Citizens� intelligence and political regimes

By Demosthenes Kyriazis

This article is an excerpt from the book: "Digital Democracy. The effect of modern Physics and of Digital Technology, to Democracy."   Demosthenes Kyriazis.  Edition: Union of Greek Physicists, 2009.

It is obvious that, there is a strong correlation among the intelligence of the citizens and the political systems, the political regimes.

It is also clear that in order to understand this relationship; we need to know some basics - the alphabet - of both, of the political systems, and of the intelligence.

The key elements of the political systems.
These elements are known. Here we will confine ourselves to mentioning only the concept of concentration of power, its importance and the values that this take at the various political systems, that we consider as a form of energy systems[i] .

If a country has N citizens and Ne power organs[ii], the power concentration C, is expressed from the formula:

C = N / Ne.

From the above definition, it is shown easily that:

1. In monarchies the concentration takes the maximum value C = N, (Ne = 1).
2. In the Ideal Direct Democracy (Athenian Democracy in which all people have the status of citizen),  the power concentration has its lowest possible value C = 1   ( Ne = N).
3. In all  the other political systems the concentration can take any value between 1 and N

Typical values of Power concentration
(In a country with N = 10,000,000 citizens)

Political Regime                      Power organs (Ne)      Power Concentration (N/Ne )

.......................................................................................................................

Monarchy                                                   1                         10 000 000

Oligarchy                                                    5                           2.000.000

Representative Democracy                     400                                 25.000 

Ideal Direct Democracy                              N                                         1

Athenian Direct Democracy                     N/8                                         8

Notes:

1. According to historical data, in ancient Athens the power organs, that is the citizens, were the 1/8 of the total population which included  the slaves. The women, minors, slaves and temporary migrants, had not the status of citizen.

 2. In today's representative democracies, power organs are, theoretically, the elected representatives of the citizens, but in practice are much less. The effective power organs in practice are a small percentage of the representatives and some non-institutional bodies (people with great economic / political power, government advisors, etc). This practice has apparently resulted in a significant increase of the power concentration, which becomes much higher from that defined by in the Institutional Law. In a Representative Democracy with the characteristics of the table, if you consider that the power organs, who take the major decisions, are10 and not 400, then the power concentration is 1,000,000 and not 25,000. Such values correspond to concentration of oligarchic and not of democratic regimes. Out of their experience, citizens know what happens actually in today's representative democracies. 

What is valid in the energy systems, is valid too in the political systems; the degree of power concentration is the key feature of the systems. The point of concentration of power is of secondary importance. Energy systems with the same degree of concentration but with different concentration points are practically equivalent ones. The same principle is valid for the political systems.

People do not believe in this physical principle. They try to improve the regimes by changing the location and not of the degree of power concentration, ignoring that violations of the physical principles, always are paid dearly. 

The key elements of the intelligence.

According to classical concepts, intelligence is the human ability to receive and process the data from the environment, in other words the information. Thus intelligence is the human ability to perform two important functions:

1. The receiving, with the help of his sensors, of information existing in environment, and
2. The processing of them by the power of his mind and not by the power of instincts or of incentives

Information receives all animals but they treat it with the power of instincts and incentives. Only man processes it with the power of his brain, with the logic or to be more precise, and with the power of his logic.   

From the above classical definition, two very important conclusions arise:

1. Without information there is no intelligence.
2. The availability of information is not intelligence, since the existence of    information does not guarantee their brain processing.

We think that the second conclusion must be understood from the people of the "Information Society", because there is serious risk a wrong view to prevail, and mainly a practice, that intelligence is the acquisition only of information. It is obvious that such a view and practice will lead deterministically to the degradation of human intelligence.

The types of intelligence. IQ and EQ.
In the previous classical definition, intelligence is defined indirectly from the results and not directly from its nature and its functioning. We resorted to an indirect definition, because we don’t know, or we did not know, many things about the intelligence. For thousands of years, our knowledge about it was general and philosophical.

But from the beginning of the 20th century, neurologists, biologists, psychiatrists, psychologists and other scientists began to investigate the subject in order to discover the nature and function of intelligence. They began to investigate the “HOW” and the "FROM WHERE” intelligence is created.  (eg from what elements of the brain and by which procedure).

These efforts have provided the first answers to the questions of HOW and FROM WHERE, and led to the development of methods of measuring the power of intelligence which every man has.

During the first decades of the 20th century, the power of intelligence was expressed from the ratio of correct answers to the specific questions that were submitted to a man.

The result of such a measurement called Intelligence Quotient, and in btrief IQ. For example, if the questions asked were 20 and someone responded correctly to 16, then his IQ is considered to be 16/20 (80%).

Until mid 1990, we believed in one "HOW" and in one "FROM WHERE". We accepted that, there's one type of intelligence which we called IQ, a ratio expressing both the kind and the strength of intelligence. IQ products are thoughts and reasonings, that follow the model of "if A then B", the logic of the ancient Greeks and the model of "2 + 2 = 4" in mathematical logic. People call these types of thoughts, logical thinking, while neurologists call them serial thinking, from the form of neurons through which they are produced.

During the 1990's, scientists discovered that there is a second type of intelligence - another HOW and FROM WHERE - termed Emotional Intelligence[iii] or EQ, expression which refers to this type and strength of intelligence.

Products of EQ are reasoning produced by different elements of the brain and by different procedures from those of logical reasoning. This reasoning, which is the primary form of human thinking, was made before thousands and thousands of years and is called associative.

The associative  reasoning, are derived from the correlation created from the information with our emotions and constitutes the link connecting the feelings with the data from the environment, with  the information.

An example of associative reasoning is the conclusion of an imminent risk when hearing the barking of a dog.

People and scientists ignoring, until recently, the data for the emotional intelligence, believed   that every no logical reasoning, and consequently the associative ones, are absurdities and occultism. This perception led to facing of associative reasoning, in the West, with caution if not with contempt. Today, after the discoveries on the EQ, they are treated this with more understanding and respect.

Types of intelligence and civilizations.
Between the two types of intelligence and of the basic types of culture, there is a strong correlation, which can be summarized in the following two statistical conclusions, which are documented from historical data:

IQ is the intelligence on which it was based the Ancient Greek and the Western civilization

EQ is the intelligence on which it was based the civilization of the peoples of the East 

Total and dominant intelligence.
In the first years of the 21st century (2000-2002), the scientists discovered that the man has a third type of intelligence, called Spiritual one or SQ.[iv]

The SQ is the supreme intelligence that correlates and controls the associative and logical reasoning and creates questions and answers to crucial subjects such as: what is the meaning of life, why we were born?

It is obvious that the overall intelligence of man is the sum of the emotional, logical and the spiritual intelligence. This obvious conclusion can be written in mathematical formulation as follows:

Total human intelligence = EQ + IQ + SQ 

This equation has reasonable use only. In order to be used in mathematics, the EQ, IQ and SQ should be expressed and measured in the same units of power (eg in watts). 

In some people, or in some groups of people, it is possible one of the above three types of intelligence to be the major part of the total intelligence (eg 80%).

This type of intelligence, which dominates in the overall, is called the dominant intelligence of a man or of society.

In the societies, in practice, the dominant intelligence is either the EQ or the IQ.

The equations of IQ and EQ.
Considering historical data, one concludes that there is a strong correlation of the dominant intelligence with the types of writing, the way of perception and the forms of political systems.

In the societies where the dominant intelligence was the IQ: The alphabetical writing, the open perception and democracy were developed.

In contrast, in the societies where the dominant was the EQ, were developed:  The symbolic writing, the dogmatic perception and the monarchical / theocratic regimes.

The above conclusions, compatible with the capabilities and performance of the logic (of IQ) and the associative (the EQ) reasoning, can be represented in mathematics, like relations of cause / effect, like equations, as follows:

IQ = Alphabetical Writing + logical/ open Perception +  Democracy

EQ = Symbolic Writing +dogmatic perception + Monarchy.

These relationships have statistical and not deterministic validity. The first "equation" can applied in ancient Greece, which gave birth to logic, alphabetical writing and democracy and has developed the logic intelligence as dominant. The second "equation" was applied mainly to Eastern Countries where coexisted, or still coexist, the symbolic writing, the dogmatic perception, the monarchs / theocratic regimes and the EQ is the dominant intelligence.

Social Schizophrenia.
In most countries today, the people use the alphabetical writing and they have high IQ, as they can manage issues of science, technology and other current activities. However, their perception of political issues is not open but is dogmatic and in their states there is no real democracy. What happens really? The above mentioned "equations" are not valid, but are a superficial and verbalistic conclusion?

I believe these relations are valid and that their non application in the exercise of political power is due to the different use of IQ and EQ.

More specifically, people today use their IQ when dealing with issues of science, economy, technology and other daily activities, but use the EQ, when they are dealing with the exercise of political power and other serious issues of humanistic nature. These issues are generally faced dogmatically.

This selective use of IQ and EQ is the cause for facing the two mentioned above groups of activities without common goals, rhythyms and harmony, without goals that have logical harmony. The average IQ of modern people is not small. The differential use of IQ is the problem.

The main cause of this paradoxical use of IQ and EQ, is the activity of the established political power, which systematically and effectively is addressed to the emotions rather than to people’s logic for the promotion of political and humanistic issues. The explanation of this phenomenon is simple. If the status quo of the established power was addressed to people’s logic, the politicians would have been self abolished.

The above differential use, which could be described as social schizophrenia, is responsible for the wars, massive  people’s slaughters and other major misfortunes that people have caused to other people, motivated by the established political power and their EQ,  that is,  by the emotions that intentionally creates and inflates the established political power.

The people’s intelligence in the new era.
In the new information era, people will dispose a very much higher amount of information than the current one. So the question arises: Will they manage to process this large volume of information, by their brain, by logic;

If they succeed, their IQ will be strengthened. But if they don’t, they will become ordinary consumers of information. Their intelligence deterministically will deteriorate, since intelligence is primarily a brain processing of information. Holders of information are all animals but the animals have not logical process.

So what will happen in the new era? Improvement or degradation of IQ;

Perhaps the answer to this important question is not so difficult if we can understand in depth the possibilities the technology has. These possibilities are restricted to relax man from the execution of lengthy "spiritual routine tasks" and not to substitute his mind.

This new technology provides people, techno-economic facilities and time for deeper and more substantial processing of information. In simple words, in order people to be able to process the large volume of information of the new era, they have to use the new technology as a tool for deeper and more cerebral processing, as the researchers do today.

If people consider that the new technology, can substitute their brain processing, something compatible with the term electronic brain,  or insist to process information with conventional tools and methods, then they will not succeed. Their today's IQ will shrink and the paradoxical phenomenon of its differential use will be strengthened and expanded.

In the second case, the new information age will become a nightmare, like the one described by George Orwell in his famous book "1984."

It is worth perhaps remembering that today the "spiritual routine works" are not the same as those of the past. Something that was previously a difficult, time consuming and of high cost mental work, even in educated people, thanks to technology it is today a routine operation, being performed by machines easily, quickly and at negligible cost.

May the IQ of the Greeks to become the dominant intelligence and to be applied in the exercise of political power.

May the intelligence of the people in the new era evolve according to the optimistic scenario.