Supreme Intelligence

Supreme Intelligence

To the “man on the street,” it was an “intelligent” human who planted a flag in the barren soil of the moon and posed proudly by it, in the world’s most expensive photo opportunity. Thus, we generally equate intelligence with a primate’s ability to assemble mechanical parts, to methodically follow the schematic of linear thought and its projection of calculations. A typical dictionary definition of intelligence might read, “ability to acquire and retain knowledge; mental capacity to solve problems; cleverness.” A less self-conscious definition usually follows; “information, or news.” At the bottom, there is sometimes an even less worldly definition: “an intelligent spirit or being.” Such definitions might lead one to wonder: is intelligence an extraneous ingredient, which could be dispensed with (similar to nutmeg in a cake mix) in the universe? In other words, where a brain (or a being) were enitrely absent in the cosmos, would the cosmos be operating then without intelligence? It is interesting that, in evolutionary terms, there was sexual reproduction for 370 million years before there were brains.

Put another way, can intelligence be apart from anything, or is intelligence—in its deepest meaning—simply another description for the all-pervasive and ever-present “essence”? As a Johns Hopkins neurologist put it: “People think all intelligence resides in the brain, and therefore that if you take out half the brain, the patient ought to be half as intelligent.”

An example was given of a girl whose entire left lobe of the brain (the “verbal” hemisphere) was removed at age twelve. Yet, “Shown a picture of a chair, Denise might say, ‘sitting in it.’ If we show her a picture of a bell, she might say, ‘ringing it.’” The relationship of intelligence to an organism’s central nervous system is like a Constitution, which governs: did the Constitution create government, or was there prior governance which created the Constitution? Is intelligence the consequence of your ability to perceive, or vice versa? That which sees through your eyes, saw through your eyes when you were a prehistoric primate, as well as when you were a primordial reptile: there was never a time when Intelligence did not see through your eyes—and the eyes of all others in existence.

This is the intrinsic property that physicist Fritjof Capra is referring to:

Since motion and change are essential properties of things, the forces causing the motion are not outside the objects, as in the classical Greek view, but are an intrinsic property of matter. Correspondingly, the Eastern image of the Divine is not that of a ruler who directs the world from above, but of a principle that controls everything from within:

‘He who, dwelling in all things,

Yet is other than all things…

Whose body all things are,

Who controls all things from within…’

This is, as Krishnamurti alludes to it, that which in no way can be created by the mind of thought. “Whom all things do not know” because that which would be known is the knower. This essence, or intelligence, is no way external, conditional or causational. It is always ever present, therefore elusive to linear, limited thought: it is already present at any point which conclusions could reach. In other words, it does not depend on “rational intelligence” for its manifestation.

In the words of Joseph Needham, “harmonious cooperation of all beings arose, not from the orders of a superior authority…but from the…internal dictates of their own nature.” Put another way: no central intelligence agency; no “first principle” before this intelligence. What this suggests, according to astrophysicist Paul Davies: “Inherent in nature (is) an absolute indeterminacy of the universe.” No “ruler,” as a repository of intelligence. The word for this self-genesis of all things is autopoiesis. Where there is this autogenesis, there is no need for anything to interfere, intercede or interdict with anything else. All trans-actions are harmonious, without effort and conflict, in this intelligent presence. Generally speaking, human behavior concerns itself with reaction, inaction or action. And of the latter, there are two kinds: not all forms of activity, it must be obvious, are intelligent in the temporal context. Reaction is predicated on some preceding, or past, action (thus “re”, as in returning). In the historical metaphor, mankind’s first reaction was Adam and Eve covering their ass.

Inaction, which is in the present, may be action sufficient to itself; it can also be the “void” out of which intelligent action precipitates. Intelligent action, it could be said, is the action which expresses the Tao; put another way, action which is not dependent for its authority on calculative and consequential thought. Some would call this “self-less action.” The point of sagacious teachings is that man’s energy is directed into reactive ideas, and ideals: or, into insightful behavior or presence (as action or inaction).