Futurists are philosophers first. They predict only through the lens of their philosophy. This edition of Ask A Futurist poses a single philosophical question. It could go so many different directions. Let’s see where Lee, Kurt, Michael, and I (Travis) from Future Sin, the the futurist collective, take the wide-open ask.

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Q: “How are consciousness and intelligence related?”

Lee: I believe this is actually a really tough question to answer with our limited understanding of both topics. The first thing that comes to mind is the question ‘what is intelligence?’. Most of the modern definitions take a kitchen sink approach and include a broad set of capabilities including everything from self-awareness to complex reasoning and planning. But at its base could you also argue that intelligence is the fundamental capacity to perceive (sense) your environment and respond to it in a unique way? If we say that, then even a single cell in our body is intelligent because of the way it leverages proteins as mechanisms of perception, and can, in response, produce complex actions.

Consciousness, on the flip side, I believe can be more clearly defined as being self-aware. I think, therefore I am. But even this is a thinly veiled understanding. The brain has nearly 100 Billion neurons, and each neuron has something like 10,000 connections to its neighbours, resulting in hundreds of trillions of unique connections. Have we even scratched the surface to understand how this works at the atomic level (let alone the quantum level)?