January 10, 2010

Are Humans Really Intelligent?

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Meaning of Intelligence

Intelligence in simple words is defined as: The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Another definition of Intelligence I found says: The ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience. As we can understand, there is no fundamental difference between the two definitions.

Looking at the two definitions anyone should be able to make out that the main function of intelligence is to make life better; to bring ease to life.


Some background

Nature has endowed each and every creature on this planet with intelligence. If you ask evolutionists the reason for this then you will learn that intelligence exists in creatures to enable them survive in the world where the norm is “survival of the fittest”. One of the proven observations by the naturalists is that life on the planet is being governed by an immaculate mechanism of Nature according to which no species of organism would grow so much in population that it wipes out any other species and no species of organism would shrink so much in numbers that it gets wiped out by some other. It is evident from the process of natural selection in evolution that Nature takes due care that every species of organisms on this planet is best equipped to survive in its environment. Intelligence is just one of the tools to accomplish this purpose.

The important thing to note is that the difference between human and animal intelligence is one of degree and not of kind. So, it is still not wrong to say that the main function of intelligence is to make life better. After all, making tools and developing strategies for securing survival is certainly a process of betterment of life.

However, this meaning of intelligence is more clearly understood in relation to human life, because human life as it is today is largely driven by intelligence. Humans have invented so many tools to add comfort to their life that today they are almost totally free of the natural struggle for survival, unlike other creatures. That certainly “appears to be” a huge betterment of life.


Intelligence or pseudo-intelligence?

The question is: Have humans really bettered their life using their intelligence?

Looking on the surface of it human life seems to be a very developed one. They are living like the masters of the world. They have invented such tools that they no more need any kind of physical struggle as far as surviving in the natural environment is concerned. The words “comfort” and “convenience” are only justified by the way humans live. What an advancement of one species over the billions that have been on this planet!

Now, if you will remove the veil of ignorance then you should see a diametrically different picture. In truth, humans are living the most miserable, most destructive and the worst life on this planet. Tomorrow if the world is fully destroyed (which has already started happening) the reasons lie in thoughtless human activities like pollution, global warming, and relentless exhaustion of resources (not to mention inter-human fights, and wars!). At every step of the life humans are defying Nature’s laws and making their own life and the whole world worse.

Dwelling on the surface you might think you are not suffering surfing the web with your computer; sleeping in peace at night in your cozy bed rather than on a pile of leaves inside a cave; not experiencing pain every hour of the day due to tooth aches (which without modern dentistry are what we would have); having a car that you can use to visit friends living hundreds of miles away, et cetera. You might, instead, wonder how your life would be better without all these things.

Here are the explanations –

1. If you lived in caves then your life would be less convenient than it is now? Wrong! It's just like saying when electricity was not invented people weren't able to feel convenience that they feel today in an air-conditioned room...! Already being in comforts if you imagine life without those comforts then, of course, you would find it inconvenient. But when the comfort is not invented at all, and is inconceivable, there's no question of feeling inconvenience. People were always able to feel as comfortable as they can feel today. When fire was invented the arising feel of comfort would not have been any less than what man felt when he first drove a car. So, more technological advancement means more comfort and convenience is a flawed conviction! Intake of alcohol would give you the feel of great comfort, but just because of that is it good? That advancement which brings more harm (however in the long-run) than benefit is no advancement, and is doubtless undesirable!

2. Humans seem to be oblivious to the fact that all the comforts added to their lives today are taking high toll on natural resources as well as entire planet's living systems. Due to exhaustive human activities every living system in the biosphere is in decline and the rate of decline is accelerating. And those living systems provide the basis for all life. On the other hand, humans are not only getting used to all these comforts but are also getting genetically modified to live with those comforts. When the natural resources on which those comforts ride decline or finish (which is undoubtedly imminent) they will have no power live without them; or they would invent new ways which would further accelerate the degradation of living systems! The rate at which natural resources are being exhausted today is far greater than the rate of re-building of resources. These are by no means acts of intelligence.

3. The planet is naturally designed to accommodate only about a billion human beings. Until 1800 CE the human population has never exceeded a billion in numbers. But due to various inventions after the development of advanced science human population is increasing by leaps and bounds. Can you believe when John Kennedy was inaugurated the planet carried only half of the people compared to what it carries today! If you can not think beyond humanity and human welfare – that too, a short-term one – then it's okay. But if you can, then that's certainly not admissible, when you also check on the facts about how many species of creatures have gone extinct because of ever-increasing human needs. And why, it’s most certainly also affecting human welfare in the long run! Humans have been keeping comfort and convenience (short-term ones) ahead of survival (in the long-run), in importance. What to do of comforts when survival of the entire planet itself is being endangered! In truth, in the short-sightedness of human intelligence this fact is continually ignored.

One of the functions of intelligence is also to make out a difference between the right way and the wrong way and then choose the right one. Today, the humanity certainly knows what the right way is but utterly lacks the will to adopt it out of the insane greed for convenience arising off social, economic, and political situations. What humans are doing is out of intelligence, of course; but in doing so the word intelligence loses its meaning. Because humans are neither making their life better with intelligence anymore; nor are they “okay” for the safe survival of the entire life system on this planet.

These facts prove my kind a bunch of stupidest creatures on this planet. Here, stupidity is not an opposite of intelligence, but intelligence used unwisely. I would call it pseudo-intelligence. Or simply “human intelligence” – because so far this sort of intelligence is known to be existing only in humans!


Where’s the line between “natural intelligence” and “human intelligence”?

The point, beyond which the amount of intelligence no more betters life but rather degrades it, for humans as well as for Nature (for that matter, that humans are separate from Nature is an extremely insane thought), is the dividing point. Intelligence up to that point is natural intelligence, which is good and desirable; and intelligence beyond that point is human intelligence, which is the cause of most of the miseries of, and beyond, humanity.

After learning the difference between natural intelligence and human intelligence one should also be able to decide which actions are natural and which are unnatural. The actions driven by natural instincts and natural intelligence are natural actions, and the actions driven by human intelligence are unnatural acts.

IMPORTANT UPDATE (May 2011): I have changed my views on the things discussed in the above article. The reader should know that I am no longer holding all the views given there. Now the article is kept online just to remind me of my naivety at the time of writing it. My thoughts and knowledge-level have significantly changed (or should I say developed) since then. (To know my refined thoughts on the topic please follow this article: What Is Nature? Are Humans Really Destroying It?)

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Posted by Darshan Chande Labels:

12 Comment(s):

  1. you said -"One of the functions of intelligence is also to make out a difference between the right way and the wrong way and then choose the right one."

    it seems as though you are presupposing value here, what is right vs wrong? is right simply that which is expedient? or is right that which propagates the species?
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  2. Your argument is full of fallacies.
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  3. well for me intelligence relates to rationality . It is an ability to learn , unlearn ,relearn and apply the thought and theories that are based on logic or evidence.
    On the lighter side as it is said " the intelligence in the world is constant only population is growing" .One way that explains the reduced share....
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  4. I think people are now realizing their fault, and are more careful regarding the effects on the environment... which means they are intelligent enuf to understand and rectify their mistake...

    if they are intelligent enuf to take the planet to the brink of extinction, they are surely intelligent enuf to reverse tht
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  5. We're ****ing up our planet and we don't give a ****. We won't give a **** until it's too late.
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  6. great post! i will read it over again..."Human life is meant for thoughtfulness"...humans have a higher intelligence..the thoughts of living, the suffering & miseries of life as an eye-opener to where lies real happiness, who am I? Spirit,life-force, jiva, atma.....we are not animals that life is just for eating, sleeping, having sex, & defending....we are spirit in nature. this we must see & use our higher intelligence to seek & find the Absolute truth.
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  7. A few fallacies I found:

    - There is no immaculate mechanism of Nature that acts as a safety net for species. If two species occupy the same 'niche' in an environment, it is perfectly possible they will wipe each other out due to competition for a limited resource, such as food.

    - Humans are inherently part of nature, as you said, but this means that humans cannot 'defy Nature's laws'. We create them partly, so cannot defy them.

    - Genetic modification is the act of inserting or deleting genes, and is drastically different to evolution. Also, if a comfort was not evolutionarily advantageous, it would not cause a certain gene to become more prevalent, and therefore not drive evolution. However, for any comfort that was evolutionarily advantageous, an organism adapting to it would be exhibiting natural intelligence.

    - The earth does not have a limited carrying capacity of a billion humans. The earth is not a static object, and it is possible to change nature (by reducing or increasing the number of organisms within certain species without extincting any one) for the betterment of humanity and all other species. If everyone were to become vegetarian for example, the land used to grow meat could grow 10 times more food than it previously did. This affects the abundance of organisms within different species, but not necessarily the species as a whole.

    Your penultimate paragraph provides a paradox: which is the best way to better life as a whole on earth? Predator species will kill prey, and this will cause misery for the species of the diseased. However, would it be acceptable for us to intervene and kill the predator species on the grounds of making the world a more utilitarianistic place? The predator must have evolved for a reason and is only fulfilling its needs, yet the prey does not wish to be eaten.

    It is impossible to tell from our subjective view-point what the best action is, as we have a vested interest. It would be impossible to tell from an objective viewpoint, as there is no way of answering the question without assigning a value to an intelligent being's life. Technological advance is something that drives our species to a level no other species has ever been, and allows us to attain a third type of intelligence: an ability to change our environment by adding creature comforts without adversely affecting other species. Our society has not quite reached this level yet, but is making many steps forward.
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  8. The fact that a person can think, rationalize, and articulate such an argument regarding the "veil" of intelligence proves the opposite of the argument presented is true.
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  9. First, you've made a mistake when you describe only a single type of intelligence. This is manifest when one looks at other creatures which exhibit signs of what we call intelligence (such as play, abstract reasoning, capacity for communication, etc.), such as cetaceans and octopodes. They are judged to have intelligence less than that of humans because their intelligence is clearly of a different order. This judgement is of course anthropomorphic, meaning we are judging them against only one type of intelligence: ours.

    Perhaps a better illustration of what I'm talking about are the so-called "Intelligence Quotient" tests. Most of these tests were designed by upper middle class white men. As a result, upper middle class white men tend to score quite highly on these tests. Certainly a stockbroker living in Manhattan would be likely to score much higher on an IQ test than an aboriginal Bambenga pygmy bushman living in Congo. In fact, the pygmy may well score as functionally retarded. However, drop the Bambenga pygmy and the Manhattan stockbroker naked into the middle of the Amazonian rain forest and see which one emerges alive two weeks later. Clearly, what we call "intelligence" is relative to both the physiognomy of the subject and the environment in which that subject resides.

    If this is how much difficulty we have in defining -- much less objectively measuring -- intelligence among life forms in our own kingdom, consider how much more difficult it becomes when measuring intelligence in plants or computers. Worse still, consider the problem of "alien intelligence." If we ever encounter a life form which evolved in an entirely different biosphere from our own, there is very little chance we'll even recognize it as intelligent. As I've illustrated, we tend to view intelligence through the filter of our cultural gestalt and, beyond that, through the schema of our collective human unconscious. Anything which falls radically outside such boundaries is unlikely even to be recognized as intelligent at all. Even as it stands, we use monkeys, octopodes, cetaceans, and pigs for food because of a chauvinist inability to appreciate otherly intelligence. Should we ever encounter alien life, they had better hope they're inedible because we surely won't recognize them as intelligent.
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  10. well...i believe destruction is coded in our genes...it is an important function in the universe....every species as soon as it emerges starts heading towards destruction....we humans happen to be smart so we realise we are moving towards our own ending....but we are so hard coded to self destruct we just cannot help it...intelligence or the lack of it has nothing to do with it....the truth is living things exist on earth to exploit it's resources
    we all will fight for the best we can get...no one is here to live forever....species emerge they evolve to the best of their ability and then they go extinct and make way for other species.....
    indeed most of us are spoilt by all this comfort...but its just a humble by product of our superior mental abilities...but species dont go extinct because they like sleeping in a comfortable bed....they go extinct because they have lost their edge and there is someone better to replace them.....very soon we will be replaced by a better species and what they might achieve is beyond the realms of our imagination...nothing is permanent in this world....hell the entire universe was born out of a bang and is heading towards it's end....we are a mere species who seem to think too much of ourselves...
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  11. They are at the very least clever primates, but are they benevolent and truly self perpetuating or more like a cancer on this earth 6 billion strong and growing. Another article perhaps? :)
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  12. You clearly fail to take into account potential future paths of humanity. You speak of resource depletion as it if is some act of stupidity. The bottom line is these non-renewable resources have been used to create technologies that in turn can ultimately help us create solutions for generating energy from potentially unlimited sources (such as solar, nuclear fusion etc.) The use of fossil fuels essentially acts a gateway to developing a more sustainable civilization in the future. The point is you dont learn how to ride a bike without using the training wheels first, even if your efficiency isnt optimal, it buys you time to develop your skills to eventually ride without these training wheels.


    Your argument about population growth is also short-sided. If you look at the population curve of a post-industrial country, population growth sharply increases initially as technology (and medicine) improves but society has not adjusted and reproduces at rates pre-health advances. At a certain point, society adjusts and reproduces less. The same can be expected of developing countries as soon as they industrialize.
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