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I feel like every chatter about intelligence comes down to arguing over the operational definition of intelligence. Isn't it obvious that abilities such as simple arithmetics, memory, linguistic ability, recognizing patterns have at least something to do with intelligence?

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No, it's not obvious. If it were then we'd have programmed an AGI by now.

So basically, we can't make a photodetector without first being able to create a sun?

We can't measure things we don't understand. Note that a photodetector detects light, not suns.

>We can't measure things we don't understand.

What? Was everyone blind before the discovery of quantum mechanics? If we can't measure things we don't understand, how the heck would we come to understand them? Through their affects on the world? "No, you say, "we can not perceive things whose causes we don't understand." Where did you get your epistemology? Was it The Secret?

>Where did you get your epistemology?

Karl Popper.

>If we can't measure things we don't understand, how the heck would we come to understand them?

We get new ideas, such as the concept of distance, by guessing them in response to problems.

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