The most recommended books about intelligence

I am fascinated by how different countries approach intelligence, both from how they organize intelligence activities and how intelligence informs policymaking. These various approaches highlight there is not a common approach to intelligence and help explain why simple definitions of intelligence are insufficient at capturing various intelligence activities and organizations. The Black Door looks at how British Prime Ministers have used intelligence and their relationships with intelligence organizations over the past century. A well-written account by two thoughtful and prolific scholars, the reader will appreciate how British Prime Ministers have used intelligence to not only understand the world but to also act.  

One of the first books I read on the topic, The Power of Neurodiversity cogently reframes neurodiversity and neurodivergence as normal elements of humanity, with many overlooked positives and strengths.

Armstrong was careful not to cast neurodivergence as a “superpower”, or overlook challenges, but his chapters – such as “The Joy of the Hyperactive Brain” and “The Positive Side of Being Autistic” – represented a valuable and belated challenge to the stereotypes that to that time, in 2011, had cast neurodiversity only in a negative light.

Multiple passages have stuck with me ever since, for example how he challenges the conventional metaphor of brains as computers (either “working” or “broken”), suggesting instead that we make a better parallel with brains as forests; highly complex, living organisms. 

This is a frustrating book.

It is a path-breaking effort to gather national IQ data from as many countries as possible, and to correlate the same with GDP per capita and other measures of national success.

There are several major shortcomings to the original effort including: (1) that averages of "similar" countries were used where local estimates of national IQ weren't available, and (2) national IQs of many countries were drawn from small convenience samples.

These shortcomings might have been justified as the best that could be done given the costliness of collecting scientifically-valid samples, along with a call to address these shortcomings.

Since the publication of the book, numerous additional IQ data have been developed in, for example, the norming of IQ tests for various populations. Also, much near kin achievement data have been developed in the administration of internationally-standardized scholastic examinations.

And, even for tiny countries, we have… show more.

Here we step into more controversial territory. Is “plant neurobiology” a thing? That is, can they think? Stefano Mancuso says yes, but not like us.

A plant behaves more like a swarm of insects, and each of its parts and cells reacts to changes in its environment, which affect the other cells around it, and in that way, a decentralized intelligence can reach what looks like a decision. Plants find solutions to the problems of life that would never occur to us, and we can copy them to make our own lives better.

Beautiful illustrations will help you fall in love with plants.

Nicholas Humphrey is our Darwin of the human mind. I first came across him in the mid-1980s when his television series The Inner Eye was broadcast. It was a revelation to me that such an elegant, comprehensive, and beautiful theory as his existed, explaining the evolution and nature of human consciousness. I bought the accompanying book at once, and it remains for me the best explanation of consciousness—a constant source of inspiration, including for my novels. Humphrey’s social intelligence theory remains, after forty years, the most widely accepted explanation of the evolution of consciousness.

This book provides a good introduction to the current state of machine intelligence through interviews with many leading practitioners including Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, Stuart Russell, and Demis Hassabis (DeepMind). You will get a sense of both of AI’s recent accomplishments and how far it falls short of full human intelligence.

I personally recommend this book because it is a must-read for anyone dealing with students who struggle with learning or underperform in certain subjects.

Over the course of my 45-year career, I have encountered hundreds of individuals, including myself, who have struggled with math despite being highly skilled in drawing or art.

Howard Gardner, the head of Harvard University's Project Zero, has been a leader in the field of intelligence research since the late 1970s. His work rendered IQ tests irrelevant for measuring intelligence in education.

Understanding Gardner's work is critical to understanding how individuals function, and it has changed the way I interact with difficult students.

Reading this book gave me a new perspective on intelligence and helped me see it in a completely different light.

I am a great admirer of Dr. Siegel who is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. This is a terrific book in which Siegel explores the role of interpersonal relationships in forging key connections in the brain. As he says, “Human connections shape neural connections, and each contributes to mind. Relationships and your personal linkages together shape the mind. It is more than the sum of its parts; this is the essence of emergence.” His description of brain architecture is excellent

Siegel’s emphasis on relationships is important and I fully agree with it. His take on the mind is interesting. He says, “The mind is a process that emerges from the distributed nervous system extended throughout the entire body and also from the communication patterns that occur within relationships.” I echo those sentiments in The Embodied Mind when I say that the mind is more… show more.

To the best of my recollection, the word ‘leadership’ doesn’t appear in this book.

Yet, since I first encountered it in a Harvard Business School doctoral seminar on leadership—and ignored numerous assignments because I couldn’t put it down—I have recommended it to countless professionals.

Too often, leadership is presented as a disembodied (cap)ability, unmoored from its organizational context.

Philosopher Hofstadter and computer scientist Dennett’s remarkable collection of articles includes both fairy tales (yes!) and Alan Turing’s essay defining artificial intelligence. Collectively, they explore not just the “self and soul” in the sub-title but also how humans interact with organizations and technology.

This book taught me leadership isn’t about being a puppeteer. Each of the newest developments in artificial intelligence has reminded me that I must re-read this book.

I think glorious failures are far more interesting than modest successes, and let’s face it, any book that attempts to explain consciousness is bound to fail on so many levels. What I love about Hofstadter’s work is its boldness and reach. He’s as happy in the world of abstract metaphor as he is speaking of science or mathematics, and understands that we need new metaphors of consciousness just as badly as we need new scientific models. And even though he flounders at times, it kind of doesn’t matter, because of the sheer energy and verve of his quest: sort of Don Quixote with a calculator. For the math geeks amongst you, there’s an unusually clear and careful discussion of the incompleteness theorem as well. What’s not to like?