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In common parlance, the word “intelligence” has both descriptive and normative senses. In its descriptive sense, it is used as a noun to mean anything from secret information gathered about a purported enemy to the capacity of individuals to reason and solve problems. Intelligence agencies gather information they call “intelligence” about real or suspected enemies so that their government may be in a more powerful position to deal with the supposed enemy. When individuals use their minds to reason about problems and end up solving them, we think of that behavior as exhibiting intelligence.

The universe of intelligence includes both natural and artificial kinds.^1 Natural intelligence occurs in living things in the world, if not also in the broader natural universe. Artificial intelligence is generally held to be that which is found in machines intentionally designed to simulate the logical forms of human reason. The concept “machine” is logically equivalent to the concept “algorithm” and it is broadly construed to include software.

One of the most crucial issues in human intelligence research today is determining how the mind or brain makes sense of the world. Generally, this issue revolves around explaining how the brain forms concepts (also known as universals) or categories utilizing the extraordinary variation it experiences by way of sensory receptors processing multiple perceptual signals from the environment and within ourselves. This issue in turn is directly related to our understanding of major mechanisms by which the brain and body deal with information and form knowledge of anything at all.

A recurring question in intelligence studies which we addressed to some degree in the last chapter is where the human mind and intelligence come from. In much of the research literature, the term “mind” often gets interpreted or defined as “consciousness” or “conscious awareness”, without clarifying what those concepts mean, though they often get explained in nominalist terms.

In the last chapter, we left unfinished an examination of the issues surrounding the formation of concepts, otherwise known as universals. We examined Edelman’s (2004) global mapping theory that sought to explain the formation of concepts by means of interaction of two parts of the neural system, but we found that theory seriously inadequate for a variety of reasons. Among other things, his explanation of the process of formation of concepts does not work. In the first place, it begs too many questions and effectively collapses concepts to percepts. Even given his theory, however, there is no way to explain the formation of abstract concepts as in mathematics.

Prevailing theories of natural intelligence focus upon where intelligence comes from and what it is made of instead of what it does. Above, we reviewed various arguments that general intelligence as well as particular kinds of intelligence, such as mathematical doing, is found in neural language centers of the brain. We showed those arguments are not supported either by the evidence or logic.

A recurring theme throughout has been that classical science approaches to theory of intelligence are not at all adequate to address the full scope and depth of natural intelligence actually observed in human and animal experience. The classical approach underlies the single-capacity theory which holds that natural intelligence of both humans and animals reflects the unfolding of genetic structures in the brain already determined at birth. In part, the failure of these approaches is due to methods and concepts that are overwhelmingly discrete, serial, top-down and linear.

We sought to investigate natural intelligence to broadly carve the universe of discourse in terms of actual human and animal experience. We also sought to investigate and critically evaluate current leading scientific theories of intelligence and methods of research, along with standardized tests.