Intelligence

Intelligence is the special ability that helps us think, learn, and solve problems. It includes many skills, like understanding new ideas, thinking logically, remembering what we learn, and coming up with 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 very 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 older times, especially during the Middle Ages, people used a different word, "intellectus," to talk about understanding. This word was tied to old ideas about the soul and the universe. Later thinkers like Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume chose not to use this word in their work. Even though the word "intelligence" is not used much in old philosophy, it is used today 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 put together a report called Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. They explained that while people can be very different in their thinking abilities, these differences change depending on the situation and what is being measured. Even smart experts do not all agree on one perfect definition of intelligence.

Psychologists and learning researchers also offer 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 information later. Humans can learn new ideas, understand complicated topics, and come up with plans to solve difficulties. They can also recognize patterns, create new ideas, and use language to share thoughts with others.

Intelligence is different from simply learning facts. While learning means remembering information, intelligence is about how well someone can use that information to think and solve problems. Some people try to measure intelligence with tests called IQ tests. These tests were created a long time ago to help identify students who needed extra support. Over time, these tests were used in many different ways. Today, many experts believe that while IQ tests can show some aspects of intelligence, they may not capture everything about how smart someone is.

Nonhuman animal

Main article: Animal cognition

Scientists also study intelligence in animals, not just in humans. They look at how different animals solve problems, understand numbers, and use language. This helps us learn about how intelligence works in many kinds of creatures.

Some animals known for their smart behavior include chimpanzees, bonobos, dolphins, elephants, and even parrots. Researchers also study cephalopods, like octopuses, which have very different brains from humans but can still show clever skills.

Main article: g factor in non-humans

Scientists have found that a general ability to learn and solve new problems, called the g factor, exists in animals too. They measure this using special tests that look at how animals try new things, learn from others, and react to new situations. These studies show that this ability explains a big part of why some animals are better at solving problems than others.

Plant

Main article: Plant intelligence

Some people think plants can be considered intelligent because they can sense and change their shape, how they work, and how they look to stay safe and grow. They can remember things from the past and talk to each other in their own ways. Plants can also figure out what is best for them and take careful actions to deal with problems in their environment.

However, others say that real intelligence means being able to make and use memories, not just reacting automatically. 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 have ideas about what intelligence means for machines. They say an intelligent machine can see what is around it and act in ways that give it the best chance 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 the world better according to what it wants. 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.