To some extent, yes, I could imagine external intelligence arising in something that approximates a colony rather than a single organism. There are a bunch of

To some extent, yes, I could imagine external intelligence arising in something that approximates a colony rather than a single organism. There are a bunch of (much simpler) examples of that on Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(biology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(biology) It's not a giant stretch from that to imagine evolution happening within the components of the colony.