The Eighth Kind of Intelligence

Two and half decades ago Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner defined intelligence as “the ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultural settings.” As the main outcome of his investigations on the subject, Gardner published in 1983 his then well-recognized theory of multiple intelligences, which posited the existence of seven different types of this unambiguously human characteristic. While having some commonalities among them, each kind of intelligence manifests in different ways; a person can excel in one or more forms, be inferior or faulty in another one, and a good average in the remaining. According to their mode of expression, Gardner denominated the seven intelligences as (1) linguistic, (2) logical-mathematical, (3) musical, (4) bodily-kinesthetic, (5) spatial, (6) interpersonal (the understanding of other people) and (7) intrapersonal (the understanding of oneself).
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Several years later Gardner considered that in his original proposal the talents of many bright men, such as botanist Carl von Linnaeus, biologist Charles Darwin, paleontologist Stephen J. Gould and entomologist Edward Wilson, did not readily fit in any of the seven definitions; the common thread of their accomplishments was their contributions to the understanding of living organisms. In 1998, after a careful revision of his theory, the psychologist added to his list an eighth kind of intelligence that he denominated naturalist and defined as “the capacity to recognize and classify the components of the environment.” In my interpretation, the wisdom of Siddhattha Gotama, the Buddha, is a clear expression of this naturalist intelligence.
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The theory of multiple intelligences has been the subject of much controversy; many scholars currently consider it of questionable value. As a minimum, I consider the theory thought-provoking and interesting. I admire Gardner’s boldness to categorize such an abstract trait as intelligence. Despite its opponents, I like the categorization, among other reasons, because it allows room to recognize as outstanding intelligences the bodily coordination, the musical skills and the spatial abilities of many dancers, singers and sportsmen whose life styles, measured against generally accepted behavioral standards, lead most everybody to judge them as foolish if not idiotic.
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Let us now return to the naturalist intelligence of Siddhattha Gotama. The Teachings of the Buddha are the fruit of his continuous observations of the physical environment and the modus operandi if his mind. By doing so, he reaches brilliant conclusions which natural and social sciences would confirm as valid many centuries later. The Teachings of the Siddhattha Gotama document premises, such as the impermanence and instability of everything in the universe, the role of attachments and aversions in our behavior, the “illusory” nature of our self-sense, the nonexistence of metaphysical beings associated to live beings, the indivisible unit of mind and body, and the human nature of morality, which today are of wide acceptance in the scientific media. Furthermore, by acknowledging the reality of suffering—the stressful nature of existence—the Buddha anticipates by longer than two millennia Henry David Thoreau’s famous saying when the North American philosopher states that “the mass of human beings lead lives of quiet desperation.”
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What is most remarkable in the Teachings is the fact that its proponent does not have on hand any laboratory, library or research methodology; the first attempts to systematize a scientific method did not see light until the eighteenth century. As the naturalists studied by Howard Gardner, Siddhattha Gotama detects patterns of organization and behavior in the communities of live organisms; for the Buddha the community is the very same human society he dwells in and the observed organisms are his own condition and his own contemporaries.
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The theory of multiple intelligences might eventually vanish from the academic world; it is also quite unlikely, considering how abstract and perplexing are our mental functions, that no classification of human talents will ever reach universal acceptance. But, as defined by Gardner, the naturalist intelligence of the Buddha will be more and more recognized and appreciated by cognitive sciences. The Eastern word that identifies the Teachings of the Buddha (dhamma in Pali language, dharma in Sanskrit) is the most important concept of Buddhism. It is not then surprising at all that in the western translations of such word the expressions “natural law” and “natural order” come up as its most accepted synonyms.

Gustavo Estrada
Author of Hacia el Buda desde el occidente

Why meditating is so difficult?

Dozens of techniques exist but, in its simplest and most beneficial version, the how of the meditation practice can be explained in just three sentences: (1) sit down still and quiet, (2) close your eyes, and (3) maintain awareness on your breath and your body sensations. Despite this simplicity, most people consider meditating a very complicated exercise. Why meditating is so difficult?

There appear to be good reasons to support this reluctance. Focusing attention is a patience demanding task since our brain seems to be better designed for turbulence and mental noises than for stillness and silence. A 2007 study by Michael Kane at the University of North Carolina suggests that, on average, during thirty percent of our alert schedule we are thinking about things different from what we are doing. And Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver concluded in another 2007 investigation that even while reading, a concentration demanding activity, we digress between fifteen and twenty of the time.

Since we wander for such a high fraction of our awake day, scientists have decided to put their hands on the subject and, as in all research projects of cognitive sciences, computer imaging technology has become their main ally. Schooler and other group of researchers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have found that two specific brain regions belonging to different neuronal networks become active during mind wandering. The first one, located mainly on the frontal cortex, is known as the executive control system; the second one, more dispersed throughout the brain, is known as the default network. Activation of these networks is not steady or continuous and depends much on the wandering “magnitude”.

By associating the timed images to the mind states of participants as reported during the scanning procedure, the research team also established two levels in the intensity of distractions. In the first one the participants are partially conscious that they are actually wandering and hold the thread of the original task; in this case the predominant neuronal activity occurs in the executive control system network. In the second level, the participants are not even aware that they are distracted—Schooler refers to this second level as “zoning out”—and the neuronal activity is greater in the default network.

The distraction levels are easily recognized when practicing a common routine of Zen meditation. During this exercise, as an example, the meditator silently counts breathing cycles, from one to ten and repeatedly back to one. The counting is just a mental device to focus attention and keep distractions away; now and then the person looses track of the count. When meditators become aware of their mistake at the very moment it happens, they are still in the first distraction level. If, on the contrary, the miscounting lasts longer (for example, it reaches up to fourteen) the meditators, already in the second level, are zoning out.

“A lot of human daily life is autopilot,” Michael Kane says and, consequently, a certain degree of distraction is not only acceptable but it may even be necessary. Some psychologists maintain that the creativity flashes—the eureka moments—arise come from the default network when we are zoning out. However, if what permanently enter our head are resentments, obsessions, panics, hatred or other negative thoughts, it means we are in the territory of harmful disorders. It is here where meditation can be of much help; the Buddha said that meditation is the path toward a peaceful, undefiled state of mind.

Being so simple and useful, why do not more people meditate? Common answers, as it could be expected, have little to do with the brain physiology we just described. Accounts include “I cannot concentrate”, “I have too many problems in my head”, “my mind is elsewhere”, “I cannot remain still for so long” and so on. These excuses, well devised to “rationally” avoid the practice, are truly the best reasons why people should sit down, with their eyes closed in a passive attitude, and simply observe the flow of their breathing and of all the sensations that run through their body. Little by little, with the continuous and disciplined practice of this simple routine, their mind will appease and their unruly, disturbing thoughts will eventually settle down.

Gustavo Estrada

Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE