Intelligence (Latin: intelligentia "insight, cognitive faculty", from intellegere "to understand"; derived from intus "inside, within" or inter "in the midst of, between, among" and legere "to read, choose"[1]; Hebrew: שָׂכַלsakal) today refers in the broadest sense to the cognitive abilities to recognise connections, to abstract, to find optimal strategies for solving problems and to learn from the experience gained. In detail, the intellect enables us above all to spatial imagination, to plan ahead through virtual action in the imagination space, to counting and arithmetic, to language comprehension and fluency and dexterity in our own linguistic expression, to individual memory as the essential basis of our I-consciousness, to rapid and attention-guided perception and especially to logical thinking, in which the mind is reflected through the tool of the brain. This kind of intelligence can in principle be completely replicated by artificial intelligence and subsequently even far surpassed.
However, these cognitive abilities bound to the brain and the sensory organs, which are the sole focus of interest for the sciences today, represent only the smaller part of human intelligence. The concept of intelligence is therefore much broader. The actual creative-intuitive intelligence of the human being has its origin in the cosmic intelligence, which also has a formative effect on the whole of nature. This cosmic intelligence arises from the interaction of spiritual beings, which are above man in their degree of spiritual development. In the Middle Ages they were therefore called cosmic intelligences. It is they who also shape the whole of nature and work in every natural being. What distinguishes man from the other natural beings is that in the course of the development of mankind he has learnt to grasp this cosmic intelligence ever more actively and to make it his own, in order thereby to become ever more consciously and freely active himself creatively directly out of the spirit. The task of anthroposophical spiritual science is to promote this development ever further.
„The spirit is activity, is always activity. The spirit is creative. The spirit is the absolutely productive. The intellect is the passive image of the spirit.“ (Lit.:GA 305, p. 29)
„If we go back to ancient times of human development - I have already referred to this here in the lectures - it is not the case that man generates thoughts out of himself, that he thinks about things through his own power. For this inner ability of the soul to think, this inner activity of forming thoughts, has actually only been fully developed since the 15th century, since the penetration of the consciousness soul into the development of humanity. And if we go back to pre-Christian times, to ancient times, we find everywhere that people do not yet have the consciousness that they themselves think; they do not even feel that they have thoughts, but they feel: thoughts are revealed to them from things. Intelligence is cosmically spread everywhere. Intelligence is in things. And as one perceives the colours, so one perceives the intelligent content, the thought content of things. The world is full of intelligence. Everywhere is intelligent being. Man has, so to speak, acquired this intelligence in the course of recent times. One would like to say that intelligence is something that is spread throughout the world, of which man has received a drop everywhere in recent times. That then is the human being.
Drawing from GA 240, p. 238 (Plate 3)
With the ancient man, however, it was in such a way that at every moment when he thought, he was conscious of the fact that the thoughts were inspired to him, revealed to him. He only attributed intelligence to the universe, not to himself.
Now, at all times, the administrator of this cosmic intelligence, which radiates from the sun like light over the whole world, has been the very spirit who is called Michael. Michael is the administrator of the cosmic intelligence. In more recent post-Christian times, however, the significant fact occurred that after the Mystery of Golgotha, Michael gradually lost the administration of intelligence, that it was lost to him. As long as the earth exists, Michael has administered the cosmic intelligence. And when a human being felt thoughts, that is, intelligent content, within himself, even in the time of Alexander, in the time of Aristotle, then he did not regard these thoughts as his own thought content, but as the thoughts revealed to him through the power of Michael, even if in those pagan times this being was called something else. But this thought content gradually fell away from Michael. And if we look into the spiritual world, we see this descent of intelligence from the sun to the earth, which took place up to the 8th century AD. In the 9th century after Christ, people begin, I would say, as a precursor of the later ones, to develop their own intelligence, and intelligence takes up residence in the souls of men. And Michael and his followers look down from the sun to the earth and can say: What we have administered through eons, that has sunk away from us, that has been lost to us, that has flowed down and is now in the souls of men on earth.“ (Lit.:GA 240, p. 237ff)
The highest form and source of all intelligence is cosmic intelligence, which Rudolf Steiner characterises succinctly thus:
„Intelligence consists of the mutual standards of conduct of the higher hierarchies. What they do, how they behave towards each other, how they are towards each other, that is cosmic intelligence.“ (Lit.:GA 237, p. 168)
Intelligence in Nature
Insofar as this cosmic intelligence is reflected in the whole of nature in the form of laws of nature, the latter is also to be regarded as intelligent insofar as it forms and behaves according to the order represented by the cosmic intelligence, right down to the inorganic realm, irrespective of whether or not consciousness and insight are associated with it. The laws of nature are, as many physicists also emphasise, something spiritual. The task of the natural sciences is to investigate the intelligence that is at work in nature. For example, the quantum chemist Walter Heitler writes:
„A mathematically formulated law is something spiritual. We can call it that because it is human spirit that recognises it. The term "spirit" may not be very popular today, when an exuberant materialism and positivism is producing its sometimes rather nasty flowers. But for this very reason we must be clear about what natural law and knowledge of nature is. Nature therefore follows this non-material spiritual element, the law. Consequently, spiritual elements are also anchored in nature itself. Among these is the mathematics necessary to formulate the law, even high and supreme mathematics. On the other hand, the researcher who is gifted to make a discovery is able to penetrate this very spiritual element that pervades nature. And here the connection between the human, discerning spirit and the transcendent elements existing in nature becomes apparent. We see the matter best if we use the Platonic mode of expression, although Plato did not yet know this kind of natural law. According to this, natural law would be an archetype, an "idea" - in the sense of the Greek word eidea - which nature follows and which man can perceive. This is then what is called the idea. Through this archetype, man is connected with nature. Man, who can perceive it, nature, which follows him as a law.“
– Walter Heitler: Naturwissenschaft ist Geisteswissenschaft, p. 14f.
Similar to Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, Heitler also referred to the Platonictheory of ideas. Particularly in his work "Die Natur und das Göttliche“ (Nature and the Divine), he also addressed a broad readership. From his Christian conviction, it was a central concern of his to uncover relationships between the physical world of experience and the metaphysical world of revelation on the basis of texts from the Old and New Testaments.
„Three things belong together: nature, which we observe with our senses, the world of transcendence, which is the home of the spiritual archetypes by which nature is interwoven, and the human spirit, which has access to this world of transcendence and gradually gains knowledge of its content.
Walter Heitler, Die Natur und das Göttliche, p. 39
We now come to a central question. The world of transcendence obviously possesses contents of no small intelligence. Even in the field of mathematics and physics we will be a long way from being able to claim that we already know the full measure of this intelligence and have made it accessible to us. When we shall speak of biological facts and processes in the next chapter, we shall get an inkling of how much deeper our intellect is, even at its best, than the "intelligence", or rather wisdom, that is present in the structure of living organisms. One will hardly be able to avoid the question where this wisdom or intelligence comes from. Has it simply existed from eternity? Or who devised these laws? Our biological knowledge points to evolution. Should it be different with physics, should its laws have applied since eternity? We will see that this is hardly conceivable, that these laws also came into being once. Many researchers, especially in past decades and centuries, have spoken of a divine creation as a matter of course. The world of transcendence that we recognise is the creation of an infinitely superior divine spirit. The primordial ground from which all being flowed is the spirit which we call God because of its inconceivable greatness.“
„The laws of nature are spirit, only that in ordinary contemplation man perceives this spirit only in the shadowy reflection of thought.“ (Lit.:GA 52, p. 208)
In this sense, dead unconscious machines designed by humans can also be called "intelligent".
„Clearly, intelligence is a vaguely defined term, the tops of which are generally understood to be marked by geniuses like Einstein or Bach, not snail shells. For Andy Adamatzky, however, humans do not have the prerogative of intelligence. Rather, his research raises the question of whether even a slime mould is not intelligent, finding its way directly through a labyrinth to a food source without taking a single wrong turn. "Every form of self-organisation that processes information is intelligence", seconds a colleague of Adamatzky's, the Japanese researcher Toshiyuki Nakagaki. Even information-processing machines, i.e. computers, often appear intelligent, which is the subject of the research branch of "artificial intelligence".“ (Lit.: Meier, p. 5)
However, it is not a matter of consciousthinking that is comparable to that of humans, but of a deeply unconscious instinctive intelligence. In fact, Rudolf Steiner describes that the instincts of animals are based on the wise construction of their physical body. Fully conscious intelligence can only unfold in a being which, like the human being, possesses the four fundamental members of being: physical body, etheric body, astral body and I. Each of these members is in a certain sense "intelligent" - especially the physical body because of the long period of development it has already undergone. And each of these members also has a consciousness peculiar to it, which in the case of the physical body is very comprehensive but extremely dull. The consciousness of the etheric body is already brighter, but still corresponds to our dreamless sleep consciousness. In the astral body it rises to dream consciousness. Only through the I does the clear self-consciousness awaken, in which human thinking, which is based on the orderly interplay of all the members of the being, can fully consciously appear. This happens first in the form of the mental mirror image that we know from our everyday thinking. The actual reality of thinking opens up only with spiritual training, through which the I also develops the higher spiritual members, first of all in particular the spirit self, and learns to deal with them consciously. Rudolf Steiner has already described the beginning of this path in his "Philosophy of Freedom". This path leads systematically to the development of pure, sensuality-free thinking (see below), in which the first contact with the world of ideas, which has a formative effect in all kingdoms of nature, takes place (cf. also the above quotation from W. Heitler). Conscious intelligence can only develop in a being which, like the human being, possesses the four basic members: physical body, etheric body, astral body and I. Each of these members is "intelligent" in a certain sense - especially the physical body due to its long period of development. Each of these members is in a certain sense "intelligent" - especially the physical body because of the long period of development it has already undergone. And each of these members also has a consciousness peculiar to it, which in the case of the physical body is very comprehensive but extremely dull. The consciousness of the etheric body is already brighter, but still corresponds to our dreamless sleep consciousness. In the astral body it rises to dream consciousness. Only through the I does the clear self-consciousness awaken, in which human thinking, which is based on the orderly interplay of all the members of the being, can fully consciously appear. This happens first in the form of the mental mirror image that we know from our everyday thinking. The actual reality of thinking opens up only with spiritual training, through which the I also develops the higher spiritual members, first of all in particular the spirit self, and learns to deal with them consciously. Rudolf Steiner has already described the beginning of this path in his "Philosophy of Freedom". This path leads systematically to the development of pure, sensuality-free thinking (see below), in which the first contact with the world of ideas, which has a formative effect in all kingdoms of nature, takes place (cf. also the above quotation from W. Heitler).
Literature
Walter Heitler: Naturwissenschaft ist Geisteswissenschaft, Die Waage, Zürich 1972
Jeff Hawkins: Die Zukunft der Intelligenz: Wie das Gehirn funktioniert und was Computer davon lernen können, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3499621673
Hans Bonneval: Revolution im Denken: Rudolf Steiner. Warum Computer nicht denken können, BoD, Norderstedt 2017, ISBN 978-3743157521
Ray Kurzweil: Das Geheimnis des menschlichen Denkens: Einblicke in das Reverse Engineering des Gehirns, Lola Books 2014, ISBN 978-3944203065, eBook ASIN B01348W39K
Ray Kurzweil: Die Intelligenz der Evolution, KiWi-Taschenbuch 2016, ISBN 978-3462049428, Kiepenheuer & Witsch eBook, ASIN B01FENJJH2
Nick Bostrom: Superintelligenz: Szenarien einer kommenden Revolution, Suhrkamp Verlag 2016, ISBN 978-3518586846, eBook ASIN B00OTQKXJE
Christian J. Meier: Suppenintelligenz (TELEPOLIS): Die Rechenpower aus der Natur, Heise Medien GmbH & Co. KG 2017, ISBN 978-3957881014, eBook ASIN B076CQBPMC
Daniel Goleman, Friedrich Griese (translator): EQ. Emotionale Intelligenz, dtv Verlagsgesellschaft 1997, ISBN 978-3423360203
Daniel Goleman, Reinhard Kreissl (translator): Soziale Intelligenz: Wer auf andere zugehen kann, hat mehr vom Leben, Droemer TB 2017, ISBN 978-3426301623
Anton Hügli, Poul Lübcke (editor): Philosophielexikon. Rowohlts Enzyklopädie, TB, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2005, S. 320
Christian Geyer (editor): Hirnforschung und Willensfreiheit: Zur Deutung der neuesten Experimente, 9. Auflage, Suhrkamp Verlag 2004, ISBN 978-3518123874
Klaus-Jürgen Grün (editor), Gerhard Roth (editor): Das Gehirn und seine Freiheit, 3. Auflage, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2006, ISBN 978-3525490853
Frank Rösler: Psychophysiologie der Kognition: Eine Einführung in die Kognitive Neurowissenschaft, Springer-Verlag 2012, ISBN 978-3827425997
Peter Heusser: Anthroposophie und Wissenschaft: Eine Einführung. Erkenntniswissenschaft, Physik, Chemie, Genetik, Biologie, Neurobiologie, Psychologie, Philosophie des Geistes, Anthropologie, Anthroposophie, Medizin, Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 2016, ISBN 978-3723515686
Rudolf Steiner, Andreas Neider (Hrsg.): Der elektronische Doppelgänger und die Entwicklung der Computertechnik, Futurum Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3856363642; Kindle Edition 2015, ASIN B0195VK6WG
↑In this sense, it is a matter of "reading" in things, through which their inner lawfulness is revealed, which determine their essence. At the same time, however, it is also a reading between things and us, since their essence is only revealed when we confront them with our active mental activity. Only in the unification of the objectively given and the subjectively produced factors do we approach reality, as Rudolf Steiner has already discussed in detail in his "Philosophy of Freedom". Thinking is neither subjective nor objective, but overlaps both.
