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That is if you believe biological general intelligence is the end goal of evolution, which I believe is highly unlikely. Intelligence is simply a special side-

by admk 5y ago

That is if you believe biological general intelligence is the end goal of evolution, which I believe is highly unlikely. Intelligence is simply a special side-product of evolution, there is nothing general about general intelligence. Many organisms can thrive without it. There is also a non-negligible chance that all organisms would die out before reaching intelligence. We are fortunate to live in a world that produced us.

arketyp 5y ago
That's a bit besides OP's point though, which is about vacuous claims. Humans are the existence proof that there is some sequence of circumstances where evolution reaches GI. There's an analogous sequence of circumstances in the RL case, which happens to be the hard part.
Filligree 5y ago
> That is if you believe biological general intelligence is the end goal of evolution, which I believe is highly unlikely. I would agree, but might add that evolution doesn't have 'goals'. Is that the point you were trying to make?
- didericis 5y ago
  Not OP, but yeah, evolution doesn’t have goals in the same sense that people do, just like gravity doesn’t “want” to pull things, it just kind of “is”, and simply acts as reality permits based on prior and current conditions. That’s reasonable to say. Convergent evolution exists for at least some adaptations though, like the eye. It’s not unreasonable to think that there may be some sort of equivalent convergence which creates a high general intelligence adaptation given enough time, at least for social creatures. I think it’s pretty much impossible to know whether intelligence is a convergent adaptation without some kind of perfect simulation of evolution over billions of years. You’d have to tweak starting conditions and see if you kept getting smart creatures.
  - Filligree 5y ago
    Ah. So that’s why we exist. I was wondering.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Depends, if any of the laws of physics were off by a billionth of a percent, there would be no human intelligence (or carbon life, or atoms). There are many reasonable assumptions one could draw from the fact.
- artifact_44 5y ago
  Anthropic principle
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    This assumes a multiverse which is interesting, because it leaves open the possibility that we are in one of the infinite universes(pl) that does have intelligence as its goal. :)
dqpb 5y ago
> biological evolution is sufficient to (eventually) achieve biological general intelligence Says nothing about this: > biological general intelligence is the end goal of evolution
ikrenji 5y ago
i mean if the end goal is to propagate the organism, surely intelligence will be helpful to this - interplanetary scale
- Viliam1234 5y ago
  But until that actually happens, the possibility of it maybe happening in the future has zero impact on current natural selection.

by admk 5y ago

arketyp 5y ago

That's a bit besides OP's point though, which is about vacuous claims. Humans are the existence proof that there is some sequence of circumstances where evolution reaches GI. There's an analogous sequence of circumstances in the RL case, which happens to be the hard part.

Filligree 5y ago

> That is if you believe biological general intelligence is the end goal of evolution, which I believe is highly unlikely. I would agree, but might add that evolution doesn't have 'goals'. Is that the point you were trying to make?

didericis 5y ago
Not OP, but yeah, evolution doesn’t have goals in the same sense that people do, just like gravity doesn’t “want” to pull things, it just kind of “is”, and simply acts as reality permits based on prior and current conditions. That’s reasonable to say. Convergent evolution exists for at least some adaptations though, like the eye. It’s not unreasonable to think that there may be some sort of equivalent convergence which creates a high general intelligence adaptation given enough time, at least for social creatures. I think it’s pretty much impossible to know whether intelligence is a convergent adaptation without some kind of perfect simulation of evolution over billions of years. You’d have to tweak starting conditions and see if you kept getting smart creatures.
- Filligree 5y ago
  Ah. So that’s why we exist. I was wondering.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Depends, if any of the laws of physics were off by a billionth of a percent, there would be no human intelligence (or carbon life, or atoms). There are many reasonable assumptions one could draw from the fact.

artifact_44 5y ago
Anthropic principle
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  This assumes a multiverse which is interesting, because it leaves open the possibility that we are in one of the infinite universes(pl) that does have intelligence as its goal. :)

dqpb 5y ago

> biological evolution is sufficient to (eventually) achieve biological general intelligence Says nothing about this: > biological general intelligence is the end goal of evolution

ikrenji 5y ago

i mean if the end goal is to propagate the organism, surely intelligence will be helpful to this - interplanetary scale

Viliam1234 5y ago
But until that actually happens, the possibility of it maybe happening in the future has zero impact on current natural selection.