Summations Only

Are you only talking about nature as intelligent? Or are you saying that rocks, tides, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc are intelligent. You need to be clear about that.

I think what he is trying to say is that a cell, although it doesn’t have intelligence of its own, (although I don’t know why he started talking about a cell seeing), does have intelligence uilt into its function.

Can we get an IQ score for gravity?

Hi Catholic Scientist, I look at things in a sort of "its all one stuff."
attitude. The carbon in sugars of plants is the same carbon we exhale as the same carbon in coal. Now all these things are distinct things with distinct properties but everything is composed of atoms and subject to the laws of physics and intitial conditions. The fact that a plant cant plan ahead and a human can means we are intelligent and they are not. It does not mean the laws of nature have a inherent "innate" intelligence. It means given the right conditions and enough time a thing called intelligence can eventually emerge. Intelligence may simply be a emergent property of matter.
Maybe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hi Straggler, I agree with you. You just condensed what I have been thinking. If plants and humans are subject to the same physics, then it stands to reason at some level this phenomenon of intelligence appears. It seems tied to the complexity and development of a brain and nervous system. The ability to have sensory input of our surroundings. The playing field is level, we and other organisms just happen to have better evolved equipment perhaps.
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I agree with you, I was kinda just springboarding off what you had said.

Then I think you have reduced the word "intelligence" to meaninglessness. So this thread really isn't about anything at all.

OK. Then we seem to have established that your view of "intelligence" seems to require some form of dualism.
I am not sure that this is much more evidentially justifiable than Ziko's notion that cells have intelligence.

If by this you mean that everything that exists has intelligence, as others have begun to suspect, then I will immediately begin the thread closure process and ask participants to submit summaries.

Hi Straggler, I agree with you. You just condensed what I have been thinking. If plants and humans are subject to the same physics, then it stands to reason at some level this phenomenon of intelligence appears. It seems tied to the complexity and development of a brain and nervous system. The ability to have sensory input of our surroundings. The playing field is level, we and other organisms just happen to have better evolved equipment perhaps.

Intelligence requires a brain. Its not something that everything has.Why are you using the word "intelligence"? What are you gaining by using it? Why don't you use a different word?

1.61083 writes:
The fact that a plant cant plan ahead and a human can means we are intelligent and they are not. It does not mean the laws of nature have a inherent "innate" intelligence. It means given the right conditions and enough time a thing called intelligence can eventually emerge. Intelligence may simply be a emergent property of matterI think your initial premise of single cells having intelligence and tides , the laws of physics having innate intelligence is a bit misguided. Although I do understand the gist of what you mean.
I believe your redefining Intelligence is the crux of the disagreement.It does seem fantastic the sublime way nature perpetuates matter and energy into life seems in some sense intelligent. Intelligent by way of meaning humans often are amazed by the seemingly elegant way nature maintains homeostasis. But it is not to say it is intelligent by way of a thinking mind. Rather intelligent by way of a metaphor to describe it.

If you are going to say that cells "think" then you need to provide some sort of dividing line between that which "thinks" and that which doesn't and explain your reasons for drawing that boundary.

In the cited quotes of Straggler and myself; all we are saying is basically intelligence exist as a result of the physical laws of nature.
NOT the physical laws of nature are intelligent.Do you see the distinction? If not then you will not understand what is wrong with your premise.

That is about what we expected you to say. Your definition of "intelligence" is so broad that it can include ANYTHING. When a definition is this broad it becomes useless because you can not differentiate between what is and is not intelligent.