Intelligence

Intelligence is the special ability that helps us think, learn, and solve problems. It includes skills like understanding new ideas, thinking logically, remembering what we learn, and finding creative answers to challenges. People often talk about intelligence when they describe how someone can figure things out, plan for the future, or see connections between different pieces of information.

The word intelligence became important around the early 1900s. Many psychologists today think that intelligence is not just one thing, but has different parts or areas of strength. We usually study intelligence in humans, but scientists have also noticed intelligent behavior in cognition of non-human animals. Some even wonder if plants might have simple ways of being intelligent, though this idea is still being debated.

Understanding intelligence helps us learn how people and animals think and make decisions. It is important in many areas, like education, science, and even in designing machines that can think like humans.

Etymology

Main article: Nous

The word intelligence comes from Latin words meaning to understand or notice. In the past, people used a different word, "intellectus," to talk about understanding. This word was linked to old ideas about the soul and the universe. Famous thinkers like Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume did not use this word in their work. Today, the word "intelligence" is used in the study of the mind and behavior.

Definitions

People have many different ideas about what intelligence means. Some think it is about understanding complicated things, learning from new experiences, solving problems, and adapting to different situations. Others see it as a mix of many skills that can be measured.

In 1995, a group of experts from the American Psychological Association made a report called Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. They said that even though people can be very different in how they think, these differences can change depending on the situation. Even smart experts do not all agree on one perfect definition of intelligence.

Psychologists and learning researchers also have their own ideas about what intelligence includes.

Researcher	Quotation
Alfred Binet	Judgment, otherwise called "good sense", "practical sense", "initiative", the faculty of adapting one's self to circumstances ... auto-critique.
David Wechsler	The aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment.
Lloyd Humphreys	"...the resultant of the process of acquiring, storing in memory, retrieving, combining, comparing, and using in new contexts information and conceptual skills".
Howard Gardner	To my mind, a human intellectual competence must entail a set of skills of problem solving—enabling the individual to resolve genuine problems or difficulties that he or she encounters and, when appropriate, to create an effective product—and must also entail the potential for finding or creating problems—and thereby laying the groundwork for the acquisition of new knowledge.
Robert Sternberg & William Salter	Goal-directed adaptive behavior.
Reuven Feuerstein	The theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability describes intelligence as "the unique propensity of human beings to change or modify the structure of their cognitive functioning to adapt to the changing demands of a life situation".
Shane Legg & Marcus Hutter	A synthesis of 70+ definitions from psychology, philosophy, and AI researchers: "Intelligence measures an agent's ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments", which has been mathematically formalized.
Alexander Wissner-Gross	F = T ∇ S τ {\displaystyle _{\tau }} "Intelligence is a force, F, that acts so as to maximize future freedom of action. It acts to maximize future freedom of action, or keep options open, with some strength T, with the diversity of possible accessible futures, S, up to some future time horizon, τ. In short, intelligence doesn't like to get trapped".

Human

Main article: Human intelligence

Human intelligence is the ability to think, learn, and solve problems. It helps people remember things and use that knowledge later. Humans can learn new ideas, understand tricky topics, and make plans to fix problems. They can also see patterns, create new ideas, and use language to share thoughts with others.

Intelligence is more than just learning facts. Learning means remembering information, but intelligence is about using that information to think and solve problems. Some people try to measure intelligence with tests called IQ tests. These tests were made a long time ago to help students who needed extra help. Over time, they were used in many ways. Today, many experts think that while IQ tests can show some parts of intelligence, they might not show everything about how smart someone is.

Nonhuman animal

Main article: Animal cognition

Scientists study how smart animals are, not just humans. They watch how animals solve puzzles, count, and use simple language. This helps us understand how intelligence works in many creatures.

Some animals known for being clever are chimpanzees, bonobos, dolphins, elephants, and even parrots. Scientists also study animals like octopuses, which have very different brains from humans but can still show smart skills.

Main article: g factor in non-humans

Scientists have found that animals also have a general ability to learn and solve new problems. This is called the g factor. They use special tests to see how animals try new things, learn from each other, and react to new situations. These tests help explain why some animals are better at solving problems than others.

Plant

Main article: Plant intelligence

Some people think plants can be smart because they can sense things and change to stay safe and grow. They can remember past things and talk to each other in their own ways. Plants can also figure out what is best for them and act carefully to solve problems.

However, others say that real intelligence means being able to make and use memories, not just reacting. If we think this way, then only things that can learn, like robots, are intelligent. But plants can still learn from their experiences and make choices to help themselves.

Artificial

Main article: Artificial intelligence

People who study artificial intelligence think about what intelligence means for machines. They say an intelligent machine can see its surroundings and act in ways to succeed. One way to think about it is that artificial intelligence helps a machine understand information, learn from it, and use that learning to reach goals in flexible ways. We can see progress in artificial intelligence by testing it in games and useful tasks, like figuring out the shape of proteins. Right now, these machines are not as smart as humans, who can learn to do many different things.

Some experts think intelligence is about how well a machine can make things better according to its goals. For example, a famous chess computer could guide a game toward winning, even when a very good player tried to stop it. Others say intelligence means being able to reach goals in many different situations. Some people even think it is hard to define intelligence clearly beyond just saying it is what humans do.