#BlogFeaturePost: A Case For Intelligence And Non-Intelligence

Hello everyone, here is a new writer on this platform called Sensi. Sensi is a budding but passionate writer. His articles and views are his own experiences and opinions and they are very interesting and enlightening. 

If you would like your written articles featured in my #BlogFeaturePost columns, kindly send them in to bukiotuyemi@gmail.com.

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Science has been a major proponent of intelligence being most important in the race for survival of any species. No wonder then that a monstrous premium has been put on the need for evolution of intelligence as an unquestionable yardstick for the perpetuation of filial generations to come.

Brute force and humongous physiology has all been flung out of the window and with the proverbial water, bath and even the baby discarded in this case. It is not the strongest that survive, it is the most adaptable to change. Adaptability doesn’t necessarily equate intelligence, although a case could be made for a threshold modicum of the latter for the former to even exist.

Looking at evolution and the lineage of fauna here on earth and using the Old Down Under (Australia) as a case in point, the mega-fauna started the downward spiral of disappearance/extinction in about exactly the same time as man first stepped on the shores of the land of Oddities. Size in this case, was not a criterion for excellence. The size of even the biggest of men is even incomparable to some of the least humongous of these terrestrial giants and yet, man triumphed, albeit ruthlessly and destructively. Coming over to man as an example, the question is asked – Does size arrogate intelligence? Was Goliath of Gath probably the most intelligent man ever?  I am sure the answer to this poser is unequivocal with no jot of ambivalence.

 It has been known that it is easy to tell an intelligent man but nigh on impossible to tell him much.   Self-conceit and surety of convictions is a few characteristics of such people. In the race for survival, dogma and obstreperous attitudes are usually catastrophic. The ability to morph, camouflage to reflect the surrounding environment (be it the deep jungles of the amazon in Latin America or the corporate labyrinths on Wall Street) is of great import. The ability to mirror the surrounding should of necessity be facile. The world around us is more concerned with outputs (appearances, words and facial expressions) than what lies inside. Being a make-believe world, care must be taken not to mimic and incorporate the wrong knowledge because the inner sanctum could be another ballgame entirely. 

Were, say, a teenager to have fallen asleep in the late 80’s and woken up in the present time, to the pings/sleekness of ‘actually’ mobile phones, the  fine HD, UHD, K televisions the world would have seem to such an individual, quite unfamiliar.

This 80’s Rip Van winkle would have blanched at the race for nascent and upcoming technologies whose appellatives defy common sense. But then, these technologies actually do defy common sense in the way they perform and operate.  Such technologies include augmented reality, artificial intelligence etcetera. At the risk of coming across as a Luddite, let us take a second to digest what these words mean, it means to amplify real life - how does one even do that, how? Those concerned with ersatz pursuits/situations, fixations about being abreast and actually enjoying latest technologies churned out by the West are in for a shocker in the upcoming years. It really is the information age, as such mobile phones, TVs; social media are avenues of peddling information no matter how suggestive and manipulative such communications are. Nevertheless, sometimes to willfully resist will be adjudicated as a sign of rebellion.  The onus is on each individual to be able to discern where to draw the line and resist the bandwagon effect; moderation as they say is the key to life.

Adaptability is of a higher value than intelligence, ability to adjust in a given situation/niche in itself is a representation/sign of intelligence.

Intelligence in this world we live in entails resisting the manufactured consensus, to exalt the unknown, to not be overly curious about the latest ‘things’– whatever that represents. I do not assume to be the wisest tree in a thicket of folly but it is meet to give birth to these words and thereby purge my system.

Thanks and cheers.
Article Written by : Sensi.