intelligence as sense-making

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Intelligence as sense-making is the biological-enactive account of cognition as an organism’s meaningful regulation of its relation to the world under conditions of viability. The corpus distinguishes this from abstract symbol manipulation and benchmark performance. Its reproduced AI exchange extends that framework toward possible artificial organization, but remains an attributed provocation rather than proof that all intelligence, anticipation and feeling are identical.

Explanation

RB2 grounds significance in self-maintaining organization: a chemical cue can become food or threat relative to the organism’s continued existence. The Umwelt is a meaning-structured field rather than every feature of the surrounding milieu. This enactive perspective broadens cognition beyond brains without establishing where sense-making becomes felt.

PB’s AI exchange conditionally contrasts cognitive benchmark success with genuine world-involving understanding, precarious regulation and self-maintaining value. Its stronger identification of embodiment and intelligence belongs to the reproduced AI voice. It is not silently substituted for every authorial definition or an empirically demonstrated equivalence across all systems.

AB and RB2 separately require evidence for strict model-bearing anticipation rather than inferring it from self-maintenance alone. They also keep artificial stakes an organizational question and feeling a distinct issue. The proposed subentry preserves the speculative extension while avoiding a conclusion that theoretical analogy has already established artificial life or experience.

Scope and attribution

Preserve the biological account and distinguish its speculative artificial extension and source voice.

AB — The Actual Book

Self-maintenance does not automatically establish model-bearing anticipation or artificial stakes.

Occurrence locators: 84; Notes: 241.

PB — The Possible Book

The benchmark/sense-making contrast and stronger identity claim remain reproduced AI text.

Occurrence locators: 36, 152; Reproduced AI exchange: 15, 16, 17.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Biological normativity supports enactive sense-making without settling subjective feeling.

Occurrence locators: 3, 42, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 61, 111, 129, 130, 133, 134, 168, 169, 171, 172.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

The reproduced provocation reiterates the conditional artificial extension.

Occurrence locators: 140, 156; Reproduced AI exchange: 398, 399.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.