IQ of nature

[reor]

I was wondering if it was ever measured.

[RyanJ]

Well, a good start would be:

 

1) Define exactly what nature is.

2) Define exactly what IQ is and how it should be measured.

 

Both of those can be interprited in a number of ways so you'd have to start there before trying anything else.

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Sure. I'll just stick a multiple-choice IQ test out in the rain and count those answers that the raindrops fell on as nature's choices.

 

 

No, seriously, how do you propose it could be measured?

[reor]

Damn! XD I mean... there must be a way to identify an intellect, like how would you go about to determine if there's an intelligent lifeform. There are specifications, right? I know pretty well about the definition issue, but THERE ARE IQ TESTS!!!!! And there is nature, you know, animals, plants, stones and stuff. (EDIT: and evolution) So, does anyone know if that's done before?

[JustStuit]

Possibly on great apes or some monkeys but how do you propose a stone or plant get its IQ tested?

[reor]

Give the stone an IQ test, a pen and some time... Serious now, you can say if a rock is smarter than an ape. Or something like that. You know what i mean!

[Klaynos]

Crazy, completely crazy...

[Sayonara]

Intelligence is, loosely speaking, the ability to store, analyse, and manage information for future use. We know many animals do this, so the question "how is it measured" isn't really that crazy.

[RyanJ]

Well, I say that nature has no IQ because its not alive... oh great now we beed to define what alive is

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Sayonara]

Any system capable of managing information might display intelligence, regardless of whether or not it is comparable to human intellect.

 

The requirement for life is an invented one.

[RyanJ]

Any system capable of managing information might display intelligence' date=' regardless of whether or not it is comparable to human intellect.

 

The requirement for life is an invented one.[/quote']

 

Good point...

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Bluenoise]

I was wondering if it was ever measured.

 

lol what have you been smoking?

 

 

seeing as nature doesn't think, reason, or comprehend in the slightest bit I doubt you'll have much luck measuring it's ability to do so.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Any system capable of managing information might display intelligence' date=' regardless of whether or not it is comparable to human intellect.

 

The requirement for life is an invented one.[/quote']

The problem is that the requirement for intelligence is also invented, and usually only applies to intelligence that is similar to what we are familiar with.

[reor]

Hmm... i guess it's a bit of the discussion god versus evolution. So, how intelligent has evolution to be to invent stuff like feathers.

[ydoaPs]

Hmm... i guess it's a bit of the discussion god versus evolution. So, how intelligent has evolution to be to invent stuff like feathers.

we don't need another thread for that.

[Klaynos]

It doesn't have to be 'inteligent' it just has to follow some rules...

[reor]

Okay, you may stop trying to comfort me. My question was already answered, anyway. Kind of.

[Sayonara]

The problem is that the requirement for intelligence is also invented, and usually only applies to intelligence that is similar to what we are familiar with.

Yes, but one imagines that would be a large part of the ideal answer anyway.

[Prime-Evil]

If you believe that humanity is part of nature, then you might first ask if the collective intelligence of all of humanity can be measured, or you might start with small groups even before that. Is all of humanity collectively more or less intelligent than an individual or small group? I believe that the answer is that collectively we are in some ways more intelligent, and in some ways less intelligent than individuals. It is the same with nature.

 

Is nature an under achiever? Compared to what? Our expectations?

.

[bascule]

The question is so vague as to be meaningless. There's no real point in answering it.

[Callipygous]

The problem is that the requirement for intelligence is also invented, and usually only applies to intelligence that is similar to what we are familiar with.

 

 

how is that a problem?

 

the requirements for all words are invented...

 

im not trying to be an ass here, im really curious what you guys are getting at. of course the requirements for life are invented, its a word.

[Super Genius]

Intelligence is the ability to analyse,decide,plan,adapt and make connections between events and things that happen in our everyday life.Anything that is able to perform those functions or points has a certain degree of intelligence and so would hence, be measurable. (This is in my opinion.)

[padren]

Hmm... i guess it's a bit of the discussion god versus evolution. So, how intelligent has evolution to be to invent stuff like feathers.

 

If I understand what you are trying to ask...you mean to ask, if you compare the IQ of human engineers and what we can design with our intelligence against the complexity of systems and living systems within the natural world...how smart would nature have to be to pull off making all its stuff.

 

If that is what you mean, then I think the answer would be "whoah, way too smart too measure" but only because you are making the unfounded assumption that nature has "designed" the stuff it has created.

 

Its like asking "how smart would you have to be to calculate how to throw a ball to arc in a perfect perablo [sic...darn its been a while since I did quadratics] with the ball spending exactly the same amount of time rising as it does falling.

 

The answer is of course, you don't have to think about it at all. You throw a ball at any angle that is not downward on level ground and it will, thanks to gravity and the 9.8m/s^2 rule, always display those attributes.

 

Nature does not design things, a bumble bee doesn't know how it flies, if anything nature is a system of hardware, where the software algorthym is composed of the laws of physics and the bits are all the atoms and energy in the universe, and it simply iterates for billions of years, reaching these sorts of results by brute force.

 

Its like asking how smart a computer has to be to find the correct lotto number, and the answer is "not at all, if it tries every number from zero up to the max possible lotto number randomly, over billions of years."

 

 

 

Edit:

Also remember that things like the invention of feathers mean something to us because we can appreciate their use, being biological critters and all, but the value of something is pretty subjective. Feathers aided in the survival of some species and thus adapted, and isn't an invention of evolution anymore than helium is an invention of a hydrogen laiden star.

[reor]

Serious, my question has already been answered.

Crazy, completely crazy...

 

The definition is more important than i thought at first. If i had to decide then i'd say nature is all the laws of physics, so, the proper question would rather be "what's the iq of the universe" or... "...of god" ...

 

And i would like to exclude humanity from this, because i think we were a lapse.

[Bluenoise]

What would you measure it against anyways? And IQ is rating based on someones level in relation to their age group... Since our nature on our plant is the only one we know of how can you qualify that?

 

edit* oppps I didn't read your above post sorry