[ExI] Benchmarking the Singularity

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Mon Jul 22 13:53:34 UTC 2019


I just bought the Genius of Birds, and The Gift of the Crow.  Will let you
know.
bill w

On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 9:00 PM Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:

> MInd of the Raven is a great read:
>
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Raven-Investigations-Adventures-Wolf-Birds/dp/0061136050
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 3:15 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>  I believe if one
>> > wishes to study the nature of intelligence then crows and ravens would
>> be
>> > ideal candidates, compared with other animals their brains would be more
>> > elegantly designed and have less spaghetti code and hard to understand
>> > kludges.  john clark
>>
>> There is a book called, I thought, The Secret Life of Garden Birds, but
>> I can't find it.  Last time I looked it was very expensive.  It showed me
>> the incredible intelligence of crows, among others.  In any case, there are
>> several books in the subject.  Here is a page with some interesting info:
>>
>>  https://www.beautyofbirds.com/crowintelligence.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 2:00 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> > Hi Stuart, thanks for an absolutely first rate post, it was detailed
>>> yet
>>> > clear. Really really good.
>>>
>>> That's high praise coming from a skeptic like you so I appreciate it.
>>>
>>> >> *The hilarious irony of the situation is that if my theory is correct,
>>> >> then a human brain has to subconsciously perform tensor analysis in
>>> order
>>> >> to reach the conclusion that it is lousy at math.*
>>> >
>>> > Damn, I wish I'd said that!
>>>
>>> It's not too late. You can still say it. If the word gets out, then
>>> maybe math literacy will increase.
>>>
>>>
>>> >> *> In other words, in terms of total number of neurons, the  human
>>> brain
>>> >> is some 4 million times larger than AlphaGo's. In terms of  synapses
>>> it is
>>> >> likewise on order 10^6 times smaller than the human  brain.*
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > I doubt a computer would  need a million times more synapses to beat
>>> us at
>>> > all intellectual tasks, for one thing the average informational signal
>>> in
>>> > our brain moves about as fast as a car does on a turnpike while the
>>> > informational signal in a computer moves at close to the speed of
>>> light.
>>> > And I would bet money that the artificial neurons in AlphaGo's brain
>>> are
>>> > organized in a more efficient less buggy way than the neurons in our
>>> brain
>>> > are.
>>>
>>> For playing go, perhaps . . . for figuring out new and creative ways
>>> to dodge predators while finding food and mates, probably not.
>>> Airplanes might fly better than birds, but they are not yet smarter.
>>> The human brain is not so much a single neural network as it is
>>> multiple interconnected neural networks built on top of one another.
>>> Like cities in Europe being built on top of ancient Roman forts.
>>>
>>> >
>>> > A raven's brain is only about 17 cubic centimeters, a chimpanzees
>>> brain is
>>> > over 400, and yet a raven is about as smart as a chimp. And the African
>>> > Grey Parrot has demonstrated an understanding of human language at
>>> least as
>>> > deep as that of a chimpanzee and probably deeper, this despite the fact
>>> > that the chimp's brain is about 25 times as large.
>>>
>>> Yes. Birds in general are marvels of evolution. Ravens and Parrot-kind
>>> including the kia, have some of the densest brains known. They have as
>>> many neurons in their much smaller skulls as ungulates like horses do.
>>> I imagine the trade off was fewer glial cells or something.
>>>
>>> > I suppose that when
>>> > there was evolutionary pressure to become smarter a flying creature
>>> > couldn't just develop a bigger, heavier more energy hogging brain;
>>> instead
>>> > of the brute force approach it had to organize the small light brain it
>>> > already had in more efficient ways.
>>>
>>> The adaptations of birds are incredible, especially their extended
>>> respiratory system. The air sacs in their hollow bones operate like a
>>> second set of lungs. Every time a bird exhales, it is exhaling air it
>>> inhaled 2-3 breaths earlier and every last bit of oxygen has been
>>> pulled out of it.
>>>
>>> > Our brains are about 1400 cm, but I'll
>>> > bet centimeter by centimeter ravens are smarter than we are. Being
>>> called a
>>> > birdbrain may not be an insult after all. For this reason I believe if
>>> one
>>> > wishes to study the nature of intelligence then crows and ravens would
>>> be
>>> > ideal candidates, compared with other animals their brains would be
>>> more
>>> > elegantly designed and have less spaghetti code and hard to understand
>>> > kludges.
>>>
>>> Very possibly.
>>>
>>>
>>> Stuart LaForge
>>>
>>>
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