> If there were a simple algorithm for intelligence, and assuming the presence of intelligence confers a competitive advantage, then why wouldn't natural select

> If there were a simple algorithm for intelligence, and assuming the presence of intelligence confers a competitive advantage, then why wouldn't natural selection have created many examples of it by now, after some billion years of multicellular life? A reasonable hypothesis would be that intelligence comes with high cost, such as high energy consumption, high heat production, longer period of infant stage, adaptation of body parts that will reduce their strength and interfere with their functionality, etc. All those negative effects more than offset the benefit of higher intelligence in the short term. Because natural selection does not plan but only pushes evolution toward local maximum points, most organism never evolves high intelligence.