Intelligence Theory

Even animals have empathy.

2011-12-12T02:47:00.000-08:00

Even animals have empathy.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45602445/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.TuXaJNWBV8E

Empathetic rats step up and help others in a bind

But what are their true motives? That remains to be seen, researchers say

Science / AAAS

This trapped rat's cagemate ultimately opened the container's door to set the rat free, without any rewards, researchers found.

By Joseph Castro

updated 12/8/2011 4:14:43 PM ET

The act of helping others out of empathy has long been associated strictly with humans and other primates, but new research shows that rats exhibit this prosocial behavior as well.

In the new study, laboratory rats repeatedly freed their cage-mates from containers, even though there was no clear reward for doing so. The rodents didn't bother opening empty containers or those holding stuffed rats.
To the researchers' surprise, when presented with both a rat-holding container and one containing a chocolate — the rats' favorite snack — the rodents not only chose to open both containers, but also to share the treats they liberated.
Peggy Mason, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago and lead author of the new study, says that the research shows that our empathy and impulse to help others are common across other mammals.
"Helping is our evolutionary inheritance," Mason told LiveScience. "Our study suggests that we don't have to cognitively decide to help an individual in distress; rather, we just have to let our animal selves express themselves."

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4. Empathetic rats help each other out

Empathetic ratsIn previous studies, researchers found that rodents show the simplest form of empathy, called emotional contagion — a phenomenon where one individual's emotions spread to others nearby. For example, a crying baby will trigger the other babies in a room to cry as well. Likewise, rats will become distressed when they see other rats in distress, or they will display pain behavior if they see other rats in pain.
For the new study, Mason and her colleagues wanted to see if rats could go beyond emotional contagion and actively help other rats in distress. To do so, the rats would have to suppress their natural responses to the "emotions" of other rats, the result of emotional contagion. "They have to down-regulate their natural reaction to freeze in fear in order to actively help the other rat," Mason explained.
The researchers began their study by housing rats in pairs for two weeks, allowing the rodents to create a bond with one another. In each test session, they placed a rat pair into a walled arena; one rat was allowed to roam free while the other was locked in a closed, transparent tube that could only be opened from the outside.
The free rat was initially wary of the container in the middle of the arena, but once it got over the fear it picked up from its cage-mate, it slowly began to test out the cage. After an average seven days of daily experiments, the free rat learned it could release its friend by nudging the container door open. Over time, the rat began releasing its cage-mate almost immediately after being placed into the arena.
"When the free rat opens the door, he knows exactly what he's doing — he knows that the trapped rat is going to get free," Mason said. "It's deliberate, purposeful, helping behavior."
The researchers then conducted other tests to make sure empathy was the driving force in the rats' behavior. In one experiment, they rigged the container so that opening the door would release the captive rat into a separate arena. The free rat repeatedly set its cage-mate free, even though there was no reward of social interaction afterward.
True motivationsWhile it appears that the rats are empathetic, questions about the rodents' true motivations still remain.
"It is unclear whether the rats sympathize with the distress of their cage-mates, or simply feel better as they alleviate the perceived distress of others," Jaak Panksepp, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Washington State University, wrote in an article accompanying the study.
Mason says they don’t yet know if the free rats are acting to relieve their own distress, the distress of their cage-mates, or a combination of both, but this is definitely a topic for further research. She’s also looking to study if the rats would behave the same way if they weren’t cage-mates, and she would like to tease out the brain areas and genes involved in the behavior.
But, she says, “We now have this incredibly controlled, reproducible paradigm.” Other scientists should be able to use the model they developed to see if empathy and prosocial behavior are present in other animals, she said.
The study was published Thursday in the journal Science.

My Intelligence Theory paper was cited by 1659

2010-07-13T01:50:00.001-07:00

http://quadsearch.csd.auth.gr/ssearch.php?m=1&wtl=1&frop=501&lan=1&tos=2&pp=2&query=quantitative+measure+of+intelligence&query2=&sst=2&ResPerPage=500&frp_p=1&btn=1
You have to search this quadsearch engine using the full article name.
Otherwise it will not appear at all.
I am surprised that my conference paper was cited more times than
Multiple Intelligences theory, although google ranking is much much
lower at 1.
I had tried a few citation extracting engines. quadsearch is the third
one that I tried. It does not search properly when I use my name. Even
complete title search failed. You must make it a general search for
all languages and subjects. If you narrow the search, it will fail.
You must be willing to filter it yourself. We cannot rely on search
engines to filter for us.
I would like to know how quadsearch calculates the number of
citations. Many citation engines cannot quote from all publications
especially from conferences that are deemed to be low class
publications, but I prefer to quote from conferences and even internet
sources. They are more up to date and controversial.
It is refreshing that quadsearch is able to extract from google
scholar all citations for all types of articles. Google ranking tends
to be very subjective and highly filtered. For example, it takes into
account who the author is, and how old the publication was.
Since I am not active publishing articles since it is not my job and
it is costly to publish, I am not that well known. Theory is more than
20 years old and not much development had been published based on this
work but I have been developing it by myself comparing my results with
current state of the art in computer architectures.
Intelligence Theory was developed for computer architecture or more
oriented to organisation as current textbooks would like to call it
since it is hardware based. Many of my results shows that Intel and
other established computer developers are missing the whole point,
most probably because they have not approached the problem
scientifically, such as using Information Theory and therefore
Intelligence theory.
The adhoc, SPEC-mark style of measurements are still being used,
making optimal designs very difficult to do. I am trying to get
funding in order to publish more papers on this theory. In fact
campaigning to make Information Theory more acceptable to computer
scientists and architects/designers. It should also be easy to patents
many new designs based on IntelligenceTheory but it is a question of
whether it is worthwhile or not. How can we compete against multi-
billion dollar companies such as Intel and IBM?
I shall put the screen capture of the quadsearch result of my paper in
my blogspot, scientificintelligence.
I have to rename it as scientificintelligence because
intelligencetheory blogspot was taken by the multiple intelligences
theory group, which I call nonsense because of its impracticality.

Designing an Intelligent System: Google

2008-07-09T04:50:00.001-07:00

http://www.researchchannel.org/asx/uw_cse_google_250k.asx

You can listen to the video of Urz explaining how Google implement its
system.

It is part of the University of Washington Colloquim series.

It struck me as an example of designing a system that emphasises
intelligence over brute computing power.

The conclusion:

no need for large cache,
no need for byte level parallelism,
only need SIMD, Single Instruction, Multiple Data parallelism(not so
sure about this though)

This lecture is dated to 2002 but is still useful.

The trend is supported by the multiple core cpus. Multithreading was
mentioned as desirable.

A free IQ Test

2007-05-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.intelligencetest.com/ is among the best free IQ test site.

It also gives out free analysis of various aspects of the tests.

My IQ was 126 with my greatest strength at General Knowledge, while my weakest is visualization.

Destructive Emotional Intelligences

2007-03-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

Emotional intelligence is touted as an alternative to IQ, intelligence quotient because it is noted that those with high IQ need not necessarily be successful in worldly affairs.

Nowadays these emotional intelligence has led to multiple intelligences because it is noted that there are diverse skills in various areas that need to be addressed in order to be successful in these various fields, be it business, politics or military.

One high profile success story is Mr. Bush, the president of the most powerful nation on earth. He does not even have a high IQ and supporters of emotional intelligence theory state that it may be due to his high emotional intelligence quotients, EQ.

I admit that I have not studied in details what EQ is about and how it is measured, except from what I get from lectures and articles. So far I have not heard of a concrete way of measuring EQ apart from attempts at identifying qualities that make a person successful.

IQ, (Intelligence Quotients) are well established. It is equipped with various tests in order to measure the IQ of any individual, and it appeared to be consistent.

EQ is devised in order to explain the success of an individual but what is clear is that, it is not related to IQ, or should be as distant from IQ as possible.

Once we have identified what IQ is, we should have a fair view of what EQ is. It is not IQ, but IQ relates to logical thinking and problem solving, so EQ must be something other than these logical thinkings, or in other words, illogical and irrational thinking.

It is true that EQ is important for human survival. IQ alone is not sufficient. Humans survive on instincts that are devoid of any logical thinking. Superstition is one of them.

But EQ, relates to how an individual is successful. In a superstitious society, the most successful individual must be those who are also superstitious, or else he will become an outcast and has little hope of surviving in a hostile environment.

So EQ is a human talent in blending environmental factors and emotions, in making his survival or success chances much better, which are devoid of logical consideration.

My scientific intelligence theory should be able to measure intelligence resource required for both aspects, because in line with Information Theory, the information "content" is not measured. Both aspects requires intelligence energy but one is logical but the other is non-logical. Or to be more politely, EQ is the ability to make decisions although no reasons can be concretely attached to them.

This is where the danger sign is. If we see that only those with high EQ are more successful, it shows that the society does not value reason or logical argument, compared to a society where those with high IQ are more successful.

To be fair, only 3 cases in history, that I know of, a society that value IQ more than EQ. This was Imperial China at the peak of its scientific progress through its mandarin officials, British Empire through its Oxford educated foreign office officials, and Singapore government.

This is based on the assumptions that examinations test IQ more than EQ. You cannot use your EQ in order to pass examinations. You cannot hypnotise or convince your examiners to pass you, if you don't understand facts and joint them in an approved logical way. Unless you are in a highly EQ motivated society, i.e. corrupt and non-law-abiding society.

Most societies take the middle approach. They value IQ tests in form of examinations, priding themselves in graduating from elite universities, showing their colleagues that they have sufficient IQ in order to survive in this modern world, while improving their EQ in order to be even more successful.

Mr. Bush has a higher IQ than many of our political representatives, many of them, can't even read properly. It is however clear that Mr. Bush does not have the highest IQ compared to other presidents such as Mr. Carter and Clinton, but Mr. Bush is among the most revered leader in the history of US Presidency.

Mr. Bush has led US to wars and deaths while its economy is not at its best, blaming it on previous presidents, who enjoy economic boom without exposing any US lives.

This is the destructive nature of EQ. Mr. Bush may be respected but it has led US into disaster after disaster. But my theory is that, those with high EQ can only be successful if the public itself values EQ more than IQ.

Nations where high EQ are required to excel are where corruption and illegality are strife. People with high IQ will not be able to survive. They need people with high EQ as well.

Of course it will be best if individuals have both IQ and EQ but somehow these skills are not complementary. You can excel in IQ but not EQ and vice versa.

But one thing is certain. The world will be much safer if they are led by people with high IQ. At least he will be more reasonable in making his decisions.

While those nations that are led by people with high EQ such as Hitler and now Bush, point out to fundamental problems in society.

Just look at societies such as Malaysia and Indonesia that value EQ more highly than IQ. It only shows how corruption, cronyism and illegality are widespread.

See what you say; say what you see.: Intelligence

2007-03-08T06:29:00.000-08:00

See what you say; say what you see.: Intelligence

Attacking Multiple Intelligences

2007-02-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

I had tolerated all the theories of Multiple Intelligences because I thought that the academic enviroment will ensure debate on this subject. However I notice that it became even stronger and stronger and above all other theories on intelligence.

My theory, that claims to be treating intelligence in general and boldly called Intelligence Theory had never been quoted and mentioned, let alone criticised.

I may not be a well known researcher, but my theory is already been used in similar manners by previous Engineering Researchers, especially G.N. Saridis. At least these people are highly scientific in their approaches, unlike these theories on Multiple Intelligences.

In the engineering world, most research on Intelligence centres around making devices, treating definitions lightly. This had left a vacuum to psychologists to define intelligences in their peculiar ways that are in most cases completely unscientific and therefore unfounded.

The greatest weakness in all these Multiple Intelligences is that they assume that they know the desirable outcome perfectly. They interpret high intelligence as having success in solving problems.

So they assume that successful people have high level of intelligences. However this failed to withstand the logical test. It used to be emotional intelligence. So they assume that powerful people are the most successful. It ignores peole such as Einstein and Bill Gates.

Eisten is among the best scientific mind there is. While Bill Gates is the richest man on Earth, Bill Clinton, is the most powerful leader of the World by being the President of the USA, at least for the duration of 8 years. Similarly for Bush.

By their assumptions, Bush may be the most intelligent human being on earth.

It is pointless to find out the characteristics of successful people but this is vital which made them popular for fund raising work.

Useful work can still be done even without defining the degree of sucess of any behaviour. This is well proven by Shannon in his Information Theory.

Information is just defined by its physical characteristics, not its usefulness to humans or groups of humans.

It is theoretically possilbe for us to find out this usefulness characterictics but they are not fixed and are very complex and varible because it depends on so many factors, which make data finding almost impossible to get right.

Mastering Intelligence Scientifically

2007-02-16T02:17:00.000-08:00

That is the proposed title for my proposed book which is still under development.

I'd just like to welcome criticisms and discussions on a scientific definition of Intelligence.

For more information you may refer to my previous publications in my homepage othmana.tripod.com

In creating this blogspot, I notice that there are two other blogspots, intellignece and intelligencetheory.

I'd like to visit all blogspots that want to discuss alternative definitions of intelligence. I am well aware of the "emotional intelligence" theories but I consider them as useless because they are not scientific.

I'm disappointed that many academicians are abandoning scientific principles in their research and analysis.

Any criticism is most welcomed.