What is Cultured Intelligence?
There is no dearth of intelligence in this world. We have one of the IQ tests. Howard Gardner then expanded our perspective by including musical ability, physical ability, spatial sense and other such abilities in our understanding of intelligence. And then we learned the importance of Emotional Intelligence- the ability to respond well to a situation.
And today we are gobsmacked by Artificial Intelligence. So creepy and amazing at the same time.
Its opened up many questions. (Or perhaps brought back the questions that were asked a hundred years ago at the dawn of the Industrial Age). Are we nature or machines? If we are nature and we created the machine, then is the machine natural? Are we programmed robots, considering we seem to learn in a similar way to them. Is our love then just a chemical reaction? Are our emotions pre-programmed as survival mechanisms alone?
Some believe we’re no more than machines, reducible to mere chemical reactions. I also know people who protest this, but find it very difficult to say what exactly makes us different.
I belong to the second category. My belief is that even if you say we are programmed, it is done by an intelligence far superior than anything that exists today.
Probably in future some amongst us will choose to become machines. Perhaps life will become easier for them.
But there is a niggling seed of doubt. The machines have not always served us well. Industrialization of our food, health and minds has not always served our best interests. Perhaps the approach to look at us as machines is making us somehow callous. The human becomes disposable and redundant. The profit, scale and numbers become the altar.
There seems to be a struggle amongst us today that should not exist if machines were the magical answer.Along with our development of the machines, we need to develop an intelligence that will help us ease our struggle and live healthier lives.
I believe this intelligence is inherent in Culture.
I believe we are different from the machines in the simple way of who we are. For we are creatures with a body, that eat food, live in complex social structures and deal with things that we sometimes can’t make sense of. We come with an intelligence that is inherent. And sometimes overlooked.
I coined the term ‘Cultured Intelligence’ to capture a kind of intelligence rooted in our environment, traditions, and the invisible forces that shape us.
*The society and environment that surrounds us, our customs, beliefs, languages and traditions.
*The dance that we do without realizing it. For does a jellyfish ever wonder if she is dancing?
*The things we grow – plants or micro-organisms or ideas.
*And culture in its root meaning “to tend”. To nurture and take care of something.
There is one definition of culture that I will leave out of this site. I will not be writing about the elegant, well groomed culture-vulture busy attending art events and sipping fine wine.
At its core, Cultured Intelligence is the recognition that we are more than the sum of our chemical reactions or algorithms. It’s the intelligence that comes from nurturing our environment, our relationships, and our bodies. Unlike machines, we are grounded in traditions, emotions, and the wisdom of those who came before us. This intelligence helps us navigate an increasingly industrialized world, reminding us that progress isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about balance and care.