Intelligence comes from a Latin noun "intelligentia" that is taken from the verb "intelligere" which means "to comprehend, to perceive or to pick up". It is the general cognitive problem-solving skill and is the high capacity of learning or understanding. Intelligence is a relative term. Thus if we humans were to design an Artificial Intelligence, it would be derivative of Human's Intelligence. Here are some aspects of Intelligence that defines Intelligence as a whole:-
Knowledge: An Infant starts gathering
information from his surrounding. He starts storing those information. In terms
of Machines, it's basically having a dataset in the memory. This dataset can
either be pre-stored in the memory or taken from the surroundings using various
sensors.
Perceiving: With the information that the
infant gathers, he starts to make some inferences out of it. He starts to make
out some meaning from it. A perception is build from the information gathered
by his surrounding things and People. A deduction is made from these built in
perceptions.
Learning: This starts somewhere around four to
five years of age. This process actually is an infinite, 'while (True)' loop of
acquiring knowledge and comprehension .
Recalling: This stage comprises of remembering
and recalling a stimulus based information.
Communicating: This is actually a very
important part of the process. To be able to communicate means to be able to
share the information optimally with others- both in written and in spoken
form.
Reasoning: This is an extraordinary skill of
Intelligence. The ability to argue/debate/reason other's opinions on the basis
of our perception.
Analyzing: This step involves filtering out the
useless data out of the knowledge dataset. This is based on recognizing
patterns that keep recurring in their operation.
Problem Solving: This step involves assessment of the
situation, identification of the problem and arriving at the most feasible
resolution.
These aspects are
based on a very simplified theory of Intelligence. So, all those Daniel Goleman
fans out there…No I didn’t take Emotional Intelligence into consideration.
(It's a great book though).
Now lets look at the
various types of Intelligence. These types were given by Harvard Gardener, an
American development Psychologist. He described intelligence to be in multi-folds.
Inter-Personal Intelligence: The ability of
distinguishing, understanding and perceiving other people's feelings. Mostly
found in Managers, HR Personals, Public Speakers etc.
Intra-Personal Intelligence: With this
Intelligence, we get the ability to distinguish the feelings that reside within
ourselves. Daniel Goleman calls it Self-Awareness. People who possess
Intra-Personal Intelligence are Great Thinkers(eg. Vivekananda, Gautam Buddha
and so on…).
Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: The ability to
use the entire body or parts of the body to solve problems, design or create
things, use fine and crude motor skills to control and maneuver objects. For
instance the sportsmen and Dancers.
Spatial Intelligence: It provides the ability
to interact with one surroundings. It enables us to:
- Analyze and comprehend the visual information
- Change the information
- Re-create the spatial images without referring to the various objects
- Construct 3D images
- To move and rotate the objects
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: It's the
capability to comprehend complex logical relationships without making use of
any actions or objects. Logical-mathematical intelligence is achieved by
understanding, analyzing and recognizing patterns if activities in a domain. It
also aids in understanding complicated and abstract ideas.
Musical Intelligence: Musical Intelligence is
the prowess to understanding how sounds are created. It is the ability to
learn, invent, recall and perform the rhythmic and soothing sounds that create
music as a whole.
Linguistic Intelligence: It enables one to
understand, speak and recognize the use of sounds in a language, along with its
rules and semantics that help in communicating clearly. Speaking, writing and
listening are the possible by Linguistic Intelligence.
