Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-257) and indexes.

"Anthropologist Jeremy Narby travels throughout the globe - from the Amazon basin to the Far East - to probe what traditional healers and pioneering researchers understand about the intelligence present in all forms of life."

"Intelligence in Nature presents overwhelming illustrative evidence that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity alone. Indeed bacteria, plants, animals, and other forms of nonhuman life display an uncanny penchant for self-deterministic decisions, patterns, and actions. The Japanese possess a word for this universal knowing: chi-sei (pronounced CHEE-SAY). For the first time, Narby presents an in-depth anthropological study of this concept in the West. He not only uncovers a mysterious thread of intelligent behavior within the natural world but also probes the question of what humanity can learn from nature's economy and knowingness in its own search for a saner and more sustainable way of life."--Jacket.

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