Genes, Brains, and Human Potential The Science and Ideology of Intelligence

112 REAL GENES, REAL INTELLIGENCE

something diff er ent or additional is needed to render the unpredictable
predictable.
A dynamical analy sis of the environment gives us clues: it explains that
a changing environment is not just changing in simple ways, like chemi-
cal gradients, or slow temperature changes in water. Rather, at all levels,
from the molecular to macro- events, the environment tends to change
with complex interrelations. A sugar concentration may change with heat,
and heat with light. Darkening skies may portend rain, and a sound over
there is followed by the appearance of danger. Th ings change together.
Th at means that change in any one variable is refl ected in changes
in  others: levels of one can be predicted from levels of another. A tempera-
ture change in the water layer in Bénard cells is correlated with move-
ments of water molecules through space and time. In the movement of
any object, location is correlated with time and may well be correlated
with movements of other objects. In those inter- dependencies lie crucial
prerequisites for living things.
Th e most impor tant thing to know in changing environments is what
is going to happen next? Th at is one aspect of predictability. Another
is what to do about it—or what will be the consequences of this or that ac-
tion? Th ink of driving a car on a busy road. You need to predict the or-
der of constantly changing events and predict the consequences of your
reactions. Fortunately, you can do that because the unfolding road,
signs and signals, and movements of other vehicles are not in de pen dent
of one another, as if random events. Th ey have structure, or interdepen-
dencies, that you, in the course of past experience, with your power ful
cognitive system, have condensed into an abstract set of rules: the rules
of the road, which form a kind of “grammar.”
Th e environment of all living organisms is providential in that dynam-
ical sense. Th ere is rich information for predictability in the relational
patterns of the environment; in the structure of interactions among its
components over space and time. As an example at another (macro- event)
level, consider the pattern of the day- night cycle created by movements
of the earth around its axis. Th e light intensity correlates with other vari-
ables such as temperature and moisture levels. But the relations go deeper
than that.

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