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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."
How was the weather?
http://xkcd.com/793/
Interesting idea. http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/14/nes-robot/
That guy took basically a random generator and 'picked' good results to build on. However the input is basically chaos.
... I burn stuff. Now I can feel smarter about it. Win!
Intelligence was invented by man, as a way to make them seem better then other animals in the world.
Then we further classified it down so we can rank people.
So it isn't surprising if we want to find intelligent life outside of earth, then we need to change the rules again, as well we need to change the rules of what intelligence is by the fact we have created technology that emulates or exceeds us in many areas we use to classify intelligence.
Intelligence is a man made measurement, I expect it will always be in flux. However you shouldn't dismiss or automatically accept as good ideas just because someone number that was granted by a fluctuating scale.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
http://www.alexwg.org/publications/PhysRevLett_110-168702.pdf
This looks eerily like a physicist who has just opened a biology textbook and is now restating the idea that 'intelligence' is the product of an evolutionary selection process because it's a uniquely powerful solution to the class of problems that certain ecological niches pose and is now attempting to add equations....
Is there something that I'm missing, aside from the 'being alive means grabbing enough energy to keep your entropy below background levels' and the 'we suspect biological intelligence of having evolved because it provides a fitness advantage in certain ecological niches' elements?
It appears to me that the algorithm is trying to maintain entropy or disorder, or at least keep open as many pathways to various states of entropy as possible. In the physics simulations, such as balancing and using tools, this essentially means that it is simply trying to maximize potential energy (in the form of stored energy due to gravity or repulsive fields - gravity in the balancing examples, and repulsive fields in the "tools" example).
While this can be construed as "intelligence" in these very specific cases, I don't think it is nearly as generalized or multipurpose as the author makes it out to be.
Better known as 318230.
You can tell this is a physicist's paper. It lacks spherical cows, but only because the toy models were set up in 2D. So, instead, we get a crow, chimpanzee, or elephant approximated by circular disks.
I am always amused when I see these posts on $(any_topic) that reveal the inability of the poster to recognize things happen on a variety of levels.
In this case, intelligence refers not to the subset of humans capable of posting on slashdot, or playing music. Intelligence in this context refers to the evolution of a brain capable of making decisions based on stimuli as well as experience. An earthworm would qualify as intelligent. It takes a whole lot more steps to get from amino acid soup to an earthworm's level of intelligence than it would to get from an earthworm-sized brain to a human brain.
You're being so literal it's constraining your thinking. It's like you have your own personal grammar nazi that keeps you from seeing a bigger picture. That's especially dangerous on slashdot where the "editors" rarely choose the right words. Learn to expand and adapt.
John
I'm maintaining the maximum number of possible outcomes for the day, in harmony with the laws of nature. :)
..don't panic
Here's a review of this paper by a researcher who actually works in the field of AI and cognitive psychology:
Interdisciplinitis: Do entropic forces cause adaptive behavior?
Few choice quotes:
and after he explains what the paper's about and how utterly empty it is, he offers some advice to authors:
And here's a relevant SMBC:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2556
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We live in a society defined by division of labor. The physicist figured that out, as have many video game addicts.
When P-man walks he gets to think about his theories more, he gets necessary exercise, and he gets his chore done in about the same amount of time. And he simply isn't interested in most of the stuff that we rush around doing. He doesn't particularly want or need a cell phone, and for sure not a tablet. TV is low bandwidth, high noise -- easily filtered out with the convenient OFF button. Shopping is a once-a-week thing that someone else does...no need to duplicate effort. Same with laundry, with those two large machines doing most of the work.
It is called the simple life. And it kind of rocks.
I come here for the love
The premise of the claim is that procrastination is the ultimate goal of intelligence, with procrastination defined as keeping open the widest range of possible options by avoiding all actions that would decisively limit that range.
This would seem, even on the surface, to ignore the many situations where intelligent life must take the narrow path, sacrificing procrastination to the pursuit of a single goal. Once through a narrow path we may find a wide vista of prospects again before us. But without taking such narrow paths at significant times, by always hesitating at the crossroads for as long as possible, we may find ourselves with Robert Johnson, sinking down.
Also, the claim that the natural goal of choice is to maximize future choice is entirely circular. Like saying the goal of walking is to maximize future walking, the goal of eating to maximize future eating, there's something to it, but it's not quite true. Also, a great deal of research shows that people strive to avoid choice, for the most part.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
You can make the examples work if you modify the problem. For instance, define that the box is cold, the room is hot and the food is hot. Then, putting the food in the box increases entropy. This is in fact analogous to eating, even in physical terms; the box that eats the food is an energy sink, just like a living being.