> It's possible that all the tremendous complexity of organic systems isn't actually necessary for intelligence or consciousnes, which is similarly surprising.

> It's possible that all the tremendous complexity of organic systems isn't actually necessary for intelligence or consciousnes, which is similarly surprising. My guess is most of that complexity is necessary for efficiency, not for basic function. Biological systems are unimaginably efficient at almost everything they do. The information storage density of DNA is within 1-2 orders of magnitude of the upper limit imposed by physics, the brain performs tasks that you need GPU clusters to emulate while using only 20 Watts of energy, some catalytic enzymes are a million times better than a platinum catalyst, etc.