Three kinds of intelligence - take 2.

[mark black]

The simplest of organisms is crafted, in relation to reality, by the function or die algorithm of evolution. Atom by atom, it's physical form is judged worthy or unworthy of existence. Judged worthy, the organism replicates and passes on its worthiness to subsequent generations.

So, we can describe an organism, like a plant, that survives merely as a function of its pysical form as having functional intelligence. All organisms possess this trait - for if they did not thier bodies would not function and the orgaism would die, and the species die out. But animal life-forms particularly are characterised by a second kind of intelligence.

All life, in the beginning was merely functionally intelligent - but by a process of random mutations that favoured or disfavoured continued existence, limbs and sensory organs developed. This led to a new kind of intelligence. Behaviours, however nominally chosen were now the subject to the function or die algorithm of evolution. Behaviours conducive to survival were promoted, and those non-conducive discouraged by death and extinction.

For many hundreds of millions of years, behaviorally intelligent animals fought and flew, hid and hibernated, built nests and bred on instinct - but acting in the course of the ingrained avoidance of threat and harm, seeking food and breeding opportunity within the spatial and temporal reality of the environment - one animal developed a new form of intelligence.

Very gradually, acting in relation to the spatial and temporal reality of the evironment, judged always by the function or die algorithm of evolution - the potential for revelation built up in homo sapiens. It may have been nothing more than a footprint in the mud that triggered the realization, but one day dawned in which it occured to man to ask: 'Who made this?'

Once that question occured it could be applied to anything. Who made me? Who made the world? Perhaps more importantly, it raised another question: What can I make?

About 35,000 years ago in Europe, suddenly, and without any gallery of clumsy attempts to serve as precedents, art appears to flourish as if from nowhere. Described by writers such as Shreeve and Pfieffer as a 'creative explosion' - this sudden occurance of art marks the dawn of intellectual intelligence.

So, we have three kinds of intelligence, functional, behavioural and intellectual - all of which are embodied by human beings, and only by human beings. In much the same way that a plant must be functionally intelligent, and an animal both functionally and behaviourally intelligent, we human beings must be intelligent in all three senses in order to survive and prosper.

[Arising_uk]

Sounds like you'd like L.Rons Dianetics. Have you read it?

[mark black]

No. I like factual materials.

[effie]

All life, in the beginning was merely functionally intelligent - but by a process of random mutations that favoured or disfavoured continued existence, limbs and sensory organs developed. This led to a new kind of intelligence. Behaviours, however nominally chosen were now the subject to the function or die algorithm of evolution. Behaviours conducive to survival were promoted, and those non-conducive discouraged by death and extinction.

Mark, what makes you think that these mutations are random and not intended? Are you sure that these are not the outcome of the efforts of intellect to adjust to altering environments?

[mark black]

effie,

Are you suggesting that protozoa had an intellectual appreciation of how they might remould thier bodies to better survive within the environment???

mb.

[effie]

Is it correct to answer a question with another question?