However, the step from "can develop on its own" to "will develop on its own" is highly non-trivial. Yeah, that's the rub. When starting from a more primordial

However, the step from "can develop on its own" to "will develop on its own" is highly non-trivial. Yeah, that's the rub. When starting from a more primordial level, the search space is widened to truly astronomical proportions. It may run for ages before you can even tell if progress is being made. I understand that this is not attractive to many researchers/investors. I've often wondered how one would go about crafting a viable fitness function and admittedly I've not come up with much. What I meant to say is that things that seem hard in nature, might actually be a lot simpler in technology. Fair enough. I don't believe that intelligence has to develop the way nature did it on earth. It is plausible that there is a way to short-circuit it like we did with flight. But it's not guaranteed that we're on the right track to finding it either. I would just love to see more research along those more experimental evolutionary lines.