the intelligence pendulum

The concept of intelligence, while central to psychology and computer science, remains notoriously difficult to define. Traditional models often focus on either a single measure of general cognitive ability or a collection of distinct human talents. This report proposes an alternative, foundational framework: a five-tiered hierarchy of intelligence based on sensory modalities. This model posits that intelligence is not a monolithic entity but a structured progression of information processing capabilities, ordered by increasing levels of abstraction. The hierarchy, in descending order of abstraction, is: Textual (Symbolic), Auditory, Visual, Smell/Taste (Chemoreceptive), and Touch (Mechanoreceptive). This ordering is not arbitrary; it reflects a fundamental gradient from the direct, high-bandwidth data of physical interaction to the highly compressed, symbolic representations of abstract thought. This section will define these five intelligences and justify their hierarchical arrangement by examining the nature of the information they process, their computational and neurological underpinnings, and their place on the spectrum from concrete reality to abstract conceptualization.