In our consideration of the nature and types of intelligence, we have wandered far and into strange new territory. We have seen differences in cognition explained by differing physical substrates and related achievable goals. We have asked if intelligence can be defined simply as a complex information processing system.
We have come full circle and need to ask a last critical question: Does a definition of intelligence capture all that it means to be human? The answer is both yes and no because it depends on what you mean by the word.
There are those who argue that it does not. Joseph Vukov, associate professor of philosophy and psychology at Loyola University Chicago, offers a useful reminder that humans cannot be reduced to the “mind.” Our brain, our intellect, is not the whole of who we are. In more colloquial terms, we are not just meaty computers, and intelligence is not just about information processing.
We are instead rational animals, body-soul composites characterized by a capacity for reason. Our intellect—our rationality—is thus part of what distinguishes us from other animals.
One of the most powerful aspects of that rationality is the ability to use language, itself a very complex part of the human cognitive system. There are approximately 7000 human languages, all of which have shared characteristics. Noam Chomsky argues that there are both genetic and environmental factors that determine the development of this unique human capacity no matter where in the world the language develops:
So there is an intrinsic, genetically determined factor in language growth; the term “universal grammar”. . . . is often used for the theory that attempts to characterize one fundamental component of this aspect of the genotype. And there are environmental factors of several sorts that trigger and shape language growth, as the biologically-given capacity grows and matures in the early years of life. The problem is, then, to tease out these distinct contributions.
Chomsky states that language is the tool of thought, and without it, we would not have other capacities that characterize the human species. It can be argued, therefore, that the kind of brain we have reveals what kind of being we are–it divides us from animals and AI. As Patrick McNamara, Professor of Psychology at North Central University and an Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, states:
Mental life is inextricably bound up with brain function but in a manner that so far escapes the best conjectures of us neuroscientists. It’s as if we are already in a mentalized universe consisting of “truths” discoverable by the intellect. The brain in that case would be understood as suffused with, or made up of that truth-discovering mental stuff we call “matter” which is uniquely prepared to grasp or cognize those truths when we seek to understand and reverence them rather than to merely explain them away.
This observation seems to dovetail with Levin’s TAME theory (Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere). Intelligibility is embedded in the universe!
Creativity is the Hallmark of Being Human
Indeed, according to Noam Chomsky, creativity is one of the hallmarks of being human. We have developed art, literature, music, and medicine. We have built cities and civilizations and more, all within a variety of cultures. We have plumbed the inner workings of the cosmos from the world of quantum physics to the farthest reaches of space and time. We have created technologies that can compute and analyze more data at a faster pace than we can, that enables us to see into the past of the universe. Yes, we have waged wars and harmed nature and each other by some of our actions. For some people, these latter aspects of our shared humanity are the source of a kind of disdain for the human species. For many in the field of AI development, the real threat they see is the potential and actual misuse of AI by human operators. That is undoubtedly true. The potential good from AI will also astound us if used by competent, creative humans to address the many needs of humanity and nature.
As the world moves through and into the spaces generated by the work of our own creative minds, there is no doubt that we will have to clarify what we mean by intelligence– rational human, sentient animal, and artificial, engineered intelligence. In the process, we will undoubtedly learn more about ourselves. To stay on our feet during the seismic shifts coming our way, we should continue to ponder what it means to be human. For Bernard Lonergan, a Jesuit theologian and philosopher probably best known for his book Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, this means:
Total surrender to the demands of the human spirit: be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible, be loving.
