[ExI] Benchmarking the Singularity

[William Flynn Wallace]

 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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