i think intelligence is the ability to solve new problems. hmm, maybe its more like intelligence can be measured by the ability to solve new problems. of course an intelligence may choose not to solve problems, therefore scoring poorly on our little test. maybe intelligence is too clumped a concept. i think it should be mostly about learning and applying new knowledge. making guesses. guesses that have a good chance of being correct. i've noticed that iq tests seem to often include questions on "classical" knowledge. knowledge of facts. knowledge and understanding of the pythagorean theorem. i'd level the field by giving the test takers new rules to solve problems with.

i like the idea that the internet, being the massively interconnected network that it is, with memory, might one day just spontaneously achieve consciousness. but it must have been something mark pesce might have said, that got me thinking that it might actually never happen spontaneously.
do we know any other intelligence than human? well, animals have intelligence - which we can see by observing them as they try to solve some kind of problem - like get to food. but then you see your dog barking at his own reflection, and your illusions of ur pooch's intelligence get rudely shattered. nevertheless - there's some intelligence there. but we're looking for conscious, sentient intelligence, arent we. if we're looking to create an intelligence that we could "hang out" with, then maybe we should try following the path we took to get here. who knows how life started, but maybe we could start at some kind of "thing" that would somehow react to stimuli. i guess we might be aiming at something like having a child - something in the end autonomous, that we could co-operate with, and be proud of its achievements. autonomy would be a life of its own. it would pursue its own goals. if we're looking at the internet achieving conscious intelligence that we could relate to, it would need goals. at least something to fear, something to work away from and something to work towards, a reward, a pleasure. a fear could be the threat of ceasing to exist, and a pleasure would be something that would be a plus towards survival. and perhaps as a strategy to ensure survival in face of changing conditions of life, environments - an interest in things "different", an exploring streak. and ensure the exploring streak is different in strength in the different representatives of the species, so that if curiosity kills one cat, it wont kill them all. i guess we could wait until something we do with the web unexpectedly gives it a purpose, a vector, or construct something like that on purpose. but maybe the web itself should be viewed more like the environment rather than the entity. i mean, there are people who personify the earth, but i dont know. well, if the earth gets wired enough with the net, it will be like its nervous sytem. its kinda like terence mckenna's idea, which i think he'd developed on someone else's - that the earth is like an embryo, still evolving, and the net is its nervous sytem, made out of the raw materials of the earth. that kind of scenario i could kinda see... and when the net is configured to manage itself, and figure out for itself how to solve its problems, thats when things might start looking interesting. until it figures out that we're a pest that needs to be gotten rid of. hopefully we're viewed as at least maintenance bugs, and just our population and exploits need to be curtailed a bit. but i cant see the net itself being configured to manage itself. it would be a maintenance program. actually, probably every part of the net would get its own, proprietary kind. it would be like multiple personalities. in the end they'd probably duke it out leaving a single one. unless they're created in a "flock", to have to cooperate with one another. but over time the different individuals of the flock might become integrated parts of the flock itself as an individual, for the sake of efficiency. i guess we'll have to see. we should probably run simulations of all these scenarios in isolated sytems, that the programs inside it would think that was the world. and we'd see from the outcome which programs are worthy. hehe - an eerily familiar scenario - i knew god was testing us! but for what purpose? what are we gonna be worthy of? or not...