This page is a growing collection of people’s perspective on EI.
Aristotle
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_cause
“The unmoved movers are, themselves, immaterial substance,”
“This immaterial form of activity must be intellectual in nature and it cannot be contingent upon sensory perception if it is to remain uniform; therefore eternal substance must think only of thinking itself and exist outside the starry sphere, where even the notion of place is undefined for Aristotle.”
This is Embedded Intelligence, Aristotle style.
EI and Information
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information
“Information is that which informs, i.e. that from which data can be derived. Information is conveyed either as the content of a message or through the direct or indirect observation of something. That which is perceived can be construed as a message in its own right, and in that sense, information is always conveyed as the content of a message.”
Rob Blair
“Phase 1 “EI”: Embedded Information – non-living “bits” of the universe which itself evolved from an energy plasma, to sub atomic particles to elementary matter to stars, planets, etc. Astrophysicists like David Weintraub and theorists like Alan Guth have worked much of this out (see Guth’s book: The Inflationary Universe). This leads to Phase 2.
Phase 2 “EI”: Embedded Intelligence – living things that by definition evolved an awareness of self over geologic time enough to react in a manner to metabolize and adapt to its surroundings, reproduce, contain an assembly code (DNA, RNA) that is maintained and passed along via reproduction (add additional attributes). Living things have the ability to “learn, understand and deal with new situations” to survive. This leads to Phase 3.
Phase 3 “EI”: Embedded Integration – the human species now appears to be entering into a new age where electronic sensing and communication is linking a majority of the population and its environment into a singular-acting “organism” (see July 2014 Scientific American cover article “Living in the connected World: How global sensor networks are extending the human nervous system” and Peter Russell’s Global Brain).”
Fred Washburn
“All living things have a built-in embedded intelligent system to survive. Whether it be the amoeba knowing when to divide, the bird how to fly, or humans knowing how to learn and apply what they have learned, all have an embedded intelligence system.”
“As men were able to move past survival because of the gift of their unique intellect, it allowed them to solve problems. Their problem solving went beyond building fire to building language that made it possible to examine the intangibles of life. They started to examine the idea of being. Thinkers or philosophers down through the ages have struggled with the idea of being, ‘esse’ or reality. What is the true nature of reality? Is reality Plato’s idea that men only experience a shadow of what is real and reality exists beyond what man can know? If the inscription over the door to Plato’s school was indeed ‘Let no one without geometry enter here,’ then the ancient philosopher realized how mathematics and science were critical to resolving the gap between science and the metaphysical. They recognized that mathematical study is closer to reality than the five senses perceive. However, they had a hard time resolving the dilemma of where reality exists.
Over the centuries, man has moved closer to solving the dilemmas that natural and supernatural studies throw at us. Studying the universe, unlocking the atom, and realizing the complexity of living creatures have brought us closer to the reality that we experience. We have a glimmer past Plato’s shadows on the wall. Maybe we are on the threshold of finding the God particle, the embedded intelligence, or the unmoved mover thus resolving the question of where reality exists.
We observe snowflakes from afar and they are all snow, but observe them closely and they are all different. What force causes them to be different yet the same? These similarities yet differences exist throughout the universe. No two things are perfectly the same. There is a force of creation that gives rise to the huge spectrum of viruses (a nod to what is happening now) and any other being or substance. Then also we humans, who have the ability of language, making a huge spectrum of human beings who have made a huge spectrum of abstract thought. Somewhere in all matter is a force that defines reality, ‘esse’, or being that is the cause of all these evolving differences.
All the philosophers and scientists have recognized that there is a force. From Plato, Aquinas, Spinoza to Mensch, they see the logic of the existence of one defining force.”
Fred
Joseph Campbell
In the book titled The Inner Reaches of Outer Space by Joseph Campbell writes on pages 13 and 14:
“Bioenergies that are the essence of life itself, and which, when unbridled, become terrific, horrifying, and destructive.
The first, most elementary and horrifying of all, is the innocent voraciousness of life which feeds on lives and provides the first interest of the infant feeding on its mother.”
“The second primal compulsion, linked almost in identity with the first (as recognized in the Abyssinian Paean), is the sexual, generative urge, which during the years of passage out of infancy comes to knowledge with such urgency that in its seasons it overleaps the claims even of the first.”
“A third motivation, which on the world stage of world history has been the unique generator of the action – since the period, at least, of Sargon I of Akkad, in southern Mesopotamia, c. 2300 BC – is the apparently irresistible impulse to plunder. …. an impulse launched from the eyes, not to consume, but to possess.”
We humans have developed and evolved our embedded intelligence system to such a degree that we are constantly exploring what we know to be our body, mind, soul, and the world or universe we live in. Now we are beginning to understand what we know about the universe, both sub-atomically and beyond the bounds of this planet, searching for the embedded intelligence of everything.
Sometimes our beliefs are held onto long after we know better, thus disabling or confusing our embedded intelligence. We celebrate and enjoy our beliefs, what we know, and understand providing for application of that which we understand, engineering a better world we live in.