14/7 AN INTRODUCTION TO CYBERNETICS 



speculatively, partly to give the reader practice in applying the earlier 

 methods, and partly to show what lies ahead, for the prospects are 

 exciting. 



In S. 13/ 18 we saw that selection can be amplified. Now "problem 

 solving" is largely, perhaps entirely, a matter of appropriate selection. 

 Take, for instance, any popular book of problems and puzzles. 

 Almost every one can be reduced to the form: out of a certain set, 

 indicate one element. Thus of all possible numbers of apples 

 that John might have in his sack we are asked to find a certain one; 

 or of all possible pencil fines drawn through a given pattern of dots, 

 a certain one is wanted; or of all possible distributions of letters into 

 a given set of spaces, a certain one is wanted. It is, in fact, difficult 

 to think of a problem, either playful or serious, that does not ulti- 

 mately require an appropriate selection as necessary and sufficient 

 for its solution. 



It is also clear that many of the tests used for measuring "intelli- 

 gence" are scored essentially according to the candidate's power 

 of appropriate selection. Thus one test shows the child a common 

 object and asks its name : out of all words the child must select the 

 proper one. Another test asks the child how it would find a ball in 

 a field: out of all the possible paths the child must select one of the 

 suitable few. Thus it is not impossible that what is commonly 

 referred to as "intellectual power" may be equivalent to "power of 

 appropriate selection". Indeed, if a talking Black Box were to show 

 high power of appropriate selection in such matters — so that, when 

 given difficult problems it persistently gave correct answers — we 

 could hardly deny that it was showing the behavioral equivalent of 

 "high intelligence". 



If this is so, and as we know that power of selection can be ampli- 

 fied, it seems to follow that intellectual power, like physical power, 

 can be amplified. Let no one say that it cannot be done, for the 

 gene-patterns do it every time they form a brain that grows up to be 

 something better than the gene-pattern could have specified in detail. 

 What is new is that we can now do it synthetically, consciously, 

 deliberately. 



But this book must stop ; these are not matters for an Introduction, 



272 



