ABSTRACT
In everyday experience, we distinguish between two sources of information: intelligence and nature. Thus a detective examining a dead body will want to know whether the death resulted from “foul play” (intelligence) or “natural causes” (nature). Likewise, wind and erosion (nature) may account for the rock faces of most mountains, but to explain the faces of presidents etched on Mount Rushmore requires a sculptor (intelligence). More generally, an intelligence, to advance a purpose, may identify one possibility to the exclusion of others and thereby produce information. Alternatively, nature, as a system of causes and effects, may bring about some event to the exclusion of others, and thereby produce information.
