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[Shade-o]

Dawn. You wake up, seeing the bars of light cascading across the wall from the Venetian blinds. There is nothing but the sound of your own breathing. Something tingles in the back of your skull, a primitive warning sense long-since forgotten but still wakeful. It screams of danger and death, of something that lies buried deep in the primordial memory, of a time when life and death were entwined together. Once separated by blood and anguish aeons ago, somehow it has returned to haunt humanity. Sitting up with a start, you scan the room. The fuzzy outlines resolve into familiar shapes as adrenaline pours through you bloodstream, but the safe surroundings do nothing to calm your subconscious. A deep rumble echoes in your skull, but you cannot tell if it is in the distance or from your mind.

A high-pitched moan suddenly pierces the ominous atmosphere. A man bursts through the window, tearing the blinds off and spraying glass across the floor. His eyes are wild and blood runs freely from his wounds, but what strikes you is the unnatural stance that he has taken. Though his skin is torn and shredded from glass, he does not notice or care. As he orients himself in this new environment, he sees you paralysed with fear.

He stumbles forward, moaning and spraying blood from his mouth. "Braaaaaaaaaaains..." he gurgles, before collapsing onto your floral print sheets. His descent is final, and you *know* that it was some greater injury that drove him to madness and death. Carefully extracting yourself from under your bloodstained linen and a mangled arm, you circle around and examine the fresh corpse now decorating your bed. Though the jagged glass and resultant wounds would be enough to cause concern, it is clear that the fatal wound was something much less incidental.

The reason for the death of this unfortunate? A large, blood-speckled chunk of foliated rock embedded in his skull. Possibly gneiss.

[Eugenitor]

I thought headshots killed zombies quicker than that.

[Shade-o]

He wasn't a zombie. He was just trying to explain that he had severe brain damage from the rock.

Later, the heroic band of survivors hole up in an office supply warehouse. They eventually escape in a helicopter to the mountains, where they hope to be safe.

[Ampersand]

paw at a mirror until they figure out it's a wall and they can't get at that mysterious other cat (I may be anthropomorphizing a cat's thought processes somewhat, but that part isn't relevant to the point), it's evidence they aren't self-aware.

I've always found the mirror test dubious, as it doesn't prove anything beyond the capacity to recognize oneself in a mirror.

The point is that you're able to recognize "Oh, hey, that thing is doing the same things I am at exactly the same times, it must be me" sort of thought process. Not necessarily that you're able to recognize your own features, but to recognize that the thing you're seeing acts as you do. As for cats and mirrors, like I said, I've not done research and can only really report on what I've seen (which is that our cat, when a kitten and unaccustomed to mirrors would do that, but does not any longer, presumably having gotten acclimated to them; likewise, youtube. All anecdotal, but it's really not the point; the point was just to illustrate a concept). So I could easily be wrong about the specifics.

Although, in retrospect, it occurs to me that this probably DOES fall under the category of abstract reasoning, so oh well. I wouldn't call it "only", in that case, I suppose.

There's another problem with this. Some species of apes are both able to, and unable to, recognize themselves in the mirror. When exposed to a mirror, Chimpanzees will either examine themselves and pick their teeth with the aid of the mirror, or try to pick a fight with their reflection. This seems mainly determined by the age of the Chimp, the older ones being more inclined to recognize themselves than the younger. You would not, with that knowledge, then come to the conclusion that some Chimpanzees are self aware/capable of reasoning out that the image on the mirror is a reflection, while others are not. The conclusion ought to be that the mirror test is invalid, something that can be learned, and that other factors are more important in analyzing the intelligence of an animal.

For example, the ability to feel empathy for the situation of another member of the same species, or even different species, as humans do, is displayed among Bonobos and Chimpanzees. Social awareness and the ability to make decisions based upon how social partners would perceive your behavior is certainly among the strongest indicators of intelligence that can be measured.

Apes, and even monkeys, will even occasionally form bonds with other species, like orphaned house cats for instance, to name a more recently documented occurrence.

For another example, see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkviIYKjPyw

[Starver]

On the other hand, advanced technology also does not make something intelligent. Earth might be eaten by a really stupid but very advanced Von Neumann machine at any time.

I don't think that's the point.  If the alleged VNM is a direct descendent of a spontaneously created (or, in the alternate explanation for the universe, deity-created) 'life-line', then it's might as well be a dumb bacteria/space-whale-thing, depending on its size.  (And in this analogy, Space Whales aren't intelligent, unlike our pelagic ones.)  I'd consider it life "But Not As We Kn[oe]w It".

If it's a device created (intentionally or not) by another intelligence, then it's their advanced technology.  You can't really ask me how intelligent my vacuum cleaner is.

And although you did specify really stupid VNMs, I'd like to go beyond that premise to say that we can make vacuum cleaners that have more (apparent) intelligence ('Rhoomba', is one of them called?), and it's possible that the VNM-makers (by accident or design) could have made something that exhibits more intelligence than us.  It might be subjective, though.  The programmer of a Turin-Test success could easily tell you why it looks intelligent[1], even while J. Random User is still convinced that it must be a Mechanical Turk of some kind.

OTOH, who is to say that a sufficiently advanced computing machine (with or without android body) does not have "I" feelings of some kind, exploring its own mental space as much as the world with range of its sensory feelers.  Classic extrapolation: The Internet.  Filled with a huge magnitude of miscellaneous traffic, although most of that is dictated directly by the end-users/providers, there's (some say) plenty of scope for the administrative overload to slosh around much like a conscious introspection.  Although I wouldn't go that far, personally.  I don't believe we have a network anything like as complicated as an animal mind, and most of the rewiring capability is completely under our control[2] so the analogy to ourselves breaks down, as it does with the lack of any obvious external peer with which to externally prove the validity of any introspection[3].


[1] I programmed a basic (indeed, BASIC) version of the classic Liza, back in the early '80s, and Liza-like bots have generally lost their appeal to me because I know their innards too well to get as immersed as others do.

[2] There might be an argument that The Internet+People is a supermind of some kind.

[3] Is a brain in a jar, isolated and dreaming the universe it thinks is around it, just to be considered a stand-alone computing device?  (But as I tend to think of brains in heads (including mine!) as mere calculating machines, minute parts of the mechanism of the universe, I'm probably not the best person to answer that question.

[Starver]

Isn't intelligence a means to an end? What end does a rock have?

Personally, I'd say "no", to the first question, and "the same" to the second.

Unless the Universe is indeed inexorably heading towards stating "42" to whatever meta-dimensional so-called-intelligence mis-programmed our universe to answer their homework question of "What is six by nine?", there is no end.  A resolution, possibly (Big Crunch, Heat Death or Big Rip) and inevitable if its deterministic as I believe, but not a pre-planned destination.

[Jackrabbit]

I'm not saying that intelligence exists because there's some endgame that we partake in, but more that intelligence is a tool that we use to perpetuate and improve our existence, as far as I can tell. I'm wondering if there's anything a rock could use intelligence for.

[Starver]

I'm not saying that intelligence exists because there's some endgame that we partake in, but more that intelligence is a tool that we use to perpetuate and improve our existence, as far as I can tell. I'm wondering if there's anything a rock could use intelligence for.

I know you weren't, but sometimes people pick up on that sort of thing, so I got a bit pre-emptive.

We survive in the world (hopefully) through intelligence, as well as not being too inefficient in a physical sense and countless other ways, etc, for as long as 'luck' holds and our minds and bodies are up to the task.

Dumb rocks survive in the world if they're hardy enough to withstand the crashing of the waves/blasting of the desert sandstorm/etc.

(In reality, we slough off cells and create new ones, whereas rocks just lose surface particles (give or take some chemical reactions on various types), but from one POV a rock is a rock until it splits, even if it's become a pebble in the meantime.  Maybe it can be considered to be "growing and developing", even if it's doing so by shrinking and settling into the scenery, carving its own hole in the bedrock substrate it lies upon...  Etc.)


One difference is that we are progenitors of rough facsimiles ourselves (or at least our kind) if we're sufficiently succesfully/lucky in that endeavour.  Rocks are essentially dormant until they are worn away and then may become 'seed' material for a sedimentary offspring.  Or are heated and 'become' metamorphic.  Or are taken deep, deep down below the mantle and melted to perhaps eventually become new igneous deposits.  Plus loads of side-shoots of development that mean that after 'soilification' (whatever the word is) their silica is taken up into the leaves of certain plants and... well, it's stretching the analogy to call it a 'lifecycle'.


"Smart rocks" may be another thing altogether (or not).  It's not the smartness, though, just that in order to have become smart, the rock might well have had to have developed as part of a pseudo-crystalline mechanism that propagates proper offspring rocks which would have had to compete with each other (rather than let themselves be ground up and mixed together as a sedimentary layer, with no real 'idea' behind it) and from which this smart rock may have arisen.

Although my idea of smartness of rocks would not mean a "rock monster" being, so much as a propagating 'meme' throughout a rocky interface or medium.  That's because I rebel against a purely anthropocentric "Discworld Troll" idea, and so my imagination heads more for a banyan-vine idea.  Perhaps mixed with the idea of the 'intelligent reefs' of Cohen/Stewart's SF book Heaven.

Anyway, while the form of the rock (or the particular grouping and form of particles involved) of an intelligent rock might well change, a 'continuation of being' would be occur.  Thus the survival of "The Rock".  And as incomprehensible to ourselves, much as a bacterium (empowered with the basic understanding and ability to visualise) might have problems with the mass sloughing of our skin-cells not being the death "self" for each and every one of those.

(Note that I'm not trying to compare ourselves with a single-cellular 'society', and thus extend the intelligent rock to something along the lines of a city or even a Gaia-like planetary entity, so don't take that away from this analogy.  It really needs some thinking about to avoid that kind of connotation.  OTOH, it's maybe something I can save up until that argument needs to be made... )

[Bauglir]

paw at a mirror until they figure out it's a wall and they can't get at that mysterious other cat (I may be anthropomorphizing a cat's thought processes somewhat, but that part isn't relevant to the point), it's evidence they aren't self-aware.

I've always found the mirror test dubious, as it doesn't prove anything beyond the capacity to recognize oneself in a mirror.

The point is that you're able to recognize "Oh, hey, that thing is doing the same things I am at exactly the same times, it must be me" sort of thought process. Not necessarily that you're able to recognize your own features, but to recognize that the thing you're seeing acts as you do. As for cats and mirrors, like I said, I've not done research and can only really report on what I've seen (which is that our cat, when a kitten and unaccustomed to mirrors would do that, but does not any longer, presumably having gotten acclimated to them; likewise, youtube. All anecdotal, but it's really not the point; the point was just to illustrate a concept). So I could easily be wrong about the specifics.

Although, in retrospect, it occurs to me that this probably DOES fall under the category of abstract reasoning, so oh well. I wouldn't call it "only", in that case, I suppose.

There's another problem with this. Some species of apes are both able to, and unable to, recognize themselves in the mirror. When exposed to a mirror, Chimpanzees will either examine themselves and pick their teeth with the aid of the mirror, or try to pick a fight with their reflection. This seems mainly determined by the age of the Chimp, the older ones being more inclined to recognize themselves than the younger. You would not, with that knowledge, then come to the conclusion that some Chimpanzees are self aware/capable of reasoning out that the image on the mirror is a reflection, while others are not. The conclusion ought to be that the mirror test is invalid, something that can be learned, and that other factors are more important in analyzing the intelligence of an animal.

For example, the ability to feel empathy for the situation of another member of the same species, or even different species, as humans do, is displayed among Bonobos and Chimpanzees. Social awareness and the ability to make decisions based upon how social partners would perceive your behavior is certainly among the strongest indicators of intelligence that can be measured.

Apes, and even monkeys, will even occasionally form bonds with other species, like orphaned house cats for instance, to name a more recently documented occurrence.

For another example, see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkviIYKjPyw

Good point. Consider the whole cat-reflection argument withdrawn. It was kinda dumb of me anyway. I'm gonna go blame caffeine withdrawal to save my self-esteem.

[Andir]

Good point. Consider the whole cat-reflection argument withdrawn. It was kinda dumb of me anyway. I'm gonna go blame caffeine withdrawal to save my self-esteem.

At least it spawned a more informative conversation than people eating cheese.

[alway]

The next logical question is, what does cheese percieve when it views itself in a mirror? :O

[MaximumZero]

If cheese can see in a mirror, you've done it wrong.

[Micro102]

If you've never seen a mirror before, and then 20 years later finally see one, without understnading how light works, I'm sure you would think it's another human as well.

[Bauglir]

If you've never seen a mirror before, and then 20 years later finally see one, without understnading how light works, I'm sure you would think it's another human as well.

Ah! This is the fundamental misunderstanding. The point isn't that we can learn what a reflection is, the point is that we can recognize that its actions mimic our own perfectly and thus surmise that it is, in some way, based on us; a creature that is not self-aware couldn't recognize the concept of itself and so that could not occur to it. It would only have thought processes for interacting with the world around it, and it just would never occur to consider itself as a thing it could interact with. It doesn't understand that it exists, only that it perceives (if you see what I mean; it's a very strange point and difficult to express, but it's key to the whole thing). Can anyone more eloquent than me sum it up, or is this actually something I've made up on my own that has no real philosophical grounding?

That said, there are innumerable other reasons why a creature which COULD recognize that it was a reflection would not immediately treat it that way, and that's what invalidates the whole thing and makes it a poor choice to bring up. There's no way to tell what it's actually thinking, so there's no way to say, "It paws at the mirror because it doesn't know it's a reflection" instead of, say, "It paws at the mirror because it's fun". Plus it doesn't raise an objection to Siquo's statement since having an abstract concept of yourself obviously falls under the category of having the capacity for abstract reasoning, and I feel rather dumb for having not immediately realized that.

[Micro102]

Well cat's don't just paw, they also hiss. I think that is some heavy evidence toward it thinking it's another cat. It certainly isn't because it's fun.