Is intelligence distinct from knowledge?
Wow. Big results. I'm no, but. I think the mind is not a Von Neumann machine, and that intelligence and knowledge are intimately intertwined. But maybe it's theoretically possible to have intelligence decoupled from knowledge.
@evan
> intelligence and knowledge are intimately intertwined
Well that's a different proposition.
Two things can be distinct and also intertwined. Two distinct pieces of twine, for example.
As another example: The mind is distinct from the brain. Also, they are intimately intertwined.
Another: The atmosphere is distinct from the tree. Also, they are intimately intertwined.
If you're reading "yes" as "intelligence and knowledge are not intertwined", you asked the wrong question?
@msbellows
> But you can't play chess without knowing what the pieces are, ie, knowledge.
I categorically disagree; this has been disproven by the 1980s chess-playing computers.
I think you would not find that computer has any knowledge of what the pieces in chess are. And yet, they can demonstrably play chess. Is that intelligence?
@bignose @msbellows of course they know what the pieces are and how they work.
Many chess programs used to work based on rules; most know work through training and retraining. That's knowledge.
@msbellows @bignose chess is such a great example. Chess players don't learn the basic principles of chess and then work off pure ability. They study to a nauseating degree historical chess games, experimenting with variations. Then when they play their own new games, they reiterate those historical games, sometimes very faithfully, sometimes patching in bits from other games.
Right, that's how human chess players do it @evan.
Does that necessarily mean no other way of obtaining chess-playing skill is possible?
The 1980s chess-playing electronic computer, that has the knowledge wired into its circuit board, never learned anything. Yet from the moment it starts, it can play chess. Are we excluding that from "ability to play chess"?
It has no knowledge of chess pieces, it learns nothing, it knows only sensory inputs and outputs. Yet it can play chess.
Some might argue "well there's knowledge of the chess pieces, knowledge of what chess is, *somewhere* otherwise that machine *couldn't* play chess".
Yes, I agree; but that knowledge is not in the 1980s hard-wired computer; it's in the humans who designed it.
Yet, once that computer exists, it would be folly to say it can't play chess. And it would be folly to say it "knows" the chess pieces.
So, the entity that plays chess does not itself need knowledge of chess pieces.