2 things: 1. Is intelligence absolute, or is it a scale? 2. If intelligence is a scale, is it a 2-dimensional scale? Or is it a multi-dimensional scale? For

2 things: 1. Is intelligence absolute, or is it a scale? 2. If intelligence is a scale, is it a 2-dimensional scale? Or is it a multi-dimensional scale? For example, in your example you suggest things like flies, bacterias, trees could be "conscious" while not necessarily being "intelligent". In what sense are you defining intelligence? For example, are any of the individual units of this setup "intelligent?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W34NPbGkLGI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W34NPbGkLGI No, obviously not. Would you want to challenge the "intelligence" of the network as a whole if it were say, armed and considered you a target? Probably not, right? Now, getting back to the insect/bacteria notion ... You'd have to be in complete denial to not be aware that "TPTB" use cultural interactions to introduce things to at least some segment of the public consciousness that it may not be aware of as being within the realm of possibility/actuality of what's really going on in the world. Hence, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_Eve_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_Eve_(video_game) Sure, it SEEMS far-fetched ... and yet, it's not that far removed from, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene How do we know that things like insects, bacteria, etc., while seemingly "un-intelligent" on an individual unit scale, don't have a very different type of intelligence on a larger scale that is imperceptible to us as humans? Keeping in mind that these things have been around for far longer than humans have and have gone through quite the evolutionary process. We ASSUME that as the "latest" thing to come around as part of that process, surely we must be "the greatest". What if we're just something developed by nature to be convenient hosts to other things? Here is just one example of an arguably "more advanced", "more intelligent" life form being hijacked to not only further the interests of something arguably "less advanced, less intelligent", but to do so even to the point of the activity costing it its life: https://www.iflscience.com/parasitic-worms-manipulate-mantises-into-diving-into-water-and-we-now-know-how-60202 https://www.iflscience.com/parasitic-worms-manipulate-mantis... Considering how "un-intelligent" humans can act when it comes to furthering their own interests as a species as a whole ... you get where this is going?