I would have titled this piece, “What is intelligence,” but that would imply that I was prepared to give the answer, and I cannot. I’ll just chew on it awhile and see what develops. For starters I will boldly say something we don’t always think about. “All life is the essence of intelligence.” The possession of intelligence is the difference between living things and simple matter or dirt. While the various energies (light, heat, electricity. etc.) are often a cause, they are completely void of intelligence.

When saying all life has a degree of intelligence, I mean ALL life! An apple seed has within itself the know-how to become an apple tree. It can grow into a tree and produce more apples. The seed did not attend apple seed school. It has been gifted, like all other life forms, with the ability to do what it has been created to do. All life has a determined, intelligent, purpose.

You go to school or a college, not to imbue yourself with intelligence. They do not sell intelligence. You already have the intelligence to understand, or they wouldn’t accept you. They just guide you (hopefully) in the awareness of things which will help you to have a productive life. They give your intelligence routes to follow.

Intelligence is probably the most difficult thing to explain just what it is, or where it comes from. Religious people believe that God is omniscient, meaning all knowing. They credit Him with the creation of everything, and the gifting of each life with the intelligence it will need to fulfill its purpose. One might assume that the intelligence in an apple seed or an acorn is not much more than an impulse, although a well organized, intelligent, impulse. I suppose it would not be much different with an ant, bee, or any other insect. It appears that all creatures, from mosquitoes, to muskrats, to moose, each have a limited intelligence factor designed to make them what they are.

Normal people are born with a much greater potential for intelligent development than anyone realizes. Their early years of initial growth are too many times not conducive to an open observation of reality. Their initial Intelligent observations are often like grains of oats, strewn on concrete where it cannot grow. Then we wonder how they can become so twisted in their assessment of reality. A realistic, unbiased, non-political, education of our children is a primary task, if we wish to save humanity from self destruction. I offer a brief verse I wrote some time ago which infers that intelligence is more widespread than we normally realize, and ought to give pause to our atheist friends.

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Predestination

How did the spider learn to spin?

How did he know what would land therein?

How to define, and make each decision

Producing a web of such fine precision?

Back when spiders first began

Did they work out a master plan,

Of how to catch the errant fly,

As he came flying swiftly by?

The bug would need a super brain,

To plan it with so little strain.

It seems a central fact to me,

Predestination had to be.

There’s so much ingenuity,

So much involved complexity,

The lowly spider couldn’t know

The love that guides his movements so.

To watch a spider spin, then lay

A waiting for his time to prey,

You have to get a feeling strong

That someone’s helping him along.

If no God’s watching o’er the earth,

If no one guides each life at birth,

Then bugs must be as smart as we,

To plan just how their life will be.

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May God bless America.

Richard Westlund is a Collins resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com