Significant human problems are inherently spiritual and moral problems.  Challenges involving other human beings, or the environment upon which other living creatures depend, invariably encompass spiritual and moral dimensions for successful solutions.  Therefore, intelligence alone, as a discrete faculty of mind, is incapable of solving significant problems.

Intelligence at best is a blind handmaiden of truth.  For example, a highly intelligent person mistreats a child in the morning, because intelligence alone cannot prevent the crime, and that afternoon achieves a high score on an I.Q. test.  Conversely, a person of low average intelligence saves the life of a child in the morning, because nothing in low intelligence impedes heroism, yet that afternoon, he cannot raise his I.Q. score one point.

In the information age and with A.I. fever sweeping the land, high intelligence, with or without knowledge or wisdom, is a prized trait.  Let’s explore the limitations of intelligence, and how they are exploding into spiritual and moral danger as A.I. comes to dominate the representation of reality.  

Psychology has pursued definitions of intelligence since Spearman published his theory of general intelligence, “g,” in 1904.  Psychologists still squabble about distinct mental abilities of “g,” with models ranging from seven to 150 abilities.  But every model identifies problem-solving as a primary function of intelligence, asserting that high intelligence correlates with superior problem-solving.  This tautological assumption is because psychologists don’t distinguish between their tests and significant problems.  Or as E.G. Boring famously quipped, “intelligence is what intelligence tests measure.”  Now, the most powerful intelligence in history is going to be what the masters of A.I. say intelligence is.

So far, A.I. has brought degradation of reality to me.  For many years, I have enjoyed looking at photographs of a Persian gentleman whose name at birth was Merwan Irani but who came to be called Meher Baba.  Between the 1920s and 1969, when he passed away, he was photographed thousands of times.  I recently visited YouTube and for the first time saw Meher Baba’s face planted on top of another man’s body.

Meher Baba was silent for 44 years, and there is no recording of his voice, so it can never be despoiled.  Not so for another lately deceased.  Glenn Beck recently shared his revulsion at Jim Acosta for using A.I. necromancy to brew a dialogue about “gun violence” with an age-advanced boy named Joaquin Oliver.  Joaquin was murdered in the Parkland massacre.  Beck says of this exploitation, “It’s the image of a dead kid, long buried, animated.  Like a puppet, for the politics of those who are still living.”  Acosta defiles the memory of the deceased youngster by turning him into a posthumous left-wing stooge.  Asked his solution to “gun violence,” Joaquin praises Acosta’s supposed “great question!”  The deceased Joaquin then intones anti-gun platitudes and mental health utopianism before adding, “We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure everyone feels seen and heard.”  It’s the fabricated voice of a murdered boy spouting prog drivel from the grave.

Let’s explore the limitations of intelligence in two high-I.Q. public figures, Dr. Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk.  Peterson’s research and talks emphasize the importance of intelligence in career success.  However, Peterson’s career itself suggests that intelligence in academia is important only until one runs into the demands of conscience.  His successful career at the University of Toronto ended because he refused to be compelled to speak objectively incorrect words to identify students’ biological sex.  The professoriate at the University of Toronto are surely highly intelligent people.  Do they all believe that a male becomes a female upon personal fiat?  Not one of that brainy cohort had the courage or integrity to support a colleague’s right to question compelled speech.

Courage is independent of intelligence.  Will A.I. generate courage?  Peterson was ordered by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to “adopt a more respectful tone” in his public statements.  How can he infuse respect toward people who sterilize and mutilate children, people whom he calls “butchers” and “liars”?

Is A.I. constrained by conscience?  Addiction mocks intelligence.  Peterson was so dopey as to use diabolical benzodiazepines to muffle his unique treasury of suffering.  His survival plan was aided by high intelligence, but the commonplace currency of love alone had the power to save his life.

There are at least 133 bills before state legislatures challenging the medical resexing of children.  Research psychologists are intelligent.  Yet without conducting unbiased research, they strongly support such irreversible procedures.  If the intelligence of psychologists, supposedly subject to rigorous ethics, does not protect against viewpoint conformity or anti-religious prejudice, how can A.I.?

Another brainy group, medical doctors, forced de facto medical experimentation on millions of Americans and enforced the falsehood that numerous mRNA “vaccinations” were protective during the COVID crisis.  If the high intelligence of doctors treating patients did not protect against dangerous medical conformity, how can A.I.?

Elon Musk deserves the overworked appellation of genius.  Genius is more than high intelligence; it is the creative capacity for original, positive generativity, which can benefit everyone.  However, even genius cannot solve spiritual and moral problems unless intellect is guided by its companions of intuition, inspiration, and insight.  Prejudice is created by lack of knowledge of the other.  Elon was so disparaging to federal workers that he had to backtrack on statements as he departed DOGE.  Intelligence in itself does not nourish humility.  Will A.I.?  Also, upon departing from DOGE, Elon had what looked like a teenage rebellion against father figure, Trump.  Constancy and loyalty are often reflections of prior experience, independent of intelligence.

The problems associated with sex and procreation are among the pre-eminent challenges to mankind.  Their truest and most ego-effacing solution is sanctified monogamy.  Elon Musk says his lifestyle, an unusual form of non-sanctified polygamy, is not to solve the problems of sex and optimal child-rearing, but to build a population for America and Mars.  Perhaps genius hears the calling from outer space rather than the pitter-patter of little feet.  Meanwhile, the genius can do something great for humanity: build fancy Tesla villages for the Gazans, enrich poor regions, and get this mess over with.

Shortly before his death, Abraham Maslow recognized that his famous hierarchy lacked its true pinnacle of need for self-transcendence.  Let’s reformulate Maslow’s model, not as a triangle of needs, but as nested concentric circles of significant problems facing all human beings.  Traversing the rings of significant problems: physiological survival, physical safety, love and belonging, esteem, self-actualization, and self-transcendence.  The path moves from outer needs of the body to inner needs of the heart and finally the longing of the soul.  At the most external level of need for food, science based upon intelligence has reduced hunger around the world.  Today, chronic hunger, whether a child with drug-affected parents or the poorest nations, is caused by corruption.

The problems of crime and war result from greed and selfishness, not lack of intelligence.  Belonging, esteem, and self-actualization are longings of the heart independent of intelligence.  They are ameliorated through respect and responsibility for self and others, and freedom.  There is a divine infinite intelligence that speaks in the soul and lights the way to self-transcendence.  Will A.I. answer the longing of the heart or sovereignty of the soul?

For more on this topic, you are invited to read Hendrix, Rockwell, and the Goggles of Hell by Jedd Tyler.

Image: ElisaRiva via Pixabay, Pixabay License.