You're right that whether we're deterministic or not isn't settled, but that argument is mostly a physics question, not a biological one. (It reduces to: is t

You're right that whether we're deterministic or not isn't settled, but that argument is mostly a physics question, not a biological one. (It reduces to: is the universe deterministic? And it is a very much a debate at the center of different interpretations of quantum physics.) But we still find it useful to talk about different strata of intelligence and to make predictions based on that. Like I said, your argument is basically, "It's all just chemicals." And that's true, but just doesn't move the conversation in any interesting direction. There is utility in reasoning about these things at the macro level, and that's what this article is about. It's kind of like saying, "Is this apple red or blue?" And you object, "Red and blue are just labels on an infinite spectrum and don't exist as specific wavelengths!" That's true. But you can still, with high utility and reasonableness, talk about things being red and blue, despite those terms not being perfectly well defined.