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The place of intelligence in the scheme of things is an ill-considered aspect of our humanity. In this we are face to face with the difference between intellect and intelligence and this image/text series is devoted to looking into this.
The amazing apparatus that the human brain is accomplishes no more for us than does that centre in the central nervous complex of any other form in the panoply of Life. In this our brains are finite, only functioning in terms of their being human brains, not elephant, hawk or seal brains, and we interpret things accordingly. Our sensory faculties are oriented to helping us with this, our brains functioning in terms of that data.
However, the world the senses show us is something construed in our heads from the frequencies of the energy fields of others and activity out there in the sea of life, by which our sense organs have been activated, as a result of which, there are reactions in our heads to what our senses stream at us. Memories get triggered. Associations are made. Mental processes fire up. The intellect becomes engaged. We do not initiate these recollections and associations. We have not chosen them. They come to us. They choose us, according to what sensory data has stirred up in our heads, information that has come from what is going on, personally, professionally, at home, at work and out and about, in our lives. This is how our brain matter works. If we want to call this thinking, we need to realise it is not something we are doing, but is something that happens in our heads, in the interaction between what is `in-here´ and what is `out-there´!
If that defines intellect and is an account of how it works, what then is intelligence and where does intellect fit with it?
Well, inextricably members of the living organism that Earth is, we are natural creatures which have evolved inside a great life-system. This life-system has given us human intelligence, just as it has given elephant the intelligence it has. In this our intellectual activity is but one aspect of cortical activity, left brain functioning on behalf of the body´s operator, our human intelligence, not in its own interests, but with regard to our walk in Life. So, just as elephant is an intelligence served by the body it inhabits, with the brain that orchestrates the functions thereof on its behalf, our brains should be working in terms of the capacity their being human brains gives them, for helping their operators negotiating life, intelligently, that is to say, humanly.
We see IQ as a measure of human intelligence. Yet, in our culture, those with the highest IQs are in the fields of scientific endeavour and at the forefront of the technological innovation that have brought about the irreversible collapse of planet Earth´s vital systems.. This casualty, the blurred distinction between intellect and intelligence has brought about, has been an intellectual pursuit that is not intelligent.
This not to say that there is anything wrong with human potential. It is just that in other cultures than our own and other times than these, people with such prowess would be leaders and shamans guiding their peoples in living Life, as Life is.
Thus, I have titled this image/text series, Science and Philosophy, The Pursuit of Knowledge and the Love of Wisdom, in order to address this issue.