of them that was 45 years old and had never had a drivers license. His wife drove him everywhere or he walked (occasionally the bus if the weather was poor). He didn't do this for ideological reasons like climate change blah blah, he did it because he couldn't drive. He failed the drivers test for years until he gave up trying.
Whenever a physicist starts talking about something other than physics, I typically roll my eyes and ignore them. It's just intellectual masturbation on their part.
And here's a relevant SMBC:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2556
Respectfully asking, what's wrong with saying, "What if?" You are correct, we haven't discovered any of what you described. But what I fail to understand is why you are so quick and so adamant to cite what we don't know and imply that speculation is pointless. The impression I get from your post is that we're better off limiting ourself to what we do know--which eventually just leads us to an endless loop because we never move beyond what we don't know.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.