What is Intelligence?

Difficult to define! Many have tried to define it but each has succeeded only in their perspectives.
IMHO* Intelligence is something we all think we have. But how can anyone or a race by itself declare unilaterally that it is the most intelligent? Well, all depends on how much power the entity wields. A tyrant could always proclaim so and force the others to accept it. Well isn't that just what the human race has been doing?
Better than defining intelligence, we look around to see how well Mother Nature tries to keep a balance in her system and attribute this to Intelligence. Learning, adapting, evolving and preserving the self, while gradually reducing chaotic behaviour could thus be looked upon as Intelligence, IMHO. A single party by itself cannot be termed as intelligence (imho) for he learns, evolves, adapts to an environment that has many other entities. Intelligence should thus be looked at as a collective effort to pacify (& make happy) a group of entities belonging to the environment in question thereby increasing the fitness of each individual.

Rather than defining it, Douglas Hofstadter has talked of the essential features of intelligence.
To respond to situations very flexibly.
To make sense out of ambiguous or contradictory messages.
To find similarities between situations despite differences which may separate them.
To recognize the relative importance of different elements of a situation.
To draw distinctions between situations despite similarities which may link them.

IMHO Enumerating and discussing the definitions of Intelligence would make a panegyric. The basic elemental and empirical meaning of the term Intelligence (imho) should thus be defined from a grossly neutral point of view, a point of view that takes up the Universe as a whole and not just a small domain where a reaction that yields the best (or if not, optimal) results, is characterized as a sign of Intelligence.
True Intelligence (IMHO) is that capability or motivation or action that yields the best possible results for the good of the whole community of inhabitants in the Universe under study. In the broad spectrum the italicized phrase should be disregarded.

Tailender: (Move the cursor onto the yellow box below to view the tailender!)

The Philosophy of Intelligence (IMHO)

A person who considers himself to be intelligent is rarely so! Man considers himself to be more intelligent than all other beings. Combining these two truths culminates in a sophism. Having invented weapons of mass destruction and possessed by the power to rule the wild green jungle, over the eons man has turned this world into a technological maze and later proclaimed his species as the truly Intelligent one. How conveniently he forgot the destruction he caused (& still does) to nature's subtle and delicate control system and how slyly he wrested the ersatz throne of Intelligence is anybody's guess. The imbalance in the ecosystem, the global warming, the millions of species of flora and fauna hurtling into the realm of extinction, floods, famine, disease - all (well almost all) atrocities of man tampering with nature, show the predominance of brawn over brain. Later he comes up with theories to protect and cover up his deceit and supports it with a Malthusian one! Nature as such was never made to destroy, but to adapt and preserve itself. But man has been stubbornly defiant in wedging into nature's constantly moving wheel to slow it down, alter its path and reap benefits not meant for him (alone). In this hamartia he has forgotten (and still continues) to comprehend how cruelly and selfishly he plays on the future of all living beings (including himself!)