Do We Really Recognize Intelligence?

 

It never ceases to amaze me that the more we discover about 

intelligence it's always in the same direction: it's deeper and more complex than we ever thought. Are we really so dim? 

We're starting to recognize, like in this magnificent article,  that forests are an incredibly interconnected network of plants that support each other. E.O. Wilson, like many biologists, affirms that "competition" (in our simplistic understanding of that term) is not nearly the force that cooperation forms in the story of evolution. 

 

I think we will also discover that socially the same holds true, that no person is separate, no matter how much we attribute our successes to our own volition. We can see that competing auto dealers benefit from clustering together. There are plenty of examples of the opposite of conventional thinking being true about evolution: it is not every creature in competition, but we are all part of a hugely interconnected web that rises or falls together. GAIA is a perfect example of this. As Nature thrives, all her creatures shall as well. As she suffers, so do we all.

I really believe we will eventually "prove" scientifically that actually the Buddhists are right, we are One!  The separateness that we experience as individuals is just an illusion, an attitude that we westerners have adopted to justify colonizing the world for our selfish benefit.

 

I once designed a planetary life system as an assignment in an astrophysics class that takes cooperation to the next level. In this world different life forms survive in opposing chemical worlds, but still depend on each other for survival, like each of us and our gut biome depend on each other to survive.  I made a short video about a planetary intelligence that's kind of a trip. Here is the detailed version. I hope we figure this out before our sustainability coupon expires!