Intelligence

Someone has suggested that intelligence is what you use when you don't know what you do.
That's a relief to know because I was brought up to believe that intelligence was the major ingredient in everything I was not good at: Latin, physics algebra and others.
Intelligence has been given a fixed value so it is easier to grasp, in consequence we treat it as something specific rather than a convenient label.
It's fallacy to think people can be neatly ranked from ape to Einstein.
Those who compose intelligence tests can only measure skills similar to their own.
Conventional IQ tests would be useless in assessing the spatial intelligence of a Rudolf Nureyev, the musical intelligence of a Philip Glass, or the visual intelligence of an Alexander Calder.
Originally the designing of artificial intelligence programmes was based on logical deduction and rational response.
In consequence it was easier to mimic the thought process of a chess master concerned with determined patterns, than a child who imagines randomly and makes improbable analogies.
To be comparable to the real thing artificial intelligence has to accommodate subjective as well as objective processes.
And that's about the unpredictable and irrational, in other words behaving like humans.

We are overly impressed by the ability to calculate and rationalize, and inadequately impressed by the ability to see possibilities and make connections.
And connections, as Adam and Eve discovered, are what life is about.

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Comments Revisited

Good news everyone! We've updated the way comments work. Among the many improvements are pop-up windows for comments and the ability for commenters to fill in their name and web site info—no Blogger account needed.



Bad news everyone! It is for nothing to update the way comments work.
The few who comment really couldn't care less and the many who do not comment do not care at all...

The death of the Pope

There is no religion which does not contain some truth, none which contains the whole truth, for Religion is the light of truth as reflected in human mirrors and however pure and spotless your mirror may be, there is none which in reflecting does not deflect the rays of light that fall on it.

The true religion of the future will be the fulfilment of all the religions of the past, the true religion of humanity, that which, in the struggle of history, remains as the indestructible portion of all the so called false religions of mankind.

There never was a false God, nor was there ever really a false religion, unless you call a child a false man.
All religions had the same purpose; all were links in a chain which connects heaven and earth.
All here on earth tends toward right and true and perfection; nothing here on earth can ever be quite right, quite true, quite perfect, not even Christianity so long as it excludes all other religions, instead of loving and embracing what is good in each.

The Sacred Books are full of rubbish, but among that rubbish there are old stones which the builders of the true temple of humanity will not reject.

The present society is utterly wrong and getting worse, I mean the excessive poverty of one side and the excessive wealth on the other.

The side effect of being born human

"No other mammal has babies nearly as helpless as ours. Even blind puppies walk to their first nursing. And the reflexive curling of Katy’s toes reminds me that, if she were a monkey, she’d already he able to hold onto a branch."


That is exactly the point.

Why computer's programs of today are far away from human brain.

They are built as a finished product.
It can do a lot, millions of functions, but it stops there.
The computer in human brain has a very reduced number of functions, but has what no computer's program has: the function of learning.
And not just with a logic function like a syllogysm, if A is B and B is C then A is C.

The human brain can see when A can be C and when it cannot.
For the computer program those functions are very reduced and very definitive.
A computer will never understand that A could be C in the case of a rational behaviour, but it would never be C in an irrational behaviour.

The human brain is rational enough to understand also the irrational.

And the fact we cannot walk or do anything else when we are born is done on purpose.
We ARE OBLIGED to learn, that is, WE ARE OBLIGED to use our brain in order to survive, and WE ARE OBLIGED to develop it.

That is the side effect of being born human.
(even though lately I am beginning to doubt about the humanity of many...)

Europe's recovery

Nobody of course remembers previous crises, the past is nice because it is a collection of happy moments.

How happy we were when we were young!
At that time people didn't care for portable phones or video games.
We had more friends, we were "social", we lived life in its full potential.
We were also more intelligent, worked more and were more creative than the actual young people.

That is exactly the point: the World is going bust because we are not "on the scene" anymore....

And what the government does for promoting Europe's recovery looks practically useless.
Of course, we lack the raw material...

What to do?

May be we could start growing a new generation of "brains" made in Europe.
But that would cause problems.
First we have the need to upgrade our schools, second we would have the need to lower the taxes (but how could we feed the miriades of our politicians and co.?), third we would face the risk of loosing our identities, as French, as Germans, as Italians.
May be we would even risk to speak chinese!

I do not really know what to say...