What is Intelligence?

Intelligence is the scalable capacity of a system to internalize environmental non-integrability as reusable internal geometry, enabling the anticipation and reduction of future interaction costs. In non-integrable environments, path dependence forces systems either to dissipate mismatch or to preserve it as structure. Within this hierarchy, memory arises from stored curvature, learning from its exploitation to reduce immediate costs, and intelligence from extending such anticipation across longer timescales and broader contexts. The co-adaptation principle (CAP) distinguishes three levels of system–environment coupling: interaction (the generic regime where curvature is visible), relation (an integrable limit in which curvature is suppressed or unobservable), and transform (stable relations that admit iteration and composition, allowing history to be effectively forgotten).