What is intelligence?

 

Leaving the Denver Marriott after MUFON 2006 I piled into the airport shuttle bus along with a full contingent of hardy travelers. Everyone on the same mission – get to the airport and get home. Energies drained from full weekend of activity, we’re all running on caffeine and the anticipation of our travel-day to come.

 

Speaking for myself, many of the presentations were still running through my head. I found my thoughts and attention divided between the day before and the day ahead. Great conference, and many memorable moments and yet, at the same time, it was good to be going home.

 

Like strangers in an elevator, the shuttle bus passengers were at first strangely quiet. I recognized a few as having been MUFON attendees and the rest were all anonymous.

Out of the blue, a MUFON member in front of me asked the driver if he’d ever seen anything unusual in the sky while driving around Denver all these years.

 

To our pleasant surprise, the driver replied in the affirmative and began telling us about several sightings he remembered. That really broke the ice and soon random conversations broke out amongst the passengers and driver. It became somewhat clearer then as to who had been at MUFON and who hadn’t.

 

A handful of people looked around nervously and somewhat embarrassedly when the subject first came up. They quickly took note of who else was or wasn’t talking aloud about UFOs. Only when it became evident that the subject was a comfortable one for the majority, did the ‘regular citizens’ chime in. Peer pressure rears its head in every group dynamic.

 

I don’t remember exactly when or how but the subject of ‘Intelligent Life’ came up.

Everyone agreed that intelligent life must exist elsewhere in the cosmos. I wondered aloud if we, here on earth should qualify. I made some cynical joke about how the search for intelligent life in the universe must go on since the ‘jury was still out’ on whether or not we humans should be included or excluded.

 

What is ‘intelligence’? Is the ability to make war on each other intelligent? Is polluting the air and water intelligent? Are secret prisons and torture intelligent? Is slavery (yes, it’s still going on in the world) intelligent? Is unbridled greed and materialism intelligent? Is totalitarianism intelligent? Are weapons in space intelligent?

 

Are the concepts of Forbidden Knowledge and Denial signs of intelligence? We as humans, tend to project our own beliefs and emotions on the world we see. We ascribe human motives and emotions to events and scenarios unfolding around us. When we think we see a human-like pattern we further assume some intelligence at work.

 

Yes we’re more apt to build a nuclear submarine or Boeing 747 than a mouse or a dolphin would. By the same token, if we’re clever enough to build bigger, better bombs all the while incapable of getting along with each other and thereby running a good risk of destroying ourselves, just how clever are we? If we somehow manage to get off this planet and seed our worst traits all over the nearby planets, turning them one by one into polluted, inhospitable worlds to be discarded like trash after a few millennium, just how intelligent are we?

 

Will we easily recognize Extra-Terrestrial intelligence when we find it? If it fits our preconceived notions of intelligence we will. If we were to discover a race of sentient beings that live and prosper without war machines and naked aggression, would we think more or less of them? If we in turn, use, abuse, and wipeout such a race - who is the superior civilization? Does good always triumph over evil? Does might make right?

 

Does E.T. apply a similar test to us? Do we regularly pass or fail? If they have existed for a millennium or more than we (judging by their technological advantage) have they gained the wisdom that we seem to lack? If they turn out to be uber versions of our worst impulses – that is, as greedy, nasty, and war-like as us but even better at it, are they still superior beings just because they have faster ships and bad-assed weapons and more advanced ways to satisfy their collective impulses?

 

If an E.T. race is genuinely peaceful and generally benign (any species has the right to a defense) would they feel inclined to have contact with us? Perhaps their curiosity about us would be the equivalent of people slowing down to look at a car wreck. They don’t want to be a part of the car wreck but can’t help but look because of some morbid curiosity or pity.

 

Stan Friedman lectures that if E.T. were to give us tremendously advanced technology it would be tantamount to giving loaded pistols to two year olds. The #1 output of the human race, the single thing we do best, seems to be tribal warfare. The cleverness of our technology, optimized for war may propel Stan Friedman’s metaphor into prophecy. Smart bombs aren’t the same as smart people. The physics and science that goes into building nuclear weapons doesn’t consider whether or not we’re wise enough to be messing around with such technology in the first place.

 

If E.T.’s higher intelligence is linked to a higher wisdom, then perhaps they’d be wise to keep an eye on us at the same time that they’re keeping their distance. At the risk of being yet another one to project human reasoning on a cosmos we know so little about, this seems like a logical, practical, prudent approach. Until I can interview Them - their reasoning and their motives will remain uh, Alien.

 

The airport shuttle dropped us all off at the imposing Denver International Airport (DIA). Temporarily brought together for a few days of common interest and study, we were now once more, flung to the wind. The search for intelligent life would shift focus from the macro to the micro - the more mundane, immediate goals of airline travel and anticipated reunions back home.

 

Going through security I was challenged by a TSA employee, whose broken English-Speak was so bad someone standing nearby had to interpret for me. Oh, okay, I’m in the wrong line. After that I nearly breezed through and found myself amazed that so many little old ladies and men were to be seen pulled aside and being given the third degree as only the TSA can.

To be fair, war was at that moment erupting (again) in the middle-east and tensions about perceived terrorist threats were elevated. I just don’t know why so many senior Americans are now suspects. It’s absurd. They’re obviously more terrified and rattled by this experience at the hands of their own government’s best intentions than any implied foreign threat. It reminded me of the scene in one of the Airplane! movies where some little old lady gets jacked up while the obvious terrorists walk by. With all the TSA’s modern technology – x-rays, scanners, bomb sniffers, surveillance cameras – all products of ‘intelligence’ - where is their common sense, their wisdom ? Where is their intelligence?

 

 

“Momma says, stupid is as stupid does” Forrest Gump

“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them” George Orwell

 

RM

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