“the apperception of pattern as such”
Q: Please define intelligence.
Strangely enough, I was thinking about this today, as I can't even remember why. But I produced a definition. It's a kind of a cribbing from Whitehead. Whitehead defined understanding in the following way. He said, understanding is the apperception of pattern as such. That's all. For instance, in this room, there are many patterns where the men are, where the women are, where the over 40s are, where the under 40s are, where the wealthy and the poor are. Each of these patterns, if you can see it, tells you more about the situation. And presumably, there are an infinite number of these informative patterns. So I would define intelligence as Whitehead defined understanding. Intelligence is the apperception of pattern as such. And the more of the pattern and the more patterns that you perceive, the more intelligent you are. Of course, these patterns must actually be there. Otherwise, you're delusory. And that's a different issue. - Terrance McKenna, Taxonomy of Illusion