By Abhishek Tiwari, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA; Sushant Sharma, Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, India; Ajeet K. Mall, Analog Devices, Bangalore, India.
Abstract
Although consciousness, intelligence and free will are undeniable parts of reality, the source of their existence has remained a mystery to laws of physics and mathematics. At the same time, research in the field of artificial intelligence
has been able to construct machines that can perform tasks usually associated with human intelligence, like playing chess (better than humans). Does this mean that human intelligence is merely an artifact of complex computations?
In this article, we argue that human intelligence is non-computational. The missing ingredient in modern science can be found in the non-material conception of life provided by the Vedanta, the ancient Indian system of science.
1. Introduction
The nature and origin of intelligence has remained an enigma for many centuries. Most scientific research has considered human intelligence to be an emergent property of the complex bio-molecular structure of the brain. But this approach has not been able to make much breakthrough in adequately explaining intelligence. In particular, if intelligence were truly molecular in nature then it should be possible to synthesize it in a laboratory. This has not been achieved yet.
On the other hand, recent advances in computer science and mathematics have given rise to the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Research in these fields has been able to create machines that can perform wonderful feats—feats that so far only human intelligence could achieve. Perhaps the most well-known example is the victory of IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer over the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. Today, machines can ‘read’ the addresses on letters using computer vision algorithms, and automatically sort them; fly airplanes as autopilots, or automatically correct spelling and grammar as we write this article.
Ironically, this remarkable success of the field of artificial intelligence has only created more questions, instead of providing any answers to the question we started out with: What is Intelligence? If the ‘intelligence’ of machines is
regarded as true intelligence, then clearly intelligence cannot be a product of a complex molecular structure exclusively—because the computer algorithms responsible for the behavior of the computer are not molecular. But then, it would mean that intelligence is computational in nature. This is hard to believe because we usually do not regard computing devices, like calculators, to be intelligent, although they can perform computations much faster than any human being.
In this article, we attempt to explore this deep and mysterious question about the source and nature of intelligence. The ancient Indian system of science and philosophy, the Vedanta, provides a spiritual understanding of intelligence, an aspect which has not been explored by modern science so far. We argue that the difficulty in understanding intelligence today arises from considering intelligence a physical phenomenon. The spiritual perspective from the Vedanta could show us a new direction that may prove more fruitful for resolving the questions that surround consciousness and intelligence.
In the rest of this article, we first classify different possible explanations for intelligence. The first three categories are physical, whereas the last one is the spiritual explanation. We consider the first three in turn and point out their
limitations in explaining intelligence. Finally, we conclude with the Vedantic perspective, which provides a spiritual understanding of intelligence.
Read more here. This essay is from the book: Science and Spiritual Quest 2007