[MaggieL]

“No one knows where the borderline between intelligent and non-intelligent behavior lies; in fact, to suggest that a sharp borderline exists is silly. But essential abilities for intelligence are certainly:

* to respond to situations flexibly
* to take advantage of fortuitous circumstances
* to make sense out of ambiguous or contradictory messages
* to recognize the relative importance of the different elements of a situation
* to find similarities between situations despite the differences which separate them
* to draw distinctions between situations despite the similarities which may link them
* to synthesize new concepts by taking old concepts and putting them together in new ways
* to come up with ideas that are novel.


—Douglas Hofstadter in Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid


“What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle. Our species has evolved may effective although imperfect methods, and each of us individually develops more on our own. Eventually, very few of our actions and decisions come to depend on any single mechanism. Instead, they emerge from conflicts and negotiations among societies of processes that constantly challenge one another.”— Marvin Minsky , from The Society of Mind