**2. Intelligence and optimization**

What do we understand by intelligence? Obviously, it indicates problem-solving capacity, but what does that mean? The development of intelligence testing is based on their measuring capacity, but what do they measure? An essence of rationality is optimization, but how, and what, can we optimize?

#### **2.1 Intelligence**

The lexical meaning of intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. The ability to acquire knowledge is evidently linked to personal capacity as individuals are born different. Inherent assets may not be realized due to external factors such as malnutrition, deceases, social instability or injuries. The same reasons that hamper people from acquiring knowledge and skills may also cause obstacles in applying them.

The standard definitions seem to pay less or no attention to the potential targets of intelligence. What are the actual contexts where intelligence works? What is the focus? Is it a question of solving particular problems, or to act successfully over longer time periods in changing conditions to achieve some distant end? Does it include only logic and attention, or emotions as well? Is intelligence part of developing and organizing social and symbolic systems?

The more limited the target of our mental activities is, the easier it is to find out ways of optimizing. This is a standard version of rationality. In the gender-centered world some of us still live in, female prejudices attribute "typical male" approaches to "tube-thinking". Male biases attribute "typical female" approaches to "funnel cake-thinking". Either way, rationality is defined according to particular contexts. Males would be accused of lacking the capability to understand matters related to social complexity. Females would face the blame of lacking capacity to rationalize and optimize. This issue exceeds gender speculations as it is an existential matter. All of us are part of the complexity of this world.

The lexical meaning of artificial intelligence refers to the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence. Visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making and translation between languages are often mentioned examples. Optimizing seems to be an integrated and necessary part of programming and the elaboration of algorithms, which makes "tube-thinking" necessary. When expanded into a "funnel-cake thinking", problems arise. Optimization-based rationality gets complicated or outright impossible.

### **2.2 Testing intelligence**

Allegedly the first to create a test, in 1905, was Frenchman Alfred Binet (1857–1911) together with his colleague Théodore Simon (1873–1961) [1]. Binet considered intelligence to be a mixture of mental faculties, emerging in changing conditions and controlled by practical judgement. He did not view intelligence as a fixed capacity. Intelligence could not be measured, only classified. The test categorized the mental age of children, and was a way to assess the mental adequacy of the tested compared to the mental average for persons of the same age.

#### *A Panglossian Dilemma DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95944*

In the USA, eugenicist Henry H. Goddard (1866–1957) got acquainted to the Binet-Simon Scale, and saw it as a way to detect feebleminded people for compulsory sterilization, matching the view of intelligence as genetically inherited. In 1916, Lewis Terman (1877–1956) issued the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, sticking to the view of intelligence as unchangeable.

The pioneer of American behaviorism, Edward Thorndike (1874–1949), defined intelligence in terms of the capability to form neural bonds based on genetic factors as well as experience. J.P. Guilford (1897–1987) maintained that standard IQ tests imply an oversimplified answer, convergent thinking. Creativity on the other hand implies per definition more than one answer to any problem, divergent thinking. He disputed reductionism, and ended up with 180 different types of intelligence, which for practical reasons would limit the use of his method.

In Britten, Charles Spearman (1863–1945) claimed in 1904 that disparate cognitive test scores reflect a single general intelligence factor, and assumed that the psychological g factor would correspond to a biological g factor. This position did not remain uncriticized. Raymond Cattell (1905–1998) developed Spearman's ideas. Fluid intelligence refers to the ability to reason abstractly and perceive relations without previous practice or instructions. Crystalized intelligence generates from experience, learning and accumulated judgement skills. He elaborated a test to assess fluid intelligence by making it culture-fair. His promotion of eugenics has, however, been a cause of critique.

The changing approaches to testing indicate that human intelligence is a controversial matter, and very much embedded in those culture-specific societies from where the theories emerge. Even the fairly recent invention of emotional intelligence (EI) is phrased according to strongly utilitarian guidelines, meaning how to manage emotions to achieve one's goals.

Intelligence testing has historical bonds to biologism and eugenics, which have providing a pseudoscientific basis for racism. Testing reflects the way the overall context of intelligence is conceived. When testing changed from classification to computing, the focus was by necessity narrowed down to matters that could be measured. The perspective should be broadened up as testing intelligence is a moral matter as well. There are many different kinds of utility, and other aspects besides utility to be consider. Is there a happiness-intelligence or only a dissatisfactionintelligences? Are we looking for creativity, many answers to a problem, or are we looking for optimum, the best answer to one problem?

### **2.3 Optimization**

When we optimize, we either seek to minimize resources when pursuing defined ends, or alternatively, we try to optimize results within given resources. Both cases require a time table, often broken down into sub-targets on the way to an end. Optimization may also indicate the attempt to minimize time-use within available resources and defined output, or regardless those.

Economic ventures are typical targets of optimizing, but optimization does not necessarily cover all aspects of a single project. Negative externalities, such a depletion of resources, natural hazards, social and cultural costs that are caused by private entrepreneurs, are still often passed over to public administration and tax payers. In addition, even single projects cannot be optimized without a fixed point of reference in time. In hindsight, many owners of projects would recognize that a change of time perspective could have ended in very different results. An optimum is a function of time.

The issue of benefits to optimize may also be viewed in terms of various kinds of markets according to market access (restricted versus non-restricted) and

competition within a market (rivalrous versus non-rivalrous). The market for private goods is per definition restricted and rivalrous. One can enter only in case demanded resources are possessed. Optimization is possible and needed for private benefits. The idea of an unrestricted and free market is an abstraction as the very logic of capitalism induces market restrictions and monopolies. If not, there would be no use for anti-trust legislation. Governments and politics can influence the market of private goods mainly indirectly, by implementing laws and regulations.

Club goods indicate restricted and non-rivalrous markets, which the club can optimize according to conceived club-benefits. Markets for common goods are non-restricted, but rivalrous and the common assets are at risk of being depleted, i.e. the "tragedy of the commons" [2]. Because of non-restrictedness, an optimization is impossible, and public government can interfere only indirectly. Public goods are open for all and do not imply rivalry among users. Because of their open access, there is nothing to optimize from the point of view of public government, except for goods that have to be produced and managed. Sunshine is free for all, but public space needs to be built and maintained.

Singular optimizations sustain competition and the destruction of competitors. But what about the overall economic system and the wellbeing of citizens? Optimizing parts may cause an overall disastrous waste of resources. Adam Smith (1723–1790) claimed there is an overall order in the chaos [3]. He proclaimed that the totality of self-interested actions would eventually cause unintended social benefits. A prudent reader may recollect that the "invisible hand" of markets was not all that invisible: Smith worked for the monopoly at the time, the East India Company.

Governing the national economy is now executed according to the same logic as single ventures. It is boiled down to a restricted number of indicators, like the GNP, and aims at optimizing economic growth. Growth is an end in itself, and the focus of public and general interest. In political rhetoric, positive as well as negative growth lend themselves to very far-reaching conclusions as to their alleged effects on human matters.

GNP reflects the sum of its constitutive parts, which are thought to be optimizable. Nonetheless, a considerable part of the economy is no target for optimizing at all. Common and public goods, being related to public interests such as the smooth running of everyday life, care for tax-payers money and public revenues, are optimized by the political system. The "political system" is a very vague term that may reflect anything from particular interests to the whole body of citizens, or even to humanity as listed in human rights. Insofar as politicians optimize their commitments, they usually focus on the lengths of their tenures.

Human intelligence seemed to escape us, but so does artificial intelligence! For the majority of people, GNP and its annual fluctuations is a very poor indicator for quality of life. Nor does the investor-driven use of artificial intelligence for programming maximum revenues at the stock exchange say much about the utility of the exchange for citizens in general. Maybe the question to ask ourselves is not how artificial intelligence can be humanized, but rather why human life has been reduced to forms that can be optimized by artificial intelligence?

#### **3. Rationale and rationality**

To conduct oneself intelligently in a rational manner, one has to relate one's actions to a given context. What is the context and how is it formed? Is it something to be made up from case to case, or is it more general? Does rationality change according to context? How to choose when one has to? Does choice by necessity indicate moral judgement? What is the role of science in all this?
