FUSION OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND NATURAL INTELLIGENCE: “Natural Intelligence, as I define it, is not just a concept; it is a call to action. It urges us to re-evaluate our relationship with water,” stated Michael Blackstock, independent Indigenous scholar and co-founder of the Blue Ecology Institute
Note to Reader:
Published by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia, Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. The edition published on September 24th 2024 features Michael Blackstock and his vision for fusion of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Intelligence through Blue Ecology.
When published in 2025, His chapter in the Bloomsbury Handbook to the Blue Humanities will crescendo with Natural Intelligence. Ants, beavers and trees are examples that he uses to illustrate untapped intelligence in nature.
Look beyond AI, Artificial Intelligence, to solve your problems
“We need both a mindset change and an attitude switch to get through times of crisis. Weather extremes. Drying rivers. Frequent wildfires. Blue Ecology offers hope,” states Michael Blackstock, co-founder of the Blue Ecology Institute Foundation.
“Blue Ecology points the way to water reconciliation between cultures…and with nature. Everyone seems to be focused on AI, computers and the wonders of all that. But on our doorstep all along is Natural Intelligence. It is ignored because it is not understood,” he adds.
ASSET MANAGEMENT BC 2024 CONFERENCE THEME: Today’s Decisions – Tomorrow’s Future
Michael Blackstock is the keynote speaker for the upcoming Asset Management BC Annual Conference. In this edition of Waterbucket eNews, we preview the new paradigm that Michael Blackstock will close with in his keynote address.
The new paradigm is Natural Intelligence, aka NI. It is has emerged from Blue Ecology which itself bridges Indigenous Wisdom and Western Science. Blue Ecology is about creating a new form of knowledge by interweaving useful threads from two cultures.
“I am an implementer. That reflects my career history,” states Michael Blackstock. “Blue Ecology theory emerged from practice and from my experience on the frontlines as a forester and as a mediator and a negotiator for the provincial government and BC Hydro over the past 35 years.”
“That is where I saw the gap and the need for Blue Ecology. And now I see the need for fusion of AI and NI through Blue Ecology. Fusion would address climate change and foster environmental sustainability.”
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE / CONTEXT FOR BUSY READER
“The Partnership for Water Sustainability is helping Michael make the framework for Blue Ecology actionable in the local government sector. Our journey of collaboration with Michael Blackstock began in 2016,” stated Kim Stephens, Waterbucket eNews Editor and Partnership Executive Director.
The clip is a ~7 minute PREVIEW of the Watershed Moments 2023 documentary .
The full-length 90-minute documentary is at https://youtu.be/PMhom-UIxLI
COMING IN 2025: The Bloomsbury Handbook to the Blue Humanities includes Blue Ecology
“We are supporting Michael Blackstock so that he can move down three parallel yet interconnected tracks.”
“The Bloomsbury Handbook for Blue Humanities is a great illustration of the headway that Michael Blackstock is making in establishing credibility with academia. A gee-whiz fact is that Bloomsbury Publishing is the custodian of the Harry Potter series.”
Natural Intelligence: the paradigm-shift starts with a conversation!
In 2025, Bloomsbury is publishing the Bloomsbury Handbook to the Blue Humanities and Michael is contributing a 6000-word chapter on Blue Ecology. Turkish academic Dr. Serpil Oppermann is the catalyst behind the handbook and one of four co-editors.
“I am very happy to have Michael Blackstock in the Bloomsbury Handbook to the Blue Humanities,” says Serpil Oppermann. “I was overjoyed when he accepted our invitation. It was a most benevolent outcome for a positive response from such an important figure.”
Connection to nature
“My chapter in the handbook will crescendo with the Natural Intelligence idea,” Michael Blackstock told me in a recent conversation. “Serpil Oppermann is the inspiration for the idea. It was that Zoom session when you interviewed her for Waterbucket eNews about her vision for the handbook that did it.”
“During our conversation with Serpil, she emphasized that we have lost our connection to nature. I had read her published work. But it was listening to her that did it. The thread of my story is that, as I have been writing this chapter for Serpil, I came up with this idea of Natural Intelligence.”
What Serpil Oppermann does
Her work explores the intersecting perspectives of natural sciences and environmental humanities. Her mission is to be a bridge between humanities and science studies.
Serpil Oppermann is Director of the Environmental Humanities Center at Cappadocia University (Turkey) and a past President of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and the Environment.
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: Natural Intelligence: a new paradigm for water stewardship – a conversation with Michael Blackstock
At the Asset Management BC conference, Michael Blackstock will be speaking to an engineering-centric audience whose world revolves around numbers and inanimate objects such as pipes and pavement. Taking nature into account is not something that comes naturally to a municipal asset manager.
“There is untapped intelligence out there in nature. It is on our doorstep but we have not tapped into it. And we are tapping it even less because we are so focused on artificial intelligence. The system is not set up to teach engineers how to understand nature, unfortunately,” observes Michael Blackstock.
Nature’s ecosystem engineers
“In my keynote, I will use three examples…ants, beavers and trees..to illustrate the potential for fusing Natural Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence. Academics refer to ants and beavers as ecosystem engineers.”
“Look beyond AI to solve your problems. There is this vast amount of wisdom out there that Indigenous peoples have seen forever…and that is Natural Intelligence.”
“These three examples answer two questions…why care? and what is the practical side of Natural Intelligence? We can learn from ants, beavers and trees. It is a starting point for doing more to interweave Natural Intelligence, especially since Indigenous knowledge has real respect for it.”
“Ants are one of the roots of AI theory. In his book that won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1979, Douglas Hofstadter uses ants to describe how he sees AI working. He equates an ant to the neuron in the human brain. He writes that he was inspired by natural intelligence. People have lost that link.”
“What can we learn from the ants and how they manage, for example, the spread of disease in their colony. They can sense rain and build dams around the entrances to their colonies. How do they know?”
Trees are witnesses to history
“And then there are trees as data recorders. They tell us what happened in the past. Trees are also like the canary in the coal mine to give us some idea of what will happen in the future and whether they will adapt or not.”
“Climate scientists have caught on to using tree rings as a chronology to build a proxy of what happened in the past. They can see climate trends by looking at tree ring data. Trees as witnesses to history is definitely a Gitxsan concept in Northwest BC.”
Interweaving of AI and NI
“The balance principle is central to NI and Blue Ecology. It calls for a narrative shift towards healing and giving back to the environment. This principle is about more than just sustainable practices; it is about creating a reciprocal relationship with nature.”
Natural Intelligence is a call to action to give back in a reciprocal relationship
“Natural Intelligence, as I define it, is not just a concept; it is a call to action. It urges us to re-evaluate our relationship with water, to learn from its natural intelligence, and to adopt practices that are sustainable, equitable, and respectful.”
“By integrating tools like the Ecological Accounting Process and embracing the give back aspect of the balance principle, we can ensure a thriving planet for generations to come,” concludes Michael Blackstock.
Living Water Smart in British Columbia Series
To download a copy of the foregoing resource as a PDF document for your records and/or sharing, click on Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Natural Intelligence – a new paradigm for water stewardship.
To download a copy of the foregoing resource as a PDF document for your records and/or sharing, click on Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Natural Intelligence – a new paradigm for water stewardship.
DOWNLOAD A COPY: https://waterbucket.ca/wcp/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/09/PWSBC_Living-Water-Smart_Michael-Blackstock-fusion-of-AI-and-Natural-Intelligence_2024.pdf