Ellogy
As used in the Wongery, the word noesis (pronounced /noʊˈiːsɪs/) refers to the process of cognition, of rational thought and higher intellectual abilities. The adjective form of the word is noetic (/noʊˈɛtɪk/). Solving mathematical equations, playing board games, and painting a landscape are noetic activities; eating, walking, and engaging in sexual relations are not. (Of course, one can use higher cognitive processes in these latter activites—a gourmand may savor the taste of a dish and try to analyze its ingredients; an actor can consciously walk in an unusual gait to portray a character; an amorous couple can engage in erotic role-play—but the activities do not necessarily involve noesis.)
Noetic entities
By far the most common use of the word in the Wongery is to refer to living beings capable of such cognitive processes. A being is said to be noetic if it is capable of noesis. A life form which is not noetic will be said to be "innoetic"—technically this word is a bit of a hash etymologically, combining a Latin prefix with a Greek root, which is certainly not unprecedented in English but still a bit moot, but the form with the appropriate Greek prefix, "anoetic", already has the meaning "unthinkable", and perhaps should not be saddled with this additional meaning. Humans are noetic organisms; they possess the ability to perform noetic mental processes. Horses, rats, dragonflies, and ferns are innoetic; the first few, at least, may possess some level of consciousness and have some sorts of thought processes, but not at the human level. In fact, humans are generally considered the only noetic Euterran beings.
On other worlds, however, multiple noetic species may coexist. They may or may not get along; the fact that beings are intelligent and capable of profound thought does not necessarily mean they are free from irrationalities and prejudices, as amply demonstrated by the behavior of humans on Earth—and by that of just about any noetic species on just about any world. Especially on worlds with multiple such species, a noetic species is often called a "race" (not to be confused with the application of the term to different strains of Euterran humanity, which differ only superficially and are more properly referred to as ethnicities).
Similar terms
Other words sometimes used to refer to noetic beings are "sentient", "intelligent", and "sapient". In fact, admittedly in general usage these words are far more common than "noetic", but the Wongery usually avoids employing them for that purpose because of ambiguities or other meanings that the words imply. "Sentient" really means conscious and capable of feeling, and these qualities are not limited to noetic organisms. Anyone who has ever had a pet cat or dog will see that these animals certainly possess feelings of a sort, and are therefore by definition sentient, even though they aren't capable of thinking at the human level and are therefore not noetic. "Sapient", meanwhile, is used for this purpose probably mostly by association with the scientific name of the human, Homo sapiens. Properly, however, this is catachrestic; a sapient being is possessed of great wisdom and sagacity (if the term isn't being used ironically, as it often is), and certainly not all noetic beings are sapient. (Some might argue, too, that many innoetic beings are sapient, but this arguably gets into unproductive mysticism.) As for "intelligent", this word is already applied to many innoetic beings. One often speaks of one breed of dog being more intelligent than another, but this by no means signifies that either breed is noetic.
Measurement
Although perhaps not quite as vague as intelligence, noesis is still admittedly something of a nebulous term; it's very difficult to objectively measure a life form's abilities of complex rational thought, short of mind reading, and even that carries some disadvantages as well. Furthermore, the presence of complex thought processes isn't necessarily an all or nothing quality. Many animals classified as innoetic have shown some cognitive ability. Octopuses have demonstrated remarkable problem-solving skills; some observations have suggested that crows are capable of counting at least to four, and according to some accounts as hight as sixteen. Many accounts exist of various animals producing novel solutions to problems they cannot have encountered in the wild, implying that they must have arrived at these solutions through some sort of thought process rather than pure instinct. Certainly these animals have not shown human levels of cognition, but they have shown some cognitive ability; if humans are to be classified as noetic and crows and octupuses not, then some threshold must be defined.
Therefore, for the purposes of the Wongery, noesis is defined in terms of meeting one or more of the following criteria:
- Having a well developed language discernable by other sentient species
- Possessing some form of manufacture and technology
- Capable of varied artwork, both representational and non-representational
Usually a species with any of these qualities will possess all three of them, but demonstration of a single quality is sufficient. Even with respect to these individual qualities, however, some judgment must be made. Communicate in one form or another is widespread among the animal world (and not unknown to plants, either), and the communication of some animals—humpback whales, for instance—seems varied enough that it might have some characteristics of an actual language. However, no one has managed to learn these languages, and until that time it can't be regarded as proven that they are actual languages, so these whales not considered to be noetic. Similarly, there have been some accounts of elephants producing artwork, but they have not unquestionably demonstrated the ability to recognizably represent a variety of subjects. The only representational image an elephant has been shown to produce is that of an elephant, and even that is dubious; skeptics have brought up questions as to whether the elephant might have been trained to produce only that particular image, rather than spontaneously creating it on its own and consciously realizing it is producing representational art.
Objections have been raised to these guidelines, and there are those who believe that dolphins, for instance, may be capable of thought processes as complex as humans, and should be classified as a noetic species, even though they do not meet these criteria. However, no better benchmarks have been advanced that have met with widespread approval. The best that can be said, perhaps, is that for a being to be noetic, it is sufficient that it meet one of these qualities, but may not be necessary. However, lacking any better way of proving the complexity of the thought processes of a life form with no language or art and no apparent way of detailed communication, only life forms that meet these criteria will be considered to be established as noetic. Certainly dolphins, elephants, and humpback whales, among others, are highly intelligent beings that apparently possess deep emotions and empathy, but there is no firm evidence that they are actually capable of the complex thought processes necessary for detailed language and mathematics, and so are currently considered innoetic. (To what extent these and other animals merit certain moral rights is an entirely separate issue that has nothing directly to do with their noesis or innoesis.)
Noesis and sentience
Although intelligence without feeling has been a theme of many technophobic tales, of emotionless robots, unfettered by empathy or consciousness, rising against their masters and becoming mercilessly murderous, no such entities have ever been shown to exist. Indeed, even the fictional examples are self-contradictory; the very fact that these purportedly dispassionate robots and computers betray their masters implies they have some motivation for such betrayal, which means they have some desires, something that makes them prefer one course of action over another. And that, of course, means they do have some sort of feelings after all, even if feelings of sympathy for humans are not among them.
Most scholars believe that a noetic being is necessarily sentient—that is, that any entity with sufficiently complex thought patterns must also have some sort of feelings and awareness. This may be because such qualities emerge naturally in a sufficiently complex system. A 20th-century or early 21st-century computer certainly isn't self-aware or sentient, but it has nothing near the cognitive capacity of a human. It has considerable computational capacity, but that's not at all the same thing; it can quickly perform any calculations it's programmed to do, but it's not capable of coming up with novel solutions to problems, except in a relatively narrow trial-and-error sense. It could very well be that if a computer were made that was complex enough to rival a human in its cognitive capacities, it would ipso facto also develop self-awareness, and some sorts of feelings to go along with it. In any case, certainly all known noetic races do possess self-awareness and some form of emotions... even if those emotions may be very different from those of humanity.