Chunking intelligence functions (was Re: [Fwd: com-mensa-rate digest #1] )

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed May 09 2001 - 02:20:25 MDT


At 03:42 AM 5/9/01 -0400, Eliezer wrote:

>Intelligence *is* compartmentalized. But not into
>convenient, heartwarming seven-item lists.

Wellll.... Why `heartwarming', hmmm? Why `convenient'? Could it be because
we have evolved to chunk our abilities in this way, and to recognize them
in action, just as we have with colors out of a continuous spectrum? Or
perhaps, better, as we have with bipedal ambulation compared with, say,
brachiation, sliding forward on the buttocks, rolling along the ground,
flapping the elbows and hopping, etc, as preferred methods of human
locomotion?

I think just for the moment I'll go along with Howard Gardner and Jerome
Bruner and those guys who've been working in this area for the last few
decades, and take Eliezer's guess as an interesting `sidewalk supervisor'
opinion.

Damien Broderick



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