What do you mean when you say "intelligent" ?
Channel: Jean-Louis Pasteur
Date: 2017-09-24

M.O.O.C. COURSERA 
(https://www.coursera.org/)

UNDERSTANDING PLANTS
Part 1 : WHAT A PLANT KNOWS
(https://www.coursera.org/learn/plantknows)

Tel-Aviv University
Professor Daniel CHAMOVITZ

Discussion Prompt (6th week) :
What do you mean when you say "intelligent" ?
The answer of Participant Jean-Louis PASTEUR
(http://jeanlouispasteur.org/referEng.html)
September 24th 2017


What do I mean when I say "intelligent" ? 
Well, in fact I have learnt to avoid saying that word... which belongs in my opinion to the much too vast category of the confusing and dangerous expressions !

The first problem with the word "intelligent" is that it is, consciously or not, systematically matched - and distorted - with a value judgement. To say "John is less tall, or less hairy, or less young than James" is a mere factual statement. To say "John is less intelligent than James" is an insult and most often a non-demonstrable assertion ! 
Even prominent scientists, who study throughout their career, with a growing marvel, a specific type of living entities and end up wishing these to be called "intelligent" perhaps succumb, I am afraid, to the gratifying charm of this adjective... 

Secondly "intelligence" seems to me a much too vague concept to be usefully employed by science or simply by persons who want to reason in an accurate and objective manner. There are almost as many definitions of intelligence as there are thinking people on earth. For instance, among infinite other grades :
- At the most elementary level, we could call intelligence the instinctive attempt to apprehend every change in the ambient conditions in order to adapt to it and to survive. In that sense all living beings are intelligent, only minerals are not.
- At an intermediate level, we could call intelligence the possibly conscious operation of a brain analysing a more or less complex situation and synthesizing its conclusions into an action, what seems to be reserved to rather developed animals.
- At the highest level, we could call intelligence the ability of a mind to manipulate fully abstract concepts outside of any material necessity and of any reference to the perceived world, what seems to be the privilege of some specially talented humans. 

As for me, globally, roughly and tersely, I would call intelligent every being or union of beings able to progress towards achieving goals.

Nevertheless Adaptability would be from my point of view a much more neutral and appropriate term than Intelligence to qualify the remarkable memory phenomena observed on plants, which this Coursera course of Tel-Aviv University by Professor Daniel Chamovitz wonderfully displays for us.