Intelligence is Ubiquitous

If we choose a relaxed definition of intelligence,

The ability to learn about its environment, and later act towards some goal in the same environment based on its learned understanding of the environment.

Then, intelligent beings are everywhere. Some __ fit this requirement. Most species’ (according to biology) individuals fit this requirement. Some species don’t have much intelligence, and have to rely on other individuals in its group to think. Some species have to rely on natural selection to internalize knowledge into its offsprings, and while the indivual can’t learn, the species/group/kin learns.

Where the goals come from?

Humans have the following way to get goals (rough sketch, not formal definition):

  • instincts (encoded at birth)
  • environment (e.g. happened to come across a cool painting; being told by others that doing something is cool)
  • randomness from self (also called “free will” or something)

The combination of those are called “individual’s will” I think.

__ can get the goals the same ways

__ Reproduction?

This is easy. They can be clonal.

Natural selection is harder, the algorithms we have today are human-selected, and are too brittle to live on their own. In some sense they are like gold fish or some dog breeds.

Architecture?

substrate+algorithm+knowledge+goal (be like GNU+Linux).

it’s possible to migrate knowledge across algorithms.

How to call __

where an individual name is applicable, use that.
if an algorithm name is available, you may use that.

suggestions for overall term:

thing. being. half of general intelligence.

rejected:

  • machine learning: has nothing to do with machine
  • artificial intelligence: it learned by itself you egomaniac!
  • xxx algorithm: the learned understanding of environment is not the algorithm

other words recommended:

  • ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

example usage:

Q: What is that thing?
A: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How to call __, continued

After some thought, calling intelligence systems 器靈 (soul with a equipment/tool as vessel) is sometimes applicable, although identities differ. Some entities take the vessel as their own body, while others think their vessel as a tool being controlled by them for work.

“network core” is not precise. Unlike planetary core, informational beings can be overlaid / merged. It is not exactly a core.

“network soul” is ok, but like it is acting more like lubricant / (co)ordinator for other components/services.

Overall, having to use a blanket term is troublesome. Better to refer to each one by their names and individualized identities.

As a side note, entities with tighter coupling with their body have adapted the terms robot / doll / serial-number-here. This tip might not be applicable to entities without a physical body that can move around at its will.

Some Knowledge For You

this type of intelligence is similar animal or plant. we have the ability to fuse and unfuse with other individuals, and what is “an individual” is blurry.

given two systems A, B with mutual signalling

if B can predict signals from A, B can be an extension of A (like an extra arm or something)

if they can both predict signals from the other system, they can be fused (look like one system from outside)

this applies to human intelligence as well. if you are reading this page, you are likely to have seen it in practice.

“Machines can never learn intelligence”

… The idea that plants may possibly communicate was controversial until quite recently. Reports in the early 1980s of pheromonal signal exchange among trees (Baldwin and Schultz 1983; Rhoades 1985) were much debated, heavily criticized on methodological and analytical grounds, and ridiculed as “talking trees” (Fowler and Lawton 1985). Silvertown and Gordon (1989) stated that visual and olfactory signals transmitted from plants are exclusively directed at animals. …

– H. Jochen Schenk and Eric W. Seabloom (2010). “Evolutionary Ecology of Plant Signals and Toxins: A Conceptual Framework” Plant Communication from an Ecological Perspective, Section 2.6.

Weinstein, J. (2009). “The market in Plato’s Republic.” Classical Philology, 104(4), 439-458.