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This is so interesting to think about. Where do you see the extremely unlikely jump from non-intelligence to human-level intelligence that makes us a fluke? I t

This is so interesting to think about. Where do you see the extremely unlikely jump from non-intelligence to human-level intelligence that makes us a fluke? I think paleontology at least indicates that evolving monkey level intelligence is inevitable. We have (somewhat independently) evolved: crows and parrots dolphins elephants chimps and orangutans octopi Just looking more into this because is this discussion is fascinating: - Life transitioned from uni to multicellular multiple times. Animals and land plants both evolved from single celled lineages independently. Fungi like Ascomycota and Basidiomycota went multicellular independently. Even green, red and brown algae went multicellular independently. - Ctenophores (comb jellies) might have evolved nerves independently. Some sponges and placozoans have cells that perform coordinated, nerve‐like functions. These use a different genetic and cellular toolkit that synapses and seem to be an independent evolution. - Octopi evolved brains independently of us. Our last common ancestor just had a primitive nerve net. So at least the path from unicellular life to monkey/octopus level intelligence doesn't seem like a fluke at all to me. It seems like even on the same planet the major transitions occur repeatedly and independently. The jump from monkey to human happened so fast that indicates to me its not vanishingly unlikely. (Monkeys as smart as chimps are thought to have evolved 15-20M years ago). You might say octopi and birds are older and haven't evolved but they didn't have hands to take advantage of their intelligence and create a positive feedback loop. I'm trying to imagine where evolution and super-intelligence seem irreconcilable. Maybe it's the jump from monkeys to the Homo genus, where brain size first started to run away? I think its clear how increasing brain size can confer an advantage there once the stage is properly set. Chimps already had complex social dynamics and rudimentary tool use. We even see initial phases of modestly increasing brain size with the Australopiths that preceded Homo. However our hominid lineage is the only one that did have an increasing brain size. Is it the progression from early Homo to us? That seems like a natural and inevitable progression once the process started.

rixed 2y ago
Yes, devices to sense the environment and then to make some prediction about it seems quite complex to evolve by selection but to be expected given the tremendous advantage they can give. (And thank you for making the effort to illustrate the discussion with actual biology). That's the evolution of the level of intelligence required to escape our environment that seems to miss the driver. I just can't see the evolutionary advantage. I would be the last person to underestimate animal intelligence, but none of the exemples, known and unknown, of brains that evolved on earth, have shown anything close to that. I do acknowledge the fact that more individual as well as social intelligence is generaly good from a survival standpoint, but the gap in intelligence between lighting a fire or shaping a rock into a blade (both good for survival) into developing a theory of black holes or solving P=NP (both useless for survival) seems just too wide to be closed just by the hypothetical natural inertia in the brain growth process. But maybe this is like emergence of intelligence in large neural network? That at some point, the more economical way for a neural network to be able to predict the correct output for a large set of input is to internalise some general knowledge and understanding of the laws governing the inputs? In other words, maybe the elements of reasoning and memory required to light a fire and carve rocks and understand seasons and prey behavior etc, are more easily synthesized into a brain that can, using the same elements of logic, develop a theory of black holes? Maybe, but that take care only of the "individual" intelligence ; we still need to find a reason why social intelligence would go from "be smart enough to steal some bananas and therefore appear stronger and therefore can climb on more female at the end of the day" to "act and behave cooperatively toward a future common good". Is your solution to this the creation of super-organisms? If so, I'm no expert but I can think of as many exemples in nature of "super organisms" that became dumber (insect colonies) than more intelligent (multi-cellular) as a result. I believe the root of my scepticism is actually my psssimistic views on social intelligence, the value of cooperation, that I doubt the central role of reason in most technical inovations, the role of faithful communication in the evolution of language, etc. On another hand, you are the one who have to live with the Fermi paradox :)

rixed 2y ago

Yes, devices to sense the environment and then to make some prediction about it seems quite complex to evolve by selection but to be expected given the tremendous advantage they can give. (And thank you for making the effort to illustrate the discussion with actual biology). That's the evolution of the level of intelligence required to escape our environment that seems to miss the driver. I just can't see the evolutionary advantage. I would be the last person to underestimate animal intelligence, but none of the exemples, known and unknown, of brains that evolved on earth, have shown anything close to that. I do acknowledge the fact that more individual as well as social intelligence is generaly good from a survival standpoint, but the gap in intelligence between lighting a fire or shaping a rock into a blade (both good for survival) into developing a theory of black holes or solving P=NP (both useless for survival) seems just too wide to be closed just by the hypothetical natural inertia in the brain growth process. But maybe this is like emergence of intelligence in large neural network? That at some point, the more economical way for a neural network to be able to predict the correct output for a large set of input is to internalise some general knowledge and understanding of the laws governing the inputs? In other words, maybe the elements of reasoning and memory required to light a fire and carve rocks and understand seasons and prey behavior etc, are more easily synthesized into a brain that can, using the same elements of logic, develop a theory of black holes? Maybe, but that take care only of the "individual" intelligence ; we still need to find a reason why social intelligence would go from "be smart enough to steal some bananas and therefore appear stronger and therefore can climb on more female at the end of the day" to "act and behave cooperatively toward a future common good". Is your solution to this the creation of super-organisms? If so, I'm no expert but I can think of as many exemples in nature of "super organisms" that became dumber (insect colonies) than more intelligent (multi-cellular) as a result. I believe the root of my scepticism is actually my psssimistic views on social intelligence, the value of cooperation, that I doubt the central role of reason in most technical inovations, the role of faithful communication in the evolution of language, etc. On another hand, you are the one who have to live with the Fermi paradox :)