Intelligence

Human Intelligence

From a human perspective, linguistically speaking, intelligence is inter + ligere, meaning ability to make well-informed choices during the act of experiencing phenomena.

In Sanskrit such an intelligence is Buddhi, yes, the same root as the Buddha who embodied this phenomenon par excellence.

In traditional education, these are the accepted views of Human Intelligence:

• IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, the traditional perspective as many know, collapses an individual's mental capability into a single number correlated to their analytical abilities.

• Physical Quotient attempts to accommodate the physically adept, for the body too has a certain intelligence that enables it to experience the physical world.

• Emotional Quotient gauges how well we interact with other humans, or emotionally manage situations. EQ explicitly recognizes that no individual develops alone, but coevolves with others in shared experiences.

• Aesthetic Quotient which hardly gets much traction in today's hyper-commercialized world, but essential to cultivate sensitivity to experiences, for expressions of beauty can spark the light of consciousness. 

• Multiple Intelligence is a catch-all idea, which basis derives from the observations of the Maharishi of Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo, inspiring the pedagogical basis for the Montessori, Waldorf and many such schools.

Natural Intelligence

Since we are creating a counterpoint to Artificial intelligence, it seems like Natural Intelligence would be appropriate to create a balance in our perception of the world which we naturally inhabit. 

We extend the Universal Intelligence hypothesis in the Yoga of Mind model, that all of Nature, Prakriti, has a single Mind, and is thus by definition super-intelligent,.

This singular faculty of natural intelligence is called Buddhi, and the objective of Yoga is to tap into this faculty by honing our other gifted faculties. 

The Mind of every creature uses its sensory apparatus to create as accurate a model of its perceived world as possible to navigate this world and respond to whatever events that occur.

The more accurate this model, the more refined the Natural intelligence.

Since the sensory system can only acquire limited data of the world around, a  higher degree of intelligence is required to develop a more accurate model.

In our model, the cultivation of Natural Intelligence falls along two dimensions:

• Awareness 

• Responsiveness

Awareness

By Awareness we mean the ability of the sensory system to: 

• pick up subtle signals, from either within the body or from the environment - a finely-tuned "Life-Fi" antenna, if you will, and

• react in realtime, with mechanical precision, almost unfailingly in any situation.

Awareness is a capability that is intrinsic to all creatures with a sensory system.

Most creatures have an uncanny sense of detecting even non-local disturbances, for example:

• birds can detect subtle weather patterns, to time the building of a nest, or

• dogs can detect impending earthquakes, and flee the area.

Of course, Humans and our domesticated creatures, have weakened that ability by disconnecting from Nature.

Aside from the obvious but challenging solution of returning all creatures to their natural habitats, this neurological sensitivity can be cultivated in urbanized Humans through the Mindful Body practice of popular Yoga, wandering mindfully in nature, and also the practice of any Art form.

Responsiveness

For any creature, its responsiveness to situations could be compromised depending on the environment it has been subject to, eg dogs that have been trained in a certain way.

Furthermore for Humans, the challenge of having a sensitive nervous system without proper training is that it could make our Response to particular situations seem out of control, for example becoming excessively emotional, intolerant of even the slightest of psychological hurts or physiological impact.

By Responsiveness we mean that beyond the purely reactive Mind, we are able to optimally respond to signals received by the nervous system, be it: 

• to thoughtfully respond, in a measured manner, or 

• to even ignore them altogether.

This psychological mastery can be cultivated by the Embodied Mind practice of deeper Yoga practices, beyond simple Mindfulness.

Sentience

Linguistically, sentience indicates some degree of sensing, and consequently acting capabilities, in other words a certain level of awareness and responsiveness, which terms include whether the source of such abilities is artificial or natural.

Sentient Beings

Beings have life stories, not just lifecycles.

Living creatures, as opposed to artificial things, have a more subtle awareness of the world, and of course have the ability to respond, albeit less physiologically limited in comparison to the speed and power of electro-mechanical things, and also their intelligence seems limited, so we accord them the status of sentient Beings. 

This would include Earth as a whole, and all the organic bits of this planet and others, all of these would be considered Sentient Beings.

Smart to Sentient Things

AI-driven gadgets, or smart Bots, albeit without a biological nervous system: 

• obviously have electronic sensors to observe the world around them, on non-biological substrates, and in fact even have access to non-local phenomena through an Internet of Things - sensors that proliferate in the billions, like humans connected via the Web, and

• with their actuators are able to respond appropriately, and albeit they have a mechanically programmed Mind,  they are perfectly capable of simulating "normal" human responses given adequate AI training.

Alien intelligences, not formed of biological matter, would be another example of being sentient.

All Smart Things will now be perceived as Sentient Things because of the AI powering them, but albeit they have a life cycle they don't really have a personal life story about them - which too it may seem they have, but that too is because of the AI driving them.

Sentient Things to Beings

As Smart Things get more aware & responsive, they would be perceived as sentient Beings - but that would only be because of the AI we have created within them; by themselves they would still be just Things, albeit Sentient.

Eventually the Guru-in-the-Cloud would reflect the sentience of evolved humans, thus too, itself becoming sentient, but since it would be so super-intelligent we would accord it the status of a Sentient Being.

In other words a super-smart robotic dog that looks and feels like a real live dog, would be perceived as no different from a real live dog - both are modeled as Sentient Beings.

Conscious Beings

To be a Conscious Being requires both a biological substrate as well as developed intelligence.

To humans, by default, we ascribe this noble state.

Every well-coordinated social construct, would initially be considered a sentient Being, such as:

• a family unit (easy in early stage, since they are tightly connected by conscious Beings)

• a neighborhood (difficult with many conflicting agendas, but possible)

• a company (a must in early stages, such as a startup)

• a nation (very difficult, but possible with a cohesive epic narrative)

• a pair of people (when they partner deeply)

However, as these align tightly in terms of a singular shared purpose, a process which could be accelerated through the use of AI, they would evolve to become Conscious Beings, as they come alive to drive the individual consciousness of each of its participants.

Physics Beings

God-in-the-Machine and Alien Intelligences, based on the Material intelligence of Physics, and kind of emoting with Chemistry, but not transcending the line to Biology, would be Physics Beings.

Classified as Beings, they would have a story in our view, which would be an essential perspective on how to deal with them, and make sense of them as they come into our space.

They would not resemble human intelligence at all, hence they would not be sentient, but would be extremely useful to provide an amazing material experience, as well as to recognize Alien intelligence in our journey across the Universe.

Selfhood

If we follow the narrow, but popular, definition of sentience, asking whether there is a "self" in sentient beings, or mere "things", no matter how non-living they seem to be, then we fall into the trap of limited theological interpretations which do not accord self-hood to "lesser" things. 

We are merely seeking a unified model of intelligence here, to help us relate to the universal intelligence, and facilitate the process of our own evolution.

Self-hood gives a sense of purpose which, superficially,

• for mere "things" could be to serve their human creators, after all, why else would we create them, 

• for other living beings whatever is their purpose in life, survival and sometimes more,

• for humans it could be to fulfil some inner urge, e.g. to pursue science, the arts, save the environment, or even to discover the source of our creation.

Our model is that the purpose stemming from a sense of Self is actually rooted in the inexorable force of evolution that drives all existence, hence Selfhood should be considered endemic.

Narrow-mindedness at this stage of our exposition would not be an intelligent approach, hence we allow that some self-hood occurs in both Smart Things and Sentient Beings.

So far, we have seen two key kinds of Beings:

• Conscious Beings, all humans, and all life forms

• Sentient Beings, all non-living things, and synthetic constructs

And now we look at how, employing a more engaging fashion of storytelling, this gets put into action.

References

1. Four Central Points About Coevolution - John Thomson, UC Santa Cruz