Our universe brims with intelligences. By exploring other minds, we can see ourselves in this dazzling constellation. Questions about intelligence are explored in a broad range of disciplines—neuroscience, philosophy, biology, computer science, anthropology, and many others. But researchers in these fields rarely have opportunities to work together.

Templeton World Charity Foundation’s Diverse Intelligence (DI) initiative seeks to break down disciplinary boundaries and build a new scientific community. DI is a multiyear, global effort to understand a world alive with brilliance in many forms. Its mission is to promote open-minded, forward-looking inquiry in animal, human, and machine intelligences. We collaborate with leading experts and emerging scholars from around the globe, developing high-caliber projects that advance our comprehension of the constellation of intelligences.

The initiative is focused on three challenges:

By studying the songs of humpback whales, Laurance Doyle (SETI Institute) aims to uncover the vast wellsprings of communications that exist throughout Planet Earth—and beyond.