Imagine intelligence like a thermodynamic process. An engine for compressing the world into a smaller representation. Its not about any particular configuration

Imagine intelligence like a thermodynamic process. An engine for compressing the world into a smaller representation. Its not about any particular configuration or any particular set of data. Just as the complex structure of the cell arises from the guiding principles of evolution, so intelligence arises from the, as yet, not quite understood processes of thermodynamics within open systems. See England's work in this area. We are constructing systems that play out this universal property of systems to compress. The structures that arise from this driving force of Megawatts of power flowing through graphics cards are only the product of this kind of flow of information. Just as the structure of the human brain is derived from eons of sunlight pouring down upon the photosynthetic cells of plants. There are not two processes at work here. Its one continuous one that rolls on up from the prebiotic soup to hyper advanced space aliens. You are probably stuck on the idea of emergence. You imagine there must be some dividing line between intelligent and non intelligent. Therefore the point at which it emerges must be some spectacular miracle of engineering. When in fact there is no dividing line, just a continuum of consciousness from the small to the large. Read up on panspermia.