Richard Dobson*
Conventional models of intelligence treat cognition as an inventory of separable faculties — linguistic, logical, interpersonal, emotional — that can be measured, ranked, and trained independently [1,2]. Empirical work on latent structure contradicts this partition [3] and neurological evidence indicates that the brain operates as a single integrated system in which emotional, intuitive, and cognitive processing cannot be cleanly separated [4,5]. This paper introduces Layered Intelligence Theory (LIT) as a process-logical account of cognition grounded in Brenner’s Logic in Reality [6]. Five nested layers — physiological, emotional, associative, symbolic, and integrative — emerge not as independent modules but as dialectically interdependent regimes of a single learning system. LIT is then positioned inside a dual programme, here termed the Deeply Human–Deeply AI framework, arguing that the conditions [7,8] identified for human creativity — crossdomain association, symbolic fluency, and tolerance of ambiguity, sustained by neural plasticity that resists over-automation [9,10] — are the same conditions under which artificial cognitive systems must be designed if they are to avoid collapse into narrow expertise, taming, and hegemonic automation. From these foundations the paper derives eight architectural design principles for Deeply AI, each mapped to an empirically testable signature, and closes with four falsifiable predictions and an empirical research agenda. Keywords: Layered Intelligence Theory (LIT), Logic in Reality (LIR), Deeply Human–Deeply AI, cognitive architecture, process logic, neural plasticity, integrated cognition, artificial general intelligence (AGI), human creativity, dialectical learning, automated systems, empirical cognitive science.
Layered Intelligence Theory (LIT), Logic in Reality (LIR), Deeply Human–Deeply AI, cognitive architecture, process logic, neural plasticity, integrated cognition, artificial general intelligence (AGI), human creativity, dialectical learning, automated systems, empirical cognitive science.
Richard Dobson, Astrala Advisory, Paphos, Cyprus.
Dobson, R. (2026). Layered Intelligence Theory in the Logic of Reality: A Process-Logical Case for Deeply Human and Deeply AI Cognition. J. Cogn. Comput. Ext. Realities, 2(2), 01-41.