My point was that some animals do appear to be able to be rational, to a degree. (I’m defining ‘rational’ as something like ’able to create accurate representations of how the world works, which can be used to make accurate predictions.)
I can even come up with examples of some animals being able to be more rational than some humans. I used to work in a nursing home, and one of the residents there was mentally retarded as part of her condition, and never did figure out that the cats could not understand her when she talked to them, and sometimes seemed to actually expect them to talk. On the other hand, most animals that have been raised around humans seem to have a pretty reasonable grasp on what we can and can’t understand of their forms of communication. Unfortunately, most of my data for the last assertion there is personal observation. The bias against even considering that animals could communicate intentionally is strong enough in modern society that it’s rarely studied at all, as far as I know. Still, consider the behavior of not-formally-trained domesticated animals that you’ve known, compared to feral examples of the same species.
Basic prediction-ability seems like such a universally useful skill that I’d be pretty surprised if we didn’t find it in at least a minimal form in any creature with a brain. It may not look like it does in humans, in those cases, but then, given what’s been discussed about possible minds, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
The bias against even considering that animals could communicate intentionally is strong enough in modern society that it’s rarely studied at all, as far as I know.
Animals obviously communicate with one another. The last I heard, there was a lot of studying being done on dolphins and whales. Anyone who has trained a dog in anything can tell you that dogs can “learn” English words. The record I remember hearing about was a Border Collie with a vocabulary of over 100 words. (No reference, sorry. It was in a trivia book.)
As for your point, I understand and acknowledge it. I think of rationality as something different, I guess. I do not know how useful continuing the cat analogy is when we seem to think of “rational” differently.
Hmm, maybe you could define ‘intelligence’ as you use it here:
Rationality is the form or method of increase intelligence.
I define intelligence as the ability to know how to do things (talk, add, read, write, do calculus, convince a person of something—yes, there are different forms of intelligence) and rationality as the ability to know which things to do in a given situation to get what you want out of that situation, which involves knowing what things can be gotten out of a given situation in the first place.
Well, the mind dump from earlier was mostly food for thought, not a staking out claims or definitions. I guess my rough definition of intelligence fits what I find in the dictionary:
The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills
The same dictionary, however, defines rationality as a form of the word rational:
Based on or in accordance with reason or logic
I take intelligence to mean, “the ability to accomplish stuff,” and rationality to mean, “how to get intelligence.” Abstracted, rationality more or less becomes, “how to get the ability to accomplish stuff.” This is contrasted with “learning” which is:
Gaining or acquiring knowledge of or skill in (something) by study, experience, or being taught
I am not proposing this definition of rationality is what anyone else should use. Rather, it is a placeholder concept until I feel comfortable sitting down and tackling the problem as a whole. Right now I am still in aggregation mode which is essentially collecting other people’s thoughts on the subject.
Honestly, all of this discussion is interesting but it may not be helpful. I think Eliezer’s concept of the nameless virtue is good to keep in mind during these kinds of discussions:
You may try to name the highest principle with names such as “the map that reflects the territory” or “experience of success and failure” or “Bayesian decision theory”. But perhaps you describe incorrectly the nameless virtue. How will you discover your mistake? Not by comparing your description to itself, but by comparing it to that which you did not name.
Further information: The person I mentioned was able to do some intelligence-based things that I would not expect cats to do, like read and write (though not well). She may also have been able to understand that cats don’t speak English if someone actually explained it to her—I don’t think anyone ever actually did. Even so, nobody sits cats or dogs down and explains our limitations to them, either, so I think the playing field is pretty level in that respect.
My point was that some animals do appear to be able to be rational, to a degree. (I’m defining ‘rational’ as something like ’able to create accurate representations of how the world works, which can be used to make accurate predictions.)
I can even come up with examples of some animals being able to be more rational than some humans. I used to work in a nursing home, and one of the residents there was mentally retarded as part of her condition, and never did figure out that the cats could not understand her when she talked to them, and sometimes seemed to actually expect them to talk. On the other hand, most animals that have been raised around humans seem to have a pretty reasonable grasp on what we can and can’t understand of their forms of communication. Unfortunately, most of my data for the last assertion there is personal observation. The bias against even considering that animals could communicate intentionally is strong enough in modern society that it’s rarely studied at all, as far as I know. Still, consider the behavior of not-formally-trained domesticated animals that you’ve known, compared to feral examples of the same species.
Basic prediction-ability seems like such a universally useful skill that I’d be pretty surprised if we didn’t find it in at least a minimal form in any creature with a brain. It may not look like it does in humans, in those cases, but then, given what’s been discussed about possible minds, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Animals obviously communicate with one another. The last I heard, there was a lot of studying being done on dolphins and whales. Anyone who has trained a dog in anything can tell you that dogs can “learn” English words. The record I remember hearing about was a Border Collie with a vocabulary of over 100 words. (No reference, sorry. It was in a trivia book.)
As for your point, I understand and acknowledge it. I think of rationality as something different, I guess. I do not know how useful continuing the cat analogy is when we seem to think of “rational” differently.
Hmm, maybe you could define ‘intelligence’ as you use it here:
I define intelligence as the ability to know how to do things (talk, add, read, write, do calculus, convince a person of something—yes, there are different forms of intelligence) and rationality as the ability to know which things to do in a given situation to get what you want out of that situation, which involves knowing what things can be gotten out of a given situation in the first place.
Well, the mind dump from earlier was mostly food for thought, not a staking out claims or definitions. I guess my rough definition of intelligence fits what I find in the dictionary:
The same dictionary, however, defines rationality as a form of the word rational:
I take intelligence to mean, “the ability to accomplish stuff,” and rationality to mean, “how to get intelligence.” Abstracted, rationality more or less becomes, “how to get the ability to accomplish stuff.” This is contrasted with “learning” which is:
I am not proposing this definition of rationality is what anyone else should use. Rather, it is a placeholder concept until I feel comfortable sitting down and tackling the problem as a whole. Right now I am still in aggregation mode which is essentially collecting other people’s thoughts on the subject.
Honestly, all of this discussion is interesting but it may not be helpful. I think Eliezer’s concept of the nameless virtue is good to keep in mind during these kinds of discussions:
Further information: The person I mentioned was able to do some intelligence-based things that I would not expect cats to do, like read and write (though not well). She may also have been able to understand that cats don’t speak English if someone actually explained it to her—I don’t think anyone ever actually did. Even so, nobody sits cats or dogs down and explains our limitations to them, either, so I think the playing field is pretty level in that respect.