Intelligence is a central feature of human beings’ primary and interpersonal experience. Understanding how intelligence originated and scaled during evolution is a key challenge for modern biology. Some of the most important approaches to understanding intelligence are the ongoing efforts to build new intelligences in computer science (AI) and bioengineering. However, progress has been stymied by a lack of multidisciplinary consensus on what is central about intelligence regardless of the details of its material composition or origin (evolved vs. engineered). We show that Buddhist concepts offer a unique perspective and facilitate a consilience of biology, cognitive science, and computer science toward understanding intelligence in truly diverse embodiments.

Collective intelligence and individual intelligence are usually considered to be fundamentally different. Individual intelligence is uncontroversial. It occurs in organisms with special neural machinery, evolved by natural selection to enable cognitive and learning functions that serve the fitness benefit of the organism, and then trained through lifetime experience to maximise individual rewards. Collective intelligence, in contrast, is a much more ambiguous idea. What exactly constitutes collective intelligence is often vague, and the mechanisms that might enable it are frequently domain-specific.

All epistemic agents physically consist of parts that must somehow comprise an integrated cognitive self. Biological individuals consist of subunits (organs, cells, and molecular networks) that are themselves complex and competent in their own native contexts. How do coherent biological Individuals result from the activity of smaller sub-agents?

A talk given to undergraduate students about ideas from biology that might help them think about AI and related topics.