What Is Intelligence?
Some Flaws in Our Very Human Perspective
Recently, one of my favorite things to think about is about intelligent life on other planets, in other dimensions, here on our Earth, in other species, right under our noses. If we come across intelligent life, do we or would we even recognize it?
Consider the octopus. The octopus and other cephalopods have impressive physical abilities in their predatory skills and their dexterity. Similar to humans, cephalopods use tools and build shelters. Some studies and observations also suggest that cephalopods can even learn over time. We humans will always determine intelligence in other creatures using the our species as measuring stick. Cephalopods can’t communicate their intelligence to us, at least not in a language we can understand. (Although there is some evidence that they are social creatures; they communicate with each other through changes in the colors and patterns of their skin.) But an octopus’ intelligence may be just one example of a kind of intelligence we humans can’t comprehend.
Consider history. Think about Western explorers, conquistadores, colonizers. As they entered new territories occupied by different people with different experiences and different priorities… different worldviews, different manifestations of intelligence. In colonizing various parts of the world, Westerners effectively wiped out certain forms of intelligence, simply because they weren’t in line with a certain view of the world. Native and aboriginal peoples who communicated without the traditional written word, who gave greater emphasis to ritual, to tradition, and to the spoken word in agreement-making were often either slaughtered or assimilated.
Consider the house cat. What might your experience of the world be if you were one? You’d have a particular, even if narrow, worldview. You’d understand yourself, as much as any creature can. You’d know what you like: napping in a warm spot, looking out the window, grooming. You’d know what you dislike: loud noises, nail trimming, not enough attention. You’d live in some kind of symbiosis with another creature, a creature who keeps you fed, who cares for you, whom you might love if, in fact, you are capable of such feeling. You’d know your home. It wouldn’t be your nature to live inside, but when you’d go outside, you’d stand still. As much as you would want the whole world, you would have known nothing more in your life than the walls you would have been inside, surrounded by the artifacts of another species’ intelligence, an intelligence you can’t possible fathom.
We humans also have a very particular, and possibly quite narrow, view of the world. We might be very much like that of a house cat in an apartment, unknowingly surrounded by artifacts of another species’ intelligence. (Are mountains the remnants of icebergs, or are they the sign of another intelligent presence, such as God or, you know, aliens?)
Man, like the biblical God, is attempting to create intelligence in its likeness. So what do we consider the defining features of our intelligence? Logic? Analysis? Language? Expression? Emotion? Whatever these factors are, they are what we’ll use to define what intelligence is and to continue developing a test for true intelligence. As we go forward attempting to create artificial intelligence, we should be curious about where our definitions of this intelligence are coming from and how these definitions are shaped by our past experiences, the environments we come from, and our personal biases and beliefs.
