It is often said that evolution is the driving force of the universe. Things change and evolution is all about change. But what drives evolution itself? What causes things to change in the first place? How is adaptation made possible?

If evolution is the engine of the universe, then intelligence is the fuel it runs on. Let us define intelligence as the ability to learn, reason, adapt to new situations, and problem solve. It is intelligence that gives us the ability to respond to changes occurring in our environment, glean information from the environment, and solve problems that it encounters. It is human intelligence that has made homo sapiens the preeminent species on the planet. It currently is the driving force on Earth. Let us now turn to how how the human brain creates intelligence.

The human brain has dual operating systems that combine to form human intelligence. The late psychologist Daniel Kahneman labelled them System 1 and System 2. System 1 represents human intuition and emotion. It runs just below our awareness. It is automatic, fast, and cool in that it doesn’t consume much energy. It relies primarily on older structures of the brain, including the amygdala (emotions and threat detection), the basal ganglia (habits and motor skills), some parts of the prefrontal cortex, the mesolimbic dopamine system (instant gratification and reward seeking behaviors), and the remainder of the limbic system (basic emotions and memory). It is System 1 that we rely on the most, serving as the maker and executor of quick decisions based on intuition, memory, and emotion. System 1 is embedded in our brain’s hardware so it capable of searching larges amounts of memory in a short period of time. This is the process that occurs in the background when you meet someone on the street and cannot remember their name, only to remember it a couple of hours later while washing dishes. System 1 has been executing a search to identify the person as a background task. The downside of System 1 is that since it is based on intuition, memory, and emotion, it is also the source of all cognitive biases that are wired into our brain. Kahneman identifies many of these in his book Thinking Fast and Slow. These biases have been honed over thousands of years of human experience and are part of human nature. Our instinctive fear of spiders and snakes harkens back to our ancestors on the Savannah, where it was learned that venomous spiders and snakes were to be avoided. We are the descendants of the ones that learned that lesson well.

System 2 in an entirely different beast providing us rational thought and reasoning through deduction, induction, and abduction. It relies on the more modern parts of the brain such as the prefrontal cortex (working memory and control), the anterior cingulate cortex (conflict monitoring and resource allocation), and the parietal cortex (attention and integration). It is a network of the higher order cognitive parts of the brain. It is slow, deliberate, and effortful. We are aware when we engage it. It is also an energy hog. While the entire brain is roughly 2%of our body weight, it consumes (largely System 2) approximately 20% of the resting energy we use daily. Take as an example professional chess players who have been shown to burn anywhere from 3,000 – 6,000 calories per day in major tournaments. System 2 also has its faults in the guise of logical fallacies.

As humans moved away from hunter-gatherer societies into agricultural societies that were more calorie rich, humans have relied more heavily on System 2 but still retain System 1 from our ancestors. Combined, System 1 and System 2 produce human intelligence in tandem that the ancient Greeks described with the rider horse metaphor. System 1 is the horse, representing unbridled energy to System 2, the rider. Without the horse, the rider will go nowhere fast, without the rider the horse will roam endlessly. System 2 harnesses System 1 as a guide pointing in the right direction, while System 2 then does the heavy lifting of cause and effect thinking. Together they form an unbeatable combination. Divided both crash and burn. United, humans were able to develop which allowed for more complex thinking and the ability to harness larger numbers of humans in societal groups (e.g. chimpanzees, our nearest DNA neighbor, can only form troops of at most 100 animals). With System 1 and System 2 providing intelligence, let us turn to the final part which is what intelligence wants.

In 2013, computer scientist, educator, and investor Alex Wissner-Gross unveiled an “equation for intelligence” during a talk at TEDxBeaconStreet (the presentation is available on YouTube). The equation consisted of 5 terms:

F = T ∇ Sτ

F represents intelligence as an action that generates Force. T is the strength of that force over time. ∇ is the gradient operator (nabla) which points to Sτ which is the set of all possible states and their corresponding freedom of action (S) over time horizon tau (τ). In short, intelligences seeks out those states which have the greatest freedom of action in the future. Intelligence likes to keep its options open and seeks out the best possible position it can find to accomplish that. To quote Wissner-Gross, “Intelligence doesn’t like to get trapped. ” The logical inferences that can be drawn from this simple equation are staggering (much of the following was first explored by Michael Sharf in a 2014 blog post at https://michaelscharf.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-new-equation-for-intelligence-f-t-s.html).

The first implication is that intelligence is constantly evaluating and assessing the surrounding environment. It constantly scans its surroundings looking for both threats and opportunities. Once discovered, intelligence then has to assess its current position, including strengths and weaknesses (giving the famous SWOT) and decide how to best respond. This iterative process is best captured by U.S Air Force Colonel John Boyd who developed the OODA loop which is a staple of pilot training. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. It captures the high stakes rapid decision making process pilots use in combat. You observe the environment, orient yourself to what it means for you, decide what to do, and act. As humans, we run this loop millions of times each day, under both System 1 and System 2. In short, intelligence is iterative and highly interactive.

The second implication is that evaluation and assessment requires a worldview for calculating values of threats and opportunities. For example, investment opportunities are calculated using standard models of risk and return. Without those models in place, assessing which investment opportunities to pursue would be impossible. Remember that a worldview is how one believes the world is working. Our worldviews are shaped by what we taught in school, by our parents, and by our experiences in real life. Without a worldview, events would be meaningless to us.

The third inference we can make from this equation is that intelligence must have a strong understanding of cause and effect. Intelligence lives by cause and effect. If I place my hand on a hot stove, I will get burned so I will not do that. Cause and effect allow intelligence to discern patterns in events that would otherwise appear random to us. If there is a fear of a recession coming (the cause), companies will make decisions based on that fact (the effect). Cause and effect also form the basis of intelligence anticipating the future. We project the effects of events that happening today. If you want to lose weight in the future, you have to exercise and eat right today. Without cause and effect, we cannot regulate those actions that will have harmful effects in the future.

The last inference we can make is that intelligence must have goals in order to seek out better positions in life. But what are those goals? And do we all have the same goals? It turns out that nature has hardwired into all living things 2 goals: survival and reproduction. All living things wish to continue living and propagate the species. It is the goal of survival that keeps us from doing extremely dangerous activities (most of us anyway). We don’t play in the streets and walk around in the middle of a war zone. We want to survive. And we want to have descendants so we create offspring. We want to leave our legacy in the world. These dual goals are the primary goals we have. All other goals flow from them. We want a nice house to live in, money to buy basic needs such as food and shelter, and raise children. In pursuit of these goals, we look to better ourselves by finding a better job, removing as much risk from our immediate surroundings as possible, and plan for a better future.

This then is how intelligence works in humans. Our intuitive emotional System 1 brain combines with our rational logical System 2 brain to create intelligence which requires a constant scanning of the environment for threats and opportunities which are assessed against our worldview. We do these in pursuit of the dual goals of survival and reproduction (life and parenthood). It is intelligence that drives the world around us.