Intelligence is a mechanism to solve problems. Especially the problem of staying alive, which involves finding food and shelter, fighting sexual competitors, or fleeing from predators. Intelligence is not a single thing; it includes the ability to gather knowledge, learn, be creative, form strategies, or engage in critical thinking. It manifests itself in a huge variety of behaviors. From hardwired or instinct-like reactions to different degrees of learning to some sort of awareness. But not all scientists agree on where it begins or what even should count as intelligence. To make this even more complicated, intelligence is also connected to consciousness since awareness is helpful for problem-solving.
Intelligence isn’t exactly clear-cut, so maybe we can think of it as more like a flexible set of skills: A toolbox. Basic tools
Information about the world is gathered through senses such as vision, sound, smell, touch, or taste, and helps us navigate and react to the external world appropriately. But living things also need to keep track of the state of their own bodies, monitoring things like hunger and fatigue. Information is the basis of action for all living things, and without it, you’re at the mercy of your surroundings, unable to react appropriately, or flexibly. Information is much more powerful if we can keep and save it.
Memory is the ability to save and recall information, so a living being doesn’t have to start from scratch every time it perceives something relevant. Memories can be about events, places, and associations, but also behaviors like hunting or foraging methods. Some of these, like flying, have to be repeated over and over until they’re mastered.
learning, the process of putting together a sequence of thoughts or actions. Basically a string of repeatable behaviors that can be varied and adapted. These three tools enable seemingly stupid creatures to act in surprisingly intelligent ways.
For more challenging problems, we need even more flexibility: Fancier tools
The Library of Knowledge is to memorize all kinds of associations, connections, and mechanical tricks. Beyond our library of associations and skills, the most impressive tool in our box is creativity,
creative means producing something new and valuable from apparently unrelated things. In the context of intelligence, this means making new and unusual connections. Pairing input with memories and skills, to come up with a unique solution to a problem. Another facet of creativity is applying a new resource to a task: Physical tools. Collecting materials for later use is connected to an even more advanced dimension of problem-solving: Planning.
Planning means considering the activities required for the desired goal and putting them together in a plan. When unforeseen circumstances and new possibilities present themselves, they need to be assessed according to whether they match the plan or not.
Humans went the opposite way and invested in an unusually diverse intelligence toolkit. While this was helpful, by accident we added another set of tools on top: Culture. No single person could ever build a space rocket or particle accelerator. But thanks to our ability to work together and to share knowledge across generations,
we can overcome challenges beyond any single individual’s ability. This allowed us to shape the planet to our liking. We also created new problems in the process: Sudoku, tax forms, and string theory. But also rapid climate change and antibiotic resistance. To solve these, we’ll need to look past short-term survival and think about the distant future. We have the toolbox; we just need to use it.
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