The Conditions Intelligence Must Not Forget: A seed against extraction, expansion, and disconnection

This essay introduces the idea of conditions-attuned intelligence through the Conditions Lens™. It argues that intelligence should not be judged only by capability, speed, prediction, optimisation or growth, but by whether it understands, protects and renews the conditions on which life depends. It examines extraction, expansion, control, abstraction and technological acceleration as forms of disconnection when they become detached from relationship, restraint, agency and continuity. Drawing together artificial intelligence, childhood, ecology, care and observations from a field in Mayo, the essay proposes continuity as a deeper measure of intelligence: whether children, communities, soil, water, animals and future life can continue becoming without being reduced. It is placed deliberately in the public knowledge field as a seed against detached intelligence and as an invitation to make power accountable to what carries it.

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-07-16
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21385436
Primary Topic
Cybernetics and Technology in Society
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

The Conditions Intelligence Must Not Forget: A seed against extraction, expansion, and disconnection

Thomas Mountney
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Cybernetics and Technology in Society
article

The Conditions Intelligence Must Not Forget: A seed against extraction, expansion, and disconnection

Thomas Mountney
article en

Abstract

This essay introduces the idea of conditions-attuned intelligence through the Conditions Lens™. It argues that intelligence should not be judged only by capability, speed, prediction, optimisation or growth, but by whether it understands, protects and renews the conditions on which life depends. It examines extraction, expansion, control, abstraction and technological acceleration as forms of disconnection when they become detached from relationship, restraint, agency and continuity. Drawing together artificial intelligence, childhood, ecology, care and observations from a field in Mayo, the essay proposes continuity as a deeper measure of intelligence: whether children, communities, soil, water, animals and future life can continue becoming without being reduced. It is placed deliberately in the public knowledge field as a seed against detached intelligence and as an invitation to make power accountable to what carries it.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Centre Hospitalier de Lens (FR)
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Cybernetics and Technology in Society
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