> It's intelligent because it does intelligent things.
Most people would consider someone who can calculate 56863*2446 instantly in their head to be intelligent. Does that mean pocket calculators are intelligent? The result is the same.
> then they are the one meant to be doing the defining, and to tell us how it can be tested for. If they can't, then there's no reason to pay attention to any of it.
That is the equivalent of responding to criticism with “can you do better?”. One does not need to be a chef (or even know how to cook) to know when food tastes foul. Similarly, one does not need to have a tight definition of “life” to say a dog is alive but a rock isn’t. Definitions evolve all the time when new information arises, and some (like “art”) we haven’t been able to pin down despite centuries of thinking about it.
>Most people would consider someone who can calculate 56863*2446 instantly in their head to be intelligent. Does that mean pocket calculators are intelligent? The result is the same.
If you wanted to insist a calculator wasn't intelligent and satisfy my conditions then you can. At the very least you can test for the sort of intelligence that is present in humans but absent from calculators and cleanly separate the two. These are very easy conditions if there is some actual real difference.
>That is the equivalent of responding to criticism with “can you do better?”. One does not need to be a chef (or even know how to cook) to know when food tastes foul.
No it's not, and this is a silly argument. Foul food tastes different. Sometimes it even looks different. You can test for it and satisfy my conditions.
You come across a shiny piece of yellow metal that you think is gold. It looks like gold, feels like gold and tests like gold. Suddenly a strange fellow comes about insisting that it's not actually gold. No, apparently there is a 'fake' gold. You are intrigued so you ask him, "Alright, what exactly is fake gold, and how can I test or tell them apart ?". But this fellow is completely unable to answer either question. What would you say about him ? He's nothing more than a mad man rambling about a distinction he made up in his head.
What I'm asking you to do is incredibly easy and basic with a real distinction. I'm not going to tell you to stop believing in your fake gold, but I am going to tell you I and no one else can be expected to take you seriously.
> At the very least you can test for the sort of intelligence that is present in humans but absent from calculators and cleanly separate the two.
But you can only do that now, in hindsight. Before calculators, one could argue being able to do math was a sign of intelligence, but once something new comes along which can do math in a non-intelligent way, you can realise “ah, right, my definition was incomplete/incorrect, I need something better”.
> Foul food tastes different.
You’re right, that was a bad example.
> You come across a shiny piece of yellow metal that you think is gold. (…) He's nothing more than a mad man rambling about a distinction he made up in his head.
No, that is not right. Fool’s gold is a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrite
It’s not the same as gold and you can test for it, but that doesn’t mean you know how to do it. Yet it’s perfectly possible that by being exposed to the real and fake thing you’ll get a feel for each one as there are subtle visual clues. It doesn’t mean you can articulate exactly what those are, yet you’re able to do it.
It’s like tasting two similar beers or sodas. You may be able to identify them by taste and understand they’re difference but be unable to articulate exactly how you know which is which to the point someone else can use your verbal instructions to know the difference. That doesn’t mean the difference isn’t there or that you can’t tell, it just means you haven’t yet found yourself the proper way to extract and impart what you instinctively understood.
>But you can only do that now, in hindsight.
No you could always do that. The meaning you take from it is up to you but you could always separate humans and calculators.
>No, that is not right. Fool’s gold is a thing.
I know what fools gold is. I used it for contrast. Fools gold can be tested for.
>but that doesn’t mean you know how to do it.
It doesn't matter. If you claim it exists but you don't know how to do it and you can't point to anyone who can, it's the same as something you made up.
>It’s like tasting two similar beers or sodas. You may be able to identify them by taste and understand they’re difference but be unable to articulate exactly how you know which is which to the point someone else can use your verbal instructions to know the difference.
You are still making the same mistake. Two similar beers or sodas taste different. No one is asking you to come up with a theory for intelligence. All you have to say here is the equivalent of "It tastes different" and let me taste it for myself. But even that much, you can not do. So why on earth should I treat what you say as worth anything ?