From: Larry (entropy@farviolet.com)
Date: Wed Apr 18 2007 - 09:56:29 MDT
On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> On 4/18/07, Larry <entropy@farviolet.com> wrote:
>
> Not to mention the universe is intrinsically intelligent. The real change
>> has been in the efficiency of intelligence.
>>
>> 0) The universe got here somehow
>>
>> 1) The slow intelligence of random chemical reactions
>>
>> 2) gives us simple self replicators
>>
>> 3) gives us simple animals/plants and sexual reproduction
>>
>> 4) gives us simple nervous systems
>>
>> 5) gives us complex nervous systems and complex tool use
>>
>> 6) gives us beings able to rapidly custom design beings
>>
>> Our brains are nothing but speed up evolution. The birth and
>> death of firing patterns replacing the birth and death of life
>> forms.
>>
>> Its built into the circuitry that way all through us. At each
>> level nerve pulses compete to make it to the next, the
>> "dominant" pulses generating negative feedback that supresses
>> the lesser. That way your hand on the stove pulls you away from
>> worrying about your overdue bills for a moment.
>
> That's an impressively elegant synthesis. The only problem I have with it is
> that it implies a hierarchy in evolution, progressing towards ever greater
> (faster, more complex, more concentrated) intelligence. This may be just
> prejudice on my part, but I have long assumed that those books on evolution
> I read as a kid which put Man at the top of the heap were a throwback to
> pre-Copernican times. It would be neater if the collective intelligence of
> bacteria in principle could defeat any more complex organism.
What your experiencing right now is the collective intelligence of
bacteria. We are just big bacterial colonies with a subset
(brain) specialized for intelligence :)
But even the non neurological intelligence of bacteria is quite impressive,
it built us, and our brains, a feat we can't yet replicate. A large bowl
of organic chemical soup given 4 billion years under a big light is far
far smarter than a human being or all human beings put together is. The
soup has been churning out creative works left and right.
It now seems to be standard dogma to say "evolution doesn't advance", a
reflexive response to the old dogma showing mankind as the end goal of
evolution. Neither is accurate. Evolution is like a random walk, and
random walks do expand over time. There is nothing wrong with saying that
evolution (on earth) is now covering virgin territory in the form of human
beings. Of course we arn't the only virgin territory, I'm sure a bacteria
somewhere has some new exciting capability as well.
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