Is all life intelligent?

In a recent article in Scientific American, Rowan Jacobson summarizes new findings and positions from several biologists and computer scientists who claim that all life is intelligent. The key argument is the astonishing ability of almost all living matter to adapt, in an apparently creative and ingenious way, to changing cues and conditions in their environment. If cells, slime molds or plants act in such a way, why should be deny them the faculty of intelligent and thoughtful behavior? Proponents of 'minimal' or 'basal' intelligence like Michael Levin from Tufts University, Josh Bongart from the University of Vermont or Paco Calvo from the University of Murcia strive for a new biology of the mind. Together with a highly active community of 'plant neurobiologists' they want to overcome the traditional anthropocentric or zoocentric perspective of psychologists and traditional neuroscientists. Intelligence, mental capacities and, ultimately, consciousness are not bound to brains, and by no means to human brains.

A German translation of Jacobson’s article has now appeared in the September issue of 'Gehirn & Geist'. In the same issue, Andreas Draguhn provides a critical account of the ‘new biology’ and concludes that blurring the distinction between mental processes (operations on internal representations) and merely adaptive mechanisms (biological reactions to changing conditions) are different and should be distinguished. If we call every form of adaptation – and, hence, all life – 'intelligent' or 'mental', we will be forced to invent new terms for the realm of mental functions in their traditional understanding. Otherwise, we will lose the difference between cognition and agent-driven behavior on one side, and biological adaptation on the other. Whether both kinds of processes are related, or even form extremes on a common scale, remains an open and important questions, not at least in the light of recent developments in robotics and AI.

The German articles have appeared here: Intelligent ohne Gehirn