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stated that intelligence was a trait of organic creatures, then we
might be ruling out the possibility of intelligent life on other galax
ies, where life was not based on carbon molecules (the basis for or
ganic chemistry), but rather on silicon or some other chemical.
This difficulty is compounded in that we do not know how we
think or what makes up our intelligence. We have a wide range of
thoughts, but we do not know how those come about. At one level,
our human behavior is based on our experiences and our system of
neurons in the brain and throughout the body. At this level, our
bodies have a network of neural cells that collect data and handle
basic processing tasks. In our environment, we identify external
conditions through our senses of touch, sight, taste, hearing, and
smell. Through experience, we learn how to respond to various con
ditions. When we feel extreme heat, we move away. When we are
moving through a building and see a wall and a door, we head for
the door rather than try to move through the wall.
Through our experience, we also know how to coordinate the ac
tions of various parts of our body to accomplish a task. To lift a glass,
we have learned what muscles to use in what order to move our hand
out to the glass, then to grasp it and raise it. In watching the actions
of a baby or young child, it is clear that we are not born with knowl
edge to move away from extreme heat or the skill to lift a glass. These
are learned behaviors, based on experience and trial and error. We re
ceive stimuli, and we learn how to respond in various satisfactory
ways. Certainly, at one level of our lives, we operate unconsciously,
and much of that activity seems to depend on responding to stimuli
according to learned behaviors that have become programmed into
our system of neural cells.
In recent years, scientific research has identified parts of the
brain that process various types of stimuli, and we know that cer
tain areas of the brain are associated with the processing of specific
activities and behaviors. For many behaviors, researchers can track
how stimuli come into the brain, and what parts of the brain handle
the processing that produces the observed response.
Above this stimulusresponse level, we identify such processes as
thought, decision making, and consciousness. We find ourselves
constructing logical arguments, making judgments, and choosing
among alternatives. A basic question is whether or not this process
involves more than the interactions of neuron cells, already dis
