In reality there is much less intelligence than one would hope for. — Bitter Crank
What if intelligence is like this? What if it's not a property of this or that thing, but a property of reality which is expressed in many different ways in many different circumstances? — Foghorn
What if the conception "my intelligence" and "your intelligence" is mistaken? What if nobody can own intelligence just as nobody owns the laws of physics? — Foghorn
Consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. Not only has none of us ever experienced more than one consciousness, but there is also no trace of circumstantial evidence of this ever happening anywhere in the world. If I say that there cannot be more than one consciousness in the same mind, this seems a blunt tautology — we are quite unable to imagine the contrary. — Erwin Schrodinger, Oneness of Mind
What if intelligence is like this? What if it's not a property of this or that thing, but a property of reality which is expressed in many different ways in many different circumstances? — Foghorn
I'm definitely an interested in where you are going, but I could use some help in going therewith you. You seem to have summarized years of investigation in to a single paragraph, which is too big a bite for me at present. If it interests you to continue, further explanation, examples, simpler language perhaps, would be read with interest here. — Foghorn
wouldn't we have to presume that we who judge levels of intelligence are more intelligent than the reality which created "our" intelligence? — Foghorn
What if we are not the source of intelligence but rather receivers, much as a television reads and interprets a signal from beyond itself? — Foghorn
The natural systems that brought about our reality were not, in my opinion, intelligent. — Bitter Crank
You seem to have summarized years of investigation in to a single paragraph, which is too big a bite for me at present. — Foghorn
bouncing a ball might seem to an observer to be an entirely different phenomena than the orbit of a planet, but the same laws govern both. — Foghorn
But as far as we know (religion and alien theory aside) evolution doesn't arise from any particular source. It would seem to fit our definition of an intelligent process, but does not appear to be the creation of any particular entity. — Foghorn
What if the conception "my intelligence" and "your intelligence" is mistaken? What if nobody can own intelligence just as nobody owns the laws of physics? — Foghorn
God, according to [the Stoics], "did not make the world as an artisan does his work, but it is by wholly penetrating all matter that He is the demiurge of the universe" (Galen, "De qual. incorp." in "Fr. Stoic.", ed. von Arnim, II, 6); He penetrates the world "as honey does the honeycomb" (Tertullian, "Adv. Hermogenem", 44), this God so intimately mingled with the world is fire or ignited air; inasmuch as He is the principle controlling the universe, He is called Logos; and inasmuch as He is the germ from which all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos (logos spermatikos). This Logos is at the same time a force and a law, an irresistible force which bears along the entire world and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable and holy law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and which every reasonable man should follow willingly (Cleanthus, "Hymn to Zeus" in "Fr. Stoic." I, 527-cf. 537). — The Logos, New Advent Encyc
What is it about intelligence that suggests an otherworldly dimension? — Tom Storm
Why the need for a 'signal from beyond itself'. — Tom Storm
So, in that context, the answer to your question, 'what is intelligence?' would be that it is the evolved capacity of intelligent primates, such as ourselves. — Wayfarer
So, the idea that intelligence is the evolved capacity of primates seems a pretty inadequate theory at the moment. — Foghorn
Perhaps it's helpful to observe that while the laws of physics are very real, they don't exist in the sense of having mass, weight, shape or form, location etc. Intelligence might be like that? — Foghorn
What if intelligence is . .. a property of reality — Foghorn
And yet those systems created something that would have been labeled very intelligent if we had created it. — Foghorn
I don't know why or how the universe pulled off the trick of turning mud into vigorous single-celled life.... — Bitter Crank
I'm struggling with words like "intelligence" in this thread. — Foghorn
A distinction is routinely made between intelligence guided by intention and planning, such as h. sapiens exhibits, and the instinctive reactions which animate other forms of sentient life. Instinctive reactions can give rise to many amazingly complex behaviours on both the cellular and species level. But I don't think the modern evolutionary synthesis regards this as being the result of intelligence. — Wayfarer
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