Author: Gerd Doeben-Henisch
Changelog: Feb 20, 2025 – Feb 20, 2025
Email: info@uffmm.org
TRANSLATION: The following text is a translation from a German version into English. For the translation I am using the software @chatGPT4o with manual modifications.
CONTENT TREE
This text is part of the TOPIC Philosophy of Science.
CONTEXT
This is another interim reflection aimed at further clarifying the structural terminology of ‘intelligence’ and ‘learning.’ This and the preceding interim reflections are intended as a ‘supplement’ to the main thread of the text project What is Life?
MAIN THREAD: What is Life?
- “WHAT IS LIFE? WHAT ROLE DO WE PLAY? IST THERE A FUTURE?”
- “WHAT IS LIFE? … DEMOCRACY – CITIZENS”
- WHAT IS LIFE? … PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
- WHAT IS LIFE? … If life is ‘More,’ ‘much more’ …
- WHAT IS LIFE – GRAMMAR OF SURVIVAL. Focus: Homo sapiens … (not yet finished)
INSERTIONS SO FAR:
- INSERTION: A Brief History of the Concept of Intelligence and Its Future
- INSERTION: BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE NEEDS LEARNING. Structural Analysis
INTRODUCTION
The initial analysis of the concept of intelligence made it clear that, within the framework of an intelligence test, only those responses can be given by the test subject that are currently available to them. Apart from innate reflexes and physically conditioned properties, these responses stem from internal structures that have emerged through learning processes. The structures acquired through learning will here be referred to as knowledge or experience.
The distinction between the terms intelligence, learning, knowledge, and experience will be further elaborated in the following text. This will reveal a general structure of Homo sapiens (HS) as part of the overarching Life (L), equipped with the capacity to potentially secure its survival on this planet (P). However, as a part of life, Homo sapiens can also use its abilities to contribute to the survival of all life, which ultimately ensures its own existence. Aside from an unpredictable future, Homo sapiens remains entirely dependent on the totality of life on this planet.
IMAGE 1: Basic constellation of Planet (P), Life (L), and Homo sapiens (HS) as a subpopulation of Life. All components (P, L, HS) interact both within themselves and with one another.
INTELLIGENCE – LEARNING – KNOWLEDGE – MATERIAL CONDITIONS
Starting Point
The starting point of the further considerations is illustrated in the following diagram:
IMAGE 2: A dynamic perspective of the Planet-Life-Homo sapiens constellation, assuming a fictional observer.
From the perspective of a fictional observer (see IMAGE 2), the structure of the Planet – Life – Homo sapiens (PLHS) constellation, with its extensive interactions, can be seen as embedded within a temporal structure (T), which is understood here as a process with time slices (see Text No. 4).
In the diagram, there is a fixed reference point, the present (NOW). Before the present, there is a presumed history (HISTORY), and after the present, in the potentially emerging new presents (POSSIBLE FUTURES), further instances of the present may arise. However, at the current moment, in the present, these future instances are not yet known.
IMAGE 3: Assuming the presence of a brain that, through a body, can perceive properties of the world, later remember them, and subsequently organize them in an appropriate way, a certain dynamic structure of Planet, Life, and Homo sapiens becomes recognizable.
The fictional observer, however, exists only in the mind of a human being—provided that they can think, that they can remember, and that their memory has been shaped by actual perceptions. Since perception, memory, and thinking are all prone to error, the perspective of the fictional observer is always either more correct or more incorrect.
Knowledge and Material Embedding
The thinking human is equipped with a body (Material Embedding 1) that is always situated in a real situation—or a real state (Material Embedding 2). This situation is always part of something larger. Here, we assume that this larger context is normally Planet Earth (which itself is embedded in almost arbitrarily vast contexts within the universe), along with the population of Homo sapiens and the totality of life (Material Embedding 3).
Over time, humans have discovered that, in the present situation, numerous traces (TRACES) can be found—traces that point to events related to the planet, events of life on the planet, and events of Homo sapiens as part of life on the planet.
These observable traces (observable TRACES) originate from different time periods in history and thus reveal patterns of change (CH). If changes exhibit regularities, they can serve as a basis for generating possible future states (POSSIBLE FUTURES) through a form of prediction logic.
Knowledge
For the human perspective on the planet, life, and itself, the decisive factor is that humans possess the following abilities:
(i) Perceive everything around them in a way that allows them to
(ii) Store the contents of perception so that they can
(iii) Recall these contents later.
(iv) As we now understand, perception does not occur as a one-to-one representation but involves various simplifications/abstractions that allow a connection to current perception during recall.
(v) Due to the nature of stored content,
(vi) Thinking can structure these contents in different ways and
(vii) detect changes by comparing before and after.
If these changes exhibit sufficient regularity,
(viii) thinking can generate limited predictions.
(ix) The process of generating predictions falls broadly under the concept of logic or logical inference (although modern formal logic captures only partial aspects of this real phenomenon).
One could formulate this idea as follows: Knowledge is a specific form of “resonance” of the material conditions under which knowledge emerges.
While material conditions can influence the emergence and structure of knowledge, they cannot:
- Generate knowledge itself, nor
- Generate solely from within themselves that which knowledge reflects.
Thus, the resonance in the format of knowledge points to something beyond knowledge itself.
In traditional philosophical language, this would be referred to as transcendence: with the availability of knowledge—arising through a true resonance—knowledge transcends (exceeds) the human being and their material limitations.
Material Embedding of Knowledge
Today, we understand that the material embedding of knowledge reveals numerous factors that can be either constructive or destructive in the process of knowledge formation, as well as in its failure to emerge.
The effects of these factors become particularly evident when people suffer from illnesses that weaken and torment them, possibly confining them to a specific place. The lack of water, food, or the absence of proper shelter to protect against cold, heat, and rain also plays a critical role. There is the threat posed by other humans or other life forms (animals, insects, plants, etc.). Emotions such as fear, hatred, intense agitation, or strong emotional dependencies can also interfere. Sensory impairments—in vision, hearing, smell, etc.—can further complicate knowledge formation. Poor communication due to language barriers, social exclusion, persecution, or being on the run because of natural disasters can also hinder this process—and much more.
Even one’s own body and existing knowledge can turn into obstacles: A person who holds specific knowledge at a given moment may be emotionally resistant to changing that knowledge. In such cases, their current understanding of the world and themselves freezes—it becomes rigid, and the dynamic nature of life dissipates. The life in their mind turns to stone.
Knowledge and Society; AI
If we recognize how complex and fragile the formation of knowledge is within the mind of a single person, we might begin to grasp the enormous challenge of enabling an entire population to jointly generate the knowledge necessary for securing a good survival in a possible future.
Since at least 2022, technical tools marketed under the misleading label of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have become available. These tools may indeed serve as a tremendous aid—provided that humanity cultivates its own knowledge accordingly (with AI as part of it).
However, as long as humans do not manage to properly integrate the material embedding of their knowledge, so too will so-called AI remain stagnant. The material embedding of humans is not merely a potential obstacle; it is simultaneously the enabler of world-relevant and life-relevant knowledge.
AI does not and cannot possess these two dimensions—not only today but fundamentally. Biological systems embody a potential that can truly transcend inanimate matter and transform it into something new.
Machines—designed, built, and programmed by humans—are, compared to biological systems, merely very simple tools. However, through symbiosis with biological systems, they may generate effects far beyond what we can currently imagine.
