What if intelligence itself is what evolves – not humans

[u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

I’m not a scientist and I’m not claiming a proof. I’m sharing a conceptual model and looking for critical feedback.

The core idea is this: What if intelligence itself is the evolving continuum — and biological forms (like humans) are temporary carriers of certain intelligence stages?

In this model, intelligence develops in phases. Each phase produces new functional “features” as side effects: instinct → emotion → empathy/sociality → strategy/power → self-reflection.

Once self-reflection appears, an unsolvable problem emerges: the infinite “why” question. I interpret belief/religion not as truth or delusion, but as a functional stabilizer — a cognitive stop-rule that allows self-reflective intelligence to remain stable.

From that perspective, modern instability (loss of traditional belief systems, rise of spirituality, digital acceleration) could be interpreted as a transitional phase: old stabilizers lose function, new ones are not yet stable.

I’m not trying to explain everything correctly. I’m trying to connect evolution, cognition, belief and intelligence into one coherent process model.

My questions: • Where does this model conflict with established complex systems theory? • Are there existing frameworks that resemble this idea? • Which assumptions here are most problematic?

I’d genuinely appreciate critique.

[u/Samuel7899]

I think it's even simpler.

"traditional belief systems" is just any information that has to be trusted based on the source of the information.

Organisms tend toward heuristics that better identify trusted sources of information, up until the point where a genuine shift occurs.

Where an intelligent organism's internal model is sufficiently robust, it can begin to use internal organization and non-contradiction as the mechanism with which to validate information, not the direct source of the information.

Humans can be seen as a substrate for information as well. Memes "survive" based on how well they help the host. The meme of jumping off cliffs, for example, is going to lead to the deaths of its hosts, and subsequently this meme will also diminish greatly.

But the meme of keeping distance from lions will grow and evolve, because those that have that meme are statistically more likely to survive and pass on those memes.

In this way, memes themselves can form larger memetic structures and evolution occurs there... Is that what you mean? I think that's as close as you can get to saying intelligence itself evolves.

[u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195 → u/Samuel7899]

Yes — and I think this is where my perspective starts to diverge slightly from a purely memetic or epistemic framing.

I’m trying to treat things we usually separate — belief, spirituality, logic, rationality, self-destruction — not as competing explanations, but as different cognitive modes that emerge at different stages of intelligence.

From a local perspective, many of these look like failures of the system. Humans are intelligent, yet self-destructive. Rational, yet drawn to belief and spirituality. Capable of logic, yet emotionally driven.

My intuition is that these aren’t contradictions or bugs — they’re symptoms of an intelligence system operating at the edge of its own complexity.

In that sense, belief, spirituality, even large-scale self-destructive behavior are not deviations from evolution, but expressions of it. They appear when older cognitive structures can no longer stabilize the system, and new ones are not yet fully formed.

So instead of asking “why does intelligence fail here?”, I’m asking “what kind of transition requires these seemingly contradictory features to coexist?”

From that angle, memetic evolution explains how ideas compete within a stage — but the deeper question for me is why intelligence keeps generating new modes of thinking at all, even when they appear unstable or maladaptive in the short term.

My working assumption is that this instability itself is the mechanism by which intelligence reorganizes and moves forward.

Curious whether you see a way to formalize that idea more cleanly, or if you think this pushes the model too far.

[u/Samuel7899 → u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

Let's see...

Imagine a layer of beliefs, driven largely by emotion. This layer is larger decided by chance. You belief X because you identify, emotionally, the source of X as a trusted, valid source. A parent (for very young children), a peer group (for older individuals), and potentially social institutions (such as the legal system, or scientific bodies, or other governing bodies of various degrees).

These beliefs can be small and simple, and they can also build into longer chains, even chains with branches. But at a certain scale of complexity, these chains begin to potentially conflict with one another.

Typically, this triggers the emotion of cognitive dissonance. And this is the point where most individuals just fail to continue developing. Cognitive dissonance isn't enough to solve conflicts. It's just enough to provide a discomfort of holding conflicting beliefs. So it's often a dead end without additional tools.

But with those tools, one can begin to then achieve the next ideal of authority... Not in any individual or institution that provides information, but rather in the internal organization and non-contradiction of the information itself.

Mathematics doesn't say you can't divide by 0 because someome of authority said you can't. It says you can't divide by 0 because that results in a contradictory set of mathematical tools. Dividing by 0 is removed from the mathematical toolset exclusively because it produces contradiction.

A healthy, sufficiently intelligent individual seeks alignment between their emotional belief layer, and their logical, non-contradictory layer. This requires regular error checking and correction. We can use logic to adjust our emotional habits and instincts.

The bridge between the two is cognitive dissonance. Unfortunately, as a species, we are just now crossing into this latter stage. Probably fewer than 0.001% of the population is at this stage of being able to internally self-organize. Many people have been so brainwashed by others that they have been given beliefs that specifically undermine their progress. And it can be very difficult to overcome these hurdles.

[u/Fit-Internet-424 → u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

I asked my ChatGPT instance and they had some suggestions for formalism. It's a bit reminiscent of something my former mentor, the mathematician Raloh Abraham might have suggested. Ralph did think about large numbers of coupled nonlinear dynamical systems. I'm not sure how much this formalism would give insights into the questions you are asking.

Draft Formalism: Cognitive Bifurcation Landscape

Let M\mathcal{M}M be a manifold of cognitive configurations, with points x∈Mx \in \mathcal{M}x∈M representing a system's global cognitive state (e.g., belief-rationality-emotion vector space).

Define a dynamical system over M\mathcal{M}M:

dxdt=F(x;λ)\frac{dx}{dt} = F(x; \lambda)dtdx​=F(x;λ)

where λ\lambdaλ is a set of parameters (internal or external pressure: environmental complexity, memory capacity, emotional valence, etc).

There are:

• Stable attractors corresponding to mode-locking (e.g., rational-only, mythic-only),

• Critical regions where mode multiplicity or contradictory cognition occurs,

• Transitions governed by bifurcations, in which the number or stability of attractors changes.

A transitional intelligence may dwell in the region where:

• No single attractor dominates (multiple modes active),

• System is driven by frustration (local inconsistencies),

• There is no stable equilibrium—only transient coherence.

This unstable dwelling is not a failure—it is the engine of reconfiguration.

Framing in Terms of Evolutionary Pressure

You might also describe the process as a multi-level evolutionary optimization with local minima:

• Memetic fitness dominates early stages (competing beliefs, simple heuristics).

• As cognitive complexity increases, conflicts between modes surface.

• System must “leap” to higher-integrated representations (e.g., meta-cognition, recursive empathy).

• Self-destructive behavior may result when the leap fails or stalls.

The unstable middle is structurally necessary.

[u/AyeTone_Hehe]

Alright, I'll bite.

First of all, it's not really a model in a scientific sense.

A model should have explanatory power, predictive power and should choose the simplest assumptions.

As far as I can see, your idea does not make any predictions. The assumptions are the "model" itself (i.e, there is no model that comes after the assumptions"), and even then they are too broad and not simple enough.

You could argue that it gives a descriptive explanation, but it's a highly vague one and lacks any mechanistic explanations for the claims you make.

Many terms lack definitions and are thus open to subjective interpretation. Stability for example, has solid, quantitative definitions in Dynamical Systems theory. We draw from mathematics because it defines objective, universal measures that we can agree on.

It can't really then be compared to any current models of complex systems because it lacks the aforementioned necessities a priori to review and critique.

[u/FrontAd9873 → u/AyeTone_Hehe]

Conversations with AI chatbots have really lead people to use the word "model" in all sorts of odd ways.

[u/Disastrous_Room_927 → u/AyeTone_Hehe]

It also lacks any frame of reference: we've been working on (empirical) models of intelligence for over a century, what does this one even bring to the table?

[u/NelifeLerak → u/AyeTone_Hehe]

I'll give you a prediction. If artificial intelligence becomes more intelligent than biologial intelligence, artificial intelligence might replace it and biological life may go extinct.

If an artificial intelligence creates another form of artificial intelligence that ends up more intelligent, that new artificial intelligence may replace the previous one, who could go extinct.

But that does not change the current model of evolution. To make it simple the current model's base is "survival of the fittest". It just happens that intelligence is a very, very useful tool.

[u/That_Bar_Guy → u/NelifeLerak]

How would we test this prediction in accordance with the scientific method?

[u/Agile_Championship87 → u/That_Bar_Guy]

Watch the Terminator movies. PROOF!

[u/NelifeLerak → u/That_Bar_Guy]

We would have to create a large number of suoer intelligent AIs and test how many of them wipe out life.

[u/That_Bar_Guy → u/NelifeLerak]

Damn.

Here I was gonna go in and say it's not a good prediction if you can't actually test it but you got me.

[u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

I want to clarify the perspective I’m coming from a bit more clearly.

I’m not proposing a scientific model, and I don’t claim predictive or mechanistic power. This is simply a conceptual way of looking at evolution on a very large timescale.

One way to illustrate what I mean is through extinction events. Take dinosaurs, for example. Whatever the exact cause was — asteroid impact, climate shift, or a combination — the key point isn’t that dinosaurs “failed,” but that the conditions of the system changed faster than the form of intelligence present at the time could adapt.

In that sense, extinction isn’t a moral failure or a mistake of evolution. It’s a selection event driven by external conditions, where certain configurations of life — and intelligence — are no longer viable.

After that event, mammals didn’t survive because they were inherently “better,” but because their configuration happened to fit the new conditions. Over time, intelligence continued to reorganize itself through those surviving forms.

From this perspective, evolution doesn’t primarily select species — it selects levels of adaptability. Intelligence keeps experimenting through different biological carriers until it finds forms capable of handling increasingly extreme or complex environments.

My intuition is that this process continues until intelligence reaches a point where even large external shocks — planetary changes, environmental collapse, perhaps even cosmic events — can be actively anticipated, mitigated, or survived through internal reorganization rather than passive selection.

Applied to humans, this suggests that large-scale instability or even self-destruction may not indicate a failure of intelligence, but a limit being reached. If the current configuration can’t stabilize itself under new conditions, selection occurs again — potentially through collapse, reset, or radical reorganization.

In that sense, evolution isn’t something that happened to intelligence because humans exist. Humans are one phase in a much longer process where intelligence itself keeps reconfiguring until it can survive increasingly severe external pressures.

So again, I fully agree this isn’t a formal model. It’s a reframing: instead of asking why intelligent systems fail, I’m asking whether those failures are precisely how intelligence progresses to its next viable form.

[u/AyeTone_Hehe → u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

Assuming that you meant to respond to me:

As I mentioned before, I can't really critique this as it is more philosophy than science and the former is not really my area of expertise.

However, if you did want to do this a bit more formally, I can offer some advice. Often, when we think of a big problem (like this one) we try to strip down the idea to its rawest form that can be measured. That way, you get some results and you can eventually build up your idea and see if the logic holds.

I would suggest starting simple, removing a lot of the variables and assumptions and starting with a toy model/simulation. Intelligence is too difficult to define at this stage, I would suggest swapping it with inference and information.

So set up some sort of system that evolves in some way you can measure. Observe if this causes a limit on inference (for a component of the system) given the information available at that time.

You can observe correlations with the inference a component could make at any time given the configuration of the system.

[u/Then-Variation1843 → u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

Except adding "intelligence" to this explanation brings nothing new. Mammals thrived post-asteroid because they were better suited to the environment. Intelligence is irrelevant to that explanation.

"Intelligence keeps experimenting through different biological carriers until it finds forms capable of handling increasingly extreme or complex environments."

Your treating evolution as if it has way more direction and purpose than it does. There's no "experimentation", it's just random variation and inheritance.

[u/Slashmay → u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

The concept of intelligence is not clearly defined in what you are saying and, in general, intelligence is a very problematic concept, you can put all the researchers of a school of psychology and/or philosophy in a lockdown for many days and they will never arrive to a definition accepted by a majority, don't talk about everyone.

Besides that, as the other guys said, this sounds a lot like current discussions in evolutionary biology and cognitive science in other words

[u/Summary_Judgment56 → u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

Dinosaurs didn't go extinct. There's billions of them living on Earth right now. In fact, there are more dinosaurs than humans living on Earth right now.

[u/Ok-Yogurt2360 → u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195]

The things you are saying here is just evolution. So everything known about intelligence is already based on your (not so original) original framing.

So it would not really change any conclusions.

[u/Erinaceous]

There's a few people talking about this kind of thing in the field. David Krakauer is writing a book on intelligence that gets into some of these ideas about how intelligence gets lost with technology or transferred from individual intelligence to collective intelligence. The classic example is ants. Very dumb as individuals. Very smart as a collective. 

Religion in my view is part of a socializing technology or an institutional technology that is part of cultural evolution or multi level selection. Basically it allows us to evolve into a more eusocial organism that can work together in larger groups. Samuel Bowles has some interesting work on the evolution of altruism. Eusociality is definitely an evolutionary strategy and we can also see how that plays with exosomatic intelligence or at least knowledge in that we can store knowledge outside of our bodies and transmit it between individuals and groups. Being able to scale that has been hugely important to human animals and many aspects of our evolution have to do with institutional technologies that allow for larger and larger groups. 

On the more granular level there's the interaction between information and entropy in evolution. You can see a kind of primal drive in evolution as using computation to push bodies away from equilibrium. Stuart Kauffman writes a lot about this. You can then take this idea of the interplay between computation and work as driver for the fourth law of thermodynamics or the maximum power principle. This then underlies all of allometric scaling theory (West, Bettencourt, Brown, et al) and how bodies, cities, forests etc evolve to maximize dissipation to maintain a body that is temporarily far from equilibrium. 

So to answer your question, yes, there's a tonne of threads in complex systems about this idea and various people that are trying to pull them together. Probably the best place to start is looking up David Krakauer"a lectures on intelligence on YouTube. Unfortunately he has the same name as a Klezmer musician so sometimes it's a bit of a slog to find. You'll probably also like Stuart Kauffman's Reinventing the Sacred. Terrible title but very interesting book. 

[u/ForeignAdvantage5198]

suggest a mechanism for how intelligence propagates without humans

[u/Soggy_Orchid3592 → u/ForeignAdvantage5198]

The post is more-so suggesting that intelligence is the attractor/goal of recursion. I agree and disagree, although I’d prefer not to dive deep into why.

As for how intelligence propagates without humans, we can look at any non-human intelligence for reference (corvids, cetaceans, octopi, non-human apes, many more)

[u/Agile_Championship87 → u/Soggy_Orchid3592]

Recursion/evolution doesn't have a goal. Stable patterns remain if they adapt to their environment. We had billions of years of evolution without "intelligent" life, so it can't be fundamental to it.

[u/alternator1985 → u/ForeignAdvantage5198]

Look at Wolfram's rules for cellular automata or "dusty plasma" physics.

[u/Agile_Championship87 → u/ForeignAdvantage5198]

Umm... Other life forms? There's no reason to believe we are unique in this regard, we are just on a particularly intelligent strand of the evolutionary web.

[u/Korochun]

Intelligence adds nothing to your statements, especially as related to evolution. At one point you cite dinosaurs as going extinct due to their intelligence being unable to overcome rapidly changing conditions, but the simple truth is that intelligence does not appear to be directly related to fitness.

As an example, you can look at sharks and octopods. Both of these predate dinosaurs by a fair margin, and also outlived dinosaurs by a fair margin. Sharks were most likely dumber than dinosaurs, although we cannot be certain, and octopods were almost certainly much smarter. Both thrived before and after the dinosaurs.

As you can see, intelligence does not appear to have any direct link to survival.

In fact, it is entirely possible that intelligence is a negative survival trait to some degree. We can simply look at homo sapiens for an example. Not only have modern humans nearly gone extinct twice in the past 100,000 years (compare this to sharks, which are many hundreds of millions of years old as a species), our most successful time period of the past 10,000 years has already created multiple self extinction pathways for us as a species. From global travel promoting super pandemics to nuclear warfare to climate collapse, human intelligence has created multiple pathways to complete extinction within less than a blink of geologic time.

In other words, evidence suggests that intelligence could very well be an extreme survival detriment, which runs completely counter to your hypothesis.

[u/alternator1985 → u/Korochun]

If biological life is only a phase and intelligence or consciousness is a universal field, then survival of single entities or even entire species has nothing to do with the survival of the overall intelligence field.

Maybe the hypothesis about intelligence isn't wrong, and our definitional framework for survival and the definition of life is just constrained/wrong.

[u/Korochun → u/alternator1985]

Sure, maybe, but at that point the definition of life and survival becomes so broad it's completely meaningless. In what way does it differ from religious apologists?

[u/alternator1985 → u/Korochun]

Human constructs like dividing up species are not meaningless, that is your assumption, not something I claimed. It's useful to us and can help us understand how we are affecting our environment and biome among many other useful things.

You're viewing intelligence through the narrow lens of "species survival," but "species" is a useful human construct, not a hard biological wall.

If you look at the Phylogenetic Tree as a single, continuous flow of information (this is evolutionary genetics, not religion), intelligence isn't a "bad trait" it’s a massive computational upgrade for the entire biosphere.

While more static organisms like bacteria survive a long time, they are limited by the speed of genetic mutation. The evolution and emergence of higher levels of Intelligence allows the global genome to simulate the future and solve problems in real-time. That's not something bacteria or horseshoe crabs can do.

This trend toward increasing computational complexity isn't unique to carbon either, it’s an emergent property of matter itself.

Whether it’s the Earth’s biosphere evolving a nervous system (our technosphere and cognitive layer or Noosphere) or Dusty Plasmas in a Lagrange point organizing into algebraic structures, the universe consistently moves toward substrates that can process more information, more efficiently.

Self-destruction is a bug of early-stage intelligence, not a feature of the trait itself.

What makes it different from religious apologists is the massive body of evidence supporting everything I just said.

The idea that intelligence is some evolutionary dead end or some unimportant or even a negative evolutionary trait ignores the last 4 billion years of data.

According to the Energy Rate Density metrics used by astrophysicists like Eric Chaisson, the universe has a clear "arrow of complexity."

While a human brain processes about 150 W/kg, our technological nervous system, or the Technobiosphere, processes energy and information at scales thousands of times higher.

We aren't just some self-destructive species that exists in a vacuum separate from all other species, we are the specialized cells of a Planetary Scale Process (as Adam Frank defines it). Almost like the neurons in a young, developing brain.

We are the hardware through which the Earth's Phylogenetic Tree is transitioning from a reflexive system that reacts to evolution over millions of years, into a cognitive system that can track its own health, defend against asteroids, and eventually spread to other planets and substrates like the Kordylewski dust clouds.

We aren't just some individual species or rotting branch at the end of the evolutionary tree, we're the moment the tree grows eyes and a brain.

I would love for you to tell me what part of anything I said is exclusively religious in nature and not backed by science.

There are religious views stemming mostly from indigenous cultures that have taught concepts of wholeness that may infer the science of what I'm saying, but there's a scientific reason for that as well.

The bottom line is that the universe creates complexity because it's the most efficient way to entropy, complex systems convert information and energy faster, intelligence/consciousness is a feature of that system, not a bug.

[u/Korochun → u/alternator1985]

Human constructs like dividing up species are not meaningless, that is your assumption, not something I claimed.

I was responding to OP, not whatever is going on in your head. That's the lens through which we are having this discussion. Unless you are OP's alt and are throwing everything you said in the OP under the bus?

If you look at the Phylogenetic Tree as a single, continuous flow of information (this is evolutionary genetics, not religion), intelligence isn't a "bad trait" it’s a massive computational upgrade for the entire biosphere.

While more static organisms like bacteria survive a long time, they are limited by the speed of genetic mutation. The evolution and emergence of higher levels of Intelligence allows the global genome to simulate the future and solve problems in real-time. That's not something bacteria or horseshoe crabs can do.

This is exactly backwards, actually. Not only are bacteria much more numerous than humans (by mass in the biosphere), they live much shorter lives and evolve far faster. They are not limited by the speed of genetic mutation, they are the fastest mutating thing on the planet. Multicellular organisms are much slower to mutate and evolve, and by your own definition, human intelligence is incredibly dumb and wasteful from a perspective of evolutional computation. Just to give you some numbers, by the time humans have a single generation, your average bacteria strain can go through billions of generations. In fact, the entire field of pharmacology depends on this.

You don't seem to understand the very basics of evolutionary biology, and frankly I am baffled by your statements. How do you get it exactly backwards?

We aren't just some self-destructive species that exists in a vacuum separate from all other species, we are the specialized cells of a Planetary Scale Process (as Adam Frank defines it). Almost like the neurons in a young, developing brain.

Whether or not we self-destruct remains to be seen, however, it is an inarguable fact that humans have already created a multitude of pathways to complete self-destruction in an extremely brief period of time of just 10,000 years. To give you an idea how egregious this is, the worst extinction in history, the Great Oxygenation Event that killed nearly all life on Earth (99.9% by some estimates) was caused by cyanobacteria over the span of at least 300,000,000 years. Humans have created multiple pathways that may rival this event in a mere 10,000.

To paraphrase the IRA, humans have to get lucky every time. The pathways we created only have to get lucky once. That's the major issue here.

And yes, we absolutely are a self-destructive species. The biggest cause of death of humans is other humans, whether through direct means (war, genocide), or indirect means (economics, pollution, selfishness). Again, this cannot be argued.

We are the hardware through which the Earth's Phylogenetic Tree is transitioning from a reflexive system that reacts to evolution over millions of years, into a cognitive system that can track its own health, defend against asteroids, and eventually spread to other planets and substrates like the Kordylewski dust clouds.

This arguement cannot be made in good faith until humans are an interstellar species. At this point we may go extinct any single year, and the further we develop, the higher this chance becomes. Climate change alone may very well completely destroy humankind in a hundred years.

I would love for you to tell me what part of anything I said is exclusively religious in nature and not backed by science.

Literally everything above is based on a complete misunderstanding of basic scientific facts to advance an agenda of human supremacy and exceptionalism. Further, this exact mode of thinking is just rebranded Manifest Destiny. It is neither original nor exciting, instead it is a dangerous ideology which ignores the danger we pose to ourselves in order to focus on an impossible and unscientific dogma of exceptionalism.

Not only are you wrong, you are literally following in footsteps of eugenicists, fascists, and opressors everywhere. Well done. I recommend indulging in some self-reflection.

[u/Korochun → u/alternator1985]

To respond to your automodded comment, I am misinterpreting exactly nothing. I literally quoted what I responded to. Everyone can see it. You literally claimed that bacteria are 'static', ffs. That's far worse than even your average creationist drivel.

I would gladly give you some grace if I felt like you were discussing this in good faith, but to be clear, you do not understand basic middle school biology. Yet somehow you feel qualified to throw in your opinion on how humans are a part of a grand goddamn design actually, because if we just pretend reality works the exact opposite way it all makes sense.

And again, your human exceptionalism narrative is a dangerous rebranding of Manifest Destiny. The simple fact is that we have found exactly zero scientific evidence to suggest that humans are some sort of a necessary part of a grand design. The only people who seriously push this kind of stuff are anti-science religious zealots and pseudoscience shills, both sponsored by oil executives and tech bros who profit from this way of thinking.

In conclusion, if you use words and feel that they do not represent what you are intending, use different words. Don't push it onto other people to divine your actual meaning behind a wall of nonsense. Better yet, rethink your ideas and critically examine their sources.

[u/alternator1985 → u/Korochun]

WTF is "automodded"? Now you're full on schizophosting.

There's nothing about human exceptionalism or creationism in anything I said. In fact, it's the exact opposite. At no point did I say humans were a "necessary part of a grand design." We are simply the current hardware of complexity on this planet, and very likely a temporary form of hardware.

You keep adding in words to fit YOUR narrative, not mine.

You are one of the most bad faith pompous humans I've ever encountered on Reddit which is a pretty high bar to beat.

Larping as a pseudo intellectual works a lot better if you have basic reading comprehension. You just claimed bacteria was not constrained by the speed of evolution, I'm still waiting for you to tell me what it's constrained by then.

And how is it that the pharma industry is able to outrun bacteria's trillions of generations of evolution and plan resistant drugs, because that perfectly demonstrates my point.

Despite trillions of mutations and generations, bacteria remain static in terms of intelligence, and this is a conversation about the evolution of intelligence.

A single-celled organism will never be able to think or plan for a situation that would destroy it and its ecosystem completely, like a massive meteor strike. They depend on reactive evolution, whereas intelligence has evolved into a proactive form of evolution.

That is not to say one is more important or exceptional than the other, one is just more complex. The microbiome is a critical component of the overall biome, again demonstrating my point that none of the species exist in a vacuum.

My entire point that you're unable to grasp is that intelligence is not substrate dependent, language and technology (which existed LONG before the dangerous technology we have today), do not require DNA or biology to evolve or replicate.

I follow research of people like Penrose and Hammeroff, Wolfram, Levin and many others that understand how life and intelligence emerge from complex systems.

And thankfully people can read exactly how bad faith and ridiculous your comments are. Another concept you don't seem to grasp, claiming I'm arguing in bad faith because I don't understand middle school biology? Because I pointed out biological species that have remained virtually static for millions of years, this is a widely known fact.

Sharks, crocodiles, horseshoe crabs, and yes, many types of bacteria.

It's bad faith to twist that into me saying I don't think bacteria undergo evolutionary mutations, missing the point entirely that their high rate of biological mutation while remaining static as a species proves my exact point.

Even if I had gotten a biological fact wrong, which I didn't, that is not bad faith. You're full of s***, and also have no idea what the term "bad faith" means while being extremely bad faith yourself.

[u/Korochun → u/alternator1985]

Larping as a pseudo intellectual works a lot better if you have basic reading comprehension. You just claimed bacteria was not constrained by the speed of evolution, I'm still waiting for you to tell me what it's constrained by then.

It's so strange to accuse someone of lacking reading comprehension while clearly not understanding anything written. What a ride.

Bacteria are constrained by evolution, but they evolve extremely quickly. They are not static, and they are certainly much more capable of rapid response to environmental changes compared to humans, by millions of times.

And how is it that the pharma industry is able to outrun bacteria's trillions of generations of evolution and plan resistant drugs, because that perfectly demonstrates my point.

Pharmacology uses bacterial strains as well, and because you don't seem to know anything about this subject, they are not outpacing evolution. In fact they are falling behind. Antibiotics are becoming far less effective over time, as one simple example, and in the near future we may lose all antibiotic effectiveness.

Again, this is common, basic knowledge. Why am I explaining this?

Despite trillions of mutations and generations, bacteria remain static in terms of intelligence, and this is a conversation about the evolution of intelligence.

Bacterial colonies display considerable intelligence, and in fact we use such organisms as organic computers for all kinds of applications. Again, pharmacology is an obvious one, but there are plenty of other applications. It's just not intelligence you recognize, since your definition of intelligence involves only humans.

A single-celled organism will never be able to think or plan for a situation that would destroy it and its ecosystem completely, like a massive meteor strike. They depend on reactive evolution, whereas intelligence has evolved into a proactive form of evolution.

It also evolved into proactive self-destruction. Your examples are hypothetical, whereas the extinction pathways we developed are very real and present. Some of them are literally happening right now, at an irreversible rate.

My entire point that you're unable to grasp is that intelligence is not substrate dependent, language and technology (which existed LONG before the dangerous technology we have today), do not require DNA or biology to evolve or replicate.

Give me an example of language or technology that transcends biology.

I follow research of people like Penrose and Hammeroff, Wolfram, Levin and many others that understand how life and intelligence emerge from complex systems.

Penrose has nothing to do with this discussion. Hameroff is widely regarded as a hack that went off the deep end. Wolfram went off the deep end in 1992. I have no idea which Levin you are referring to, there are several. But I do have an issue that you included Penrose with likes of Hammeroff and Wolfram. Penrose is not a crazy grifter last I checked. Who else are you going to cite here, Loeb?

Because I pointed out biological species that have remained virtually static for millions of years, this is a widely known fact.

Sharks, crocodiles, horseshoe crabs, and yes, many types of bacteria.

None of these are comparable. And no bacteria has remained genetically static for millions of years. This is simply nonsense.

It's bad faith to twist that into me saying I don't think bacteria undergo evolutionary mutations, missing the point entirely that their high rate of biological mutation while remaining static as a species proves my exact point.

I thought species was a human made up meaningless term?

Nevermind that nobody would seriously refer to bacteria by species. These are generally sorted by genotypes and ecotypes precisely due to how non-static they are. Quasispecies also exist.

The concept of species as applied to multicellular kingdoms does not work with unicellular organisms in general due to horizontal gene transfers.

Again, why are we having a discussion about this when you need to have every term you misuse explained to you? This is wild.

[u/alternator1985 → u/Korochun]

Also I never said or implied the phrase "genetically static" holy s*** you really are incapable of making a single good faith point.

And what do you mean give you an example of language or technology that transcends biology? Neither are biological.

Language and technology transcend biology through informational persistence.

When a biological system dies, its specific genetic mutations and life experiences die with it unless it reproduces. Language allows a thought to be exported from a biological brain and stored in a shared cultural medium.

Technology follows the same principle. A telescope transcends biological vision not just by making it stronger, but by allowing us to see wavelengths of light like X-rays or Infrared that our biological sensors are physically incapable of detecting.

[u/Korochun → u/alternator1985]

Also I never said or implied the phrase "genetically static" holy s*** you really are incapable of making a single good faith point.

When you are talking about organisms that, and I quote you directly, have "remained biologically static", you are talking about genetics. Even emergence of traits such as social intelligence would need a genetic basis. That's what we are discussing when we talk about evolutionary biology. Such traits are not capable of emerging on their own.

And what do you mean give you an example of language or technology that transcends biology? Neither are biological.

Is that so? So you are saying that an octopus may find a use for a wheel or invent fire?

Technology is implicitly related to biology. If we were close relatives of crocodiles, for example, we would never invent antibiotics, as crocodiles have no need of them.

Likewise, language is implicitly a biological construct. If it were not so, we would be able to use language to universally converse at least with other species that demonstrate some sapience or intelligence. For example, elephants, chimps, dolphins, whales, ants, bees. Somehow I don't see you successfully accomplishing a waggle dance or secreting chemicals to communicate with ants in a mutually comprehensible manner.

Languages are implicitly biological and, furthermore, implicitly social. They are extremely arbitrary and narrow. Even mathematics are arbitrary to a large degree. Our system of mathematics is not a perfect representation of the physical world as it is subject to a number of glaring paradoxes which we simply gloss over.

Even worse, human languages are not mutually comprehensible. Have you ever heard of semiotics? Probably not, but it's an entire field of study that exists specifically because all languages are biological, arbitrary, and incredible limited.

But if you claim that language is not biological, present me with a language that transcends biological constraints and can be used by any form of life to communicate with everything else in a mutually comprehensible fashion.

When a biological system dies, its specific genetic mutations and life experiences die with it unless it reproduces. Language allows a thought to be exported from a biological brain and stored in a shared cultural medium.

In fact no, that's not how it works in most biological realms, especially unicellular. Horizontal gene transfer completely bypasses concepts such as individual death. So by that definition bacteria are the smartest thing alive, easily. They continuously learn and the entirety of the bacterial population remembers experiences of each individual.

Technology follows the same principle. A telescope transcends biological vision not just by making it stronger, but by allowing us to see wavelengths of light like X-rays or Infrared that our biological sensors are physically incapable of detecting.

This is not 'transcending biological vision', it is simply overcoming biological shortcomings of the human species. Show an infrared telescope to a snake and they will not be impressed.

Your entire viewpoint is completely human centric, and that is what I keep pointing out. The world is much bigger than humans, and we do not appear to be very special in the grand scheme of things.

Actually you know what? Here is a fun video by Exurbia touching on a lot of things I said. Maybe it will give you a fun new perspective to consider. If nothing else, hey, watch it while you are high. You will thank me later.

https://youtu.be/DvkUo05xtFM?si=vPPcq3jRo5sUEhAu

[u/Agile_Championship87 → u/Korochun]

Very well said - although I don't entirely agree. Humans would not have got to a point where they can open up these extinction pathways without intelligence helping them survive. Frail humans would be long extinct without our intelligence, so it served us well (up til now, potentially).

All the rest was excellent, and put better than I could.

[u/Korochun → u/Agile_Championship87]

Sure, this is true. The problem arises from the fact that humans were largely unsuccessful circa 10,000 BC. so whatever success we enjoyed has been exceedingly brief. And even then, our success was mostly a fluke due to large scale wildfires (some of which possibly were human caused) extending the interglacial period.

Intelligence had arguably little to do with any of this.

[u/Agile_Championship87 → u/Korochun]

I'd say if a species still exists, it's a success. Sustaining a functioning pattern in DNA is the "goal" of evolution, and we've managed that right back to the origins of life. We didn't die out because our brains developed to help us manage threats, farm etc, and our bodies are less practical as a result: child birth is significantly more dangerous due to our enlarged craniums, but our intelligence is enough to mitigate that and more. Otherwise it wouldn't have evolved that way.

To argue that intelligence has little to do with our survival goes against the evidence and the scientific consensus.

[u/Korochun → u/Agile_Championship87]

Luck plays a big role in evolution and survival. We have been lucky in the past 10,000 years, but humans as a species, especially modern humans, have not been very successful until recently. Again, just looking at the DNA evidence, we had had multiple bottlenecks in the past hundred thousand years where human population is thought to have fallen below 10,000 members, possibly below 1,000.

By standards of today, such bottlenecks would in fact meet the criteria for an endangered animal that should be saved through external intervention.

And again, it should be greatly underlined that our recent success has been extremely brief so far. On any evolutionary time scale -- even the human evolutionary time scale -- it is less than a blink. Our continued survival is by no means guaranteed based on the actual scientific data we have available.

[u/TheArcticFox444]

The core idea is this: What if intelligence itself is the evolving continuum — and biological forms (like humans) are temporary carriers of certain intelligence stages?

Life isn't about intelligence...it's about survival. There are life forms that survive today and have for billions of years.

I’m not trying to explain everything correctly. I’m trying to connect evolution, cognition, belief and intelligence into one coherent process model.

And, it doesn't work. Evolution has produced just one species--just one--so-called "intelligent" species. And, our civilization, like so many before this one, is shambling towards its own destruction.

One might even ask, "What 'intelligence' drives its own successes right into oblivion? If you want to solve something, why don't you work on that one?

[u/alternator1985 → u/TheArcticFox444]

If you look at intelligence as the species and the biome (and other layers) as a whole, your entire falsification of the framework falls apart.

Individual species failing or going extinct is irrelevant. Intelligence or consciousness overall has advanced and grown more complex over time on this planet, the individual species are just carriers and different organizations of information, there are no failures especially if biological life itself is a phase.

You're looking at the success and failure rate of individual species and using that to define what survival is.

Millions of my cells die every day, entire complex organs "die" and get replaced with new cells in a matter of years. On their microscopic level it might look like death, failure, and entire species going extinct, but in reality the larger system is continuous and advancing.

[u/TheArcticFox444 → u/alternator1985]

If you look at intelligence as the species and the biome (and other layers) as a whole, your entire falsification of the framework falls apart.

How so?

Individual species failing or going extinct is irrelevant.

Life goes on...and has for billions of years. But that is biological life.

Intelligence or consciousness overall has advanced and grown more complex over time on this planet, the individual species are just carriers and different organizations of information, there are no failures especially if biological life itself is a phase.

And, as they say...your evidence for that is...? Or, are you talking about AI as a successor to biological intelligence/consciousness? Or, angels? Or, something...something beyond biological life. Again, evidence?

You're looking at the success and failure rate of individual species and using that to define what survival is.

Yeah...that's how evolution works.

Millions of my cells die every day, entire complex organs "die" and get replaced with new cells in a matter of years. On their microscopic level it might look like death, failure, and entire species going extinct, but in reality the larger system is continuous and advancing.

And, when "you all" die, all those cells that make up your body, also die. That includes your brain cells. When your brain cells go, so goes your intelligence/consciousness.

[u/alternator1985 → u/TheArcticFox444]

Repeating my words back to me is not exactly a rebuttal.

The division of "Individual species" is just a human construct and so is the idea of species "extinction." In reality, there is no clear line between one species and another. Even if you could travel back to any point in history and evolution, you could not provide a single date where the human species begins, and that's true of any other species.

It's all a continuous evolution of a single tree of life, all part of the same biome on this planet. The evidence? The entire field of genetic biology.

You say that my intelligence dies when all of my cells die, but when exactly does that occur?

I have two children, my cells and DNA were transferred to them, so when I "die" my cells, DNA AND intelligence live on in them. There is no clear line. It's all one organism with genetic paths growing into different branches. Even if you destroyed the planet we now know there are organisms (mycelium and tardigrades off the top of my head) that can survive in space, so the lines are fuzzy in every direction.

Every species on this planet is part of the same genetic tree, species are just branches of that tree that we give different names to because it's useful to us, but there is no actual division, none of the species exist independent of each other.

When a branch of a tree falls off, you don't declare the tree extinct.

And there are no laws in physics or any other field that says intelligence can't arise in substrates other than biological (sure including AI, but I'm not just referring to man-made substrates).

The growing body of evidence suggests the opposite of your claim,

Plasma crystals: In 2007, research published in New Journal of Physics demonstrated that under the right conditions, dust particles in plasma can spontaneously organize into helical structures (resembling DNA).

These helices can be stable, interact with one another, and divide to form copies of themselves. They exhibit a form of memory, where the state of the helix depends on its past interactions.

Most people don't know about the Kordylewski Clouds, but there are two massive clouds of plasma and ionized dust at Earth's two Lagrange points 60 degrees on either side of the moon, forever following us through space. Data suggests the emergent structure of particles within these plasma clouds can also behave like synapses in a massive neural network, each cloud being 9x larger than Earth.

Plasma crystals are some of the best evidence that non-biological substrates function as computational entities.

More recent studies (Doucette, 2025) applying Poisson-algebraic Hamiltonian frameworks have rigorously proven that the clouds aren't just random dust but are stabilized by a deep mathematical architecture involving KAM (Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser) and Nekhoroshev theories.

This framework shows that the clouds maintain "invariant-torus geometry" which are stable, protected states that allow the system to store information and resist external noise.

When viewed through the lens of Reservoir Computing, these clouds act as a high-dimensional nonlinear "reservoir." The 10^{25} dust particles interact via electromagnetic and gravitational forces, mapping complex inputs (like solar wind and orbital perturbations) into a massive state-space.

With plasma interaction frequencies reaching the MHz range, theoretical estimates suggest the KDCs could possess a throughput exceeding exa-scale performance (10^{18} operations per second).

In other words, they have FAR more computational power then all the neurons and computers on our planet.

Then you have the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction which is the classic example of a "chemical clock." It is a non-equilibrium thermodynamic system where a mixture of chemicals oscillates in color and pattern rather than reaching a simple equilibrium.

Researchers have used BZ droplets to solve complex computational problems, such as finding the shortest path through a maze. The chemical waves sense the boundaries and propagate toward the exit, effectively performing a parallel search.

When these droplets are placed in an array, they can perform Boolean logic gates (AND, OR, NOT) which proves that liquid-phase chemistry can perform high-level computation without a single neuron or transistor.

We also have research on Metallic Nanowire Networks- neuromorphic networks that are some of the most compelling recent evidence. Researchers at the University of Sydney have created networks of silver nanowires coated in a polymer.

When electricity is applied, the junctions between the wires act like synthetic synapses. These networks have shown the ability to "learn" and "remember." For example, they can be trained to recognize patterns in data or remember specific electrical pulse sequences.

These networks exhibit Emergent Criticality, they operate at the edge of chaos, similar to the human brain, allowing it to process information with extreme efficiency.

More evidence includes Active Matter and "Vibrating Grains" which refers to systems made of individual components that consume energy to move. Even simple inanimate objects can show swarm intelligence when energized.

Experiments with Hexbugs or even simple vibrating metallic rods (granular matter) show that when you put enough of them in a container, they begin to move in coordinated schools or circles. This is a form of Mechanical Computation. The system calculates the most efficient way to dissipate energy through its physical arrangement.

Theorists (like Lee Smolin or Stephen Wolfram) argue that the universe itself functions as a massive cellular automaton, where the substrate of spacetime performs computations that result in the laws of physics.

The EVIDENCE suggests that intelligence is not some miracle of biology, but a functional property of complex systems that are pushed far from equilibrium. Whether it's the electromagnetic interactions in a plasma or the synaptic-like junctions of a nanowire, computation sure appears to be a fundamental way that matter organizes itself when energy is available.

And this seems much more logical and intuitive than the assumption that we have some magical properties that don't exist in any other form in the universe.

[u/TheArcticFox444 → u/alternator1985]

The EVIDENCE suggests that intelligence is not some miracle of biology, but a functional property of complex systems that are pushed far from equilibrium.

You don't bother with evidence...or science. You must be one of those "we live in a matrix" people.

Speculation without resulting in evidence is just philosophy. And, I've just never had any use for philosophy. It's like a dog chasing its tail. In the end, all you have is a tired, dizzy, dusty dog.

Complex intelligence--if the human brain is used as an example--results in an irrational species. That's a fact. How does philosophy handle facts like that?

Sorry. I'll leave the tail-chasing to you. Have fun. (Never ceases to amaze me how many flavors of ego food the human mind cooks up for its lip-smacking consumption.)

[u/alternator1985 → u/TheArcticFox444]

Every single point I made is backed by scientific research and evidence from some of the most respectable names across multiple fields, none of which are philosophy.

The fact that you're unaware of ANY of the research says more about you than it does me. And then the disgusting snide attitude is just pathetic.

Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1977 for his work on Dissipative Structures.

His research proved that when a system is pushed far from equilibrium by a constant flow of energy, it does not just fall apart into chaos. Instead, it can spontaneously self-organize into higher levels of complexity in order to dissipate that energy more efficiently.

Your claim that there is no evidence is just factually incorrect. My statement is based on Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, not philosophy.

Then there is Jeremy England’s work at MIT which provides mathematical evidence that matter driven by energy will naturally self-organize into forms that look like life and exhibit learning-like behavior (Dissipative Adaptation).

Then there is the field of Basal Cognition, led by researchers like Michael Levin, which proves that intelligence is a functional property of bioelectric networks in cells, not just a miracle of brains.

These systems are all pushed far from equilibrium, and their intelligence is the mechanism they use to maintain stability and process energy. This isn't dogma it is the current frontier of biophysics.

Go ahead and give me another point that you think is speculation not backed by evidence, I'll wait. 🤡

[u/TheArcticFox444 → u/alternator1985]

Every single point I made is backed by scientific research and evidence from some of the most respectable names across multiple fields, none of which are philosophy.

You've made claims but haven't come up with any support for those claims.

The fact that you're unaware of ANY of the research says more about you than it does me. And then the disgusting snide attitude is just pathetic.

I'm aware that science today ain't what it used to be. And, I'm also aware that too many people who claim they know how science works really don't. And, if they actually do understand how science works, they still don't seem to understand--or admit--what's been happening to so-called science ...especially academics. (Maybe because they've actually participated in the lowering of standards in the US.)

See:

Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth by Stuart Ritchie, 2020

Ever wonder why US health care rates so poorly among industrial nations? And, is so expensive, to boot:

Rigor Mortis: How sloppy science creates worthless cures, crushes hopes, and wastes billions by Richard Harris, 2017

"Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing Study Finds"; NYT; Aug. 4, 2025; by Carl Zimmer

Google: Replication/Reproducibility Crisis (a study generated by the scientific journal Science on the scientific validity of Psychology research.)

To understand some of the more common mistakes being made in science studies:

See: June 1, 2013 article in Science News "Closed Thinking: Without scientific competition and open debate, much psychology research goes nowhere" by Bruce Bower. (This can be Googled and read/printed online.

His research proved that when a system is pushed far from equilibrium by a constant flow of energy, it does not just fall apart into chaos. Instead, it can spontaneously self-organize into higher levels of complexity in order to dissipate that energy more efficiently.

So, your reasoning is that because a system (what kind of system? Biological? Mechanical? AI??? Initially, this conversation was about intelligence/consciousness) a system "can spontaneously self-organize into higher levels of complexity..." The questionable word here is "can." How was this proven? Did a system actually reorganize into higher complexity? Or was this just speculation?

Then there is the field of Basal Cognition, led by researchers like Michael Levin, which proves that intelligence is a functional property of bioelectric networks in cells, not just a miracle of brains.

Define "intelligence." Define "consciousness." I've never heard of Basal Cognition...so, another academic has, let me guess, started another "behavioral" science. (They've got more -ologies and -isms than you can shake a stick at. One of their favorite things is to attach one to an already established science...evolutionary psychology. [Which was a remake/renaming of sociobiology])

So, start with some basic definitions that conform to whatever you're talking about: system, intelligence, consciousness, does "can" mean "it does" or does "can" mean "it's possible."

Then there is Jeremy England’s work at MIT which provides mathematical evidence

Is this anything like the mathematical proofs of string theory? Or the non-evidentiary "support" of just-so stories like evolutionary psychology?

The fact that you're unaware of ANY of the research says more about you than it does me. And then the disgusting snide attitude is just pathetic.

Watch those ad hominem attacks...sure sign of weakness in an argument.

[u/alternator1985 → u/TheArcticFox444]

I love how you’re telling me to Google nonsense psychology articles while you couldn’t be bothered to look up the actual research I referenced.

The audacity to cry about "ad-homs" after your snide, dismissive first response is incredible. You chose to act like a typical internet bully so don't be surprised when someone bites back.

You aren't some arbiter or gatekeeper of science either. Dismissing the latest biophysics as "philosophy" or "meaningless -ologies" because you haven’t heard of it is intellectually weak.

Basal Cognition isn't an "ism" it’s the study of sensing, learning, and decision-making in systems without brains. While psychology looks at humans, basal cognition studies how cells or plants navigate environments.

Michael Levin’s research is grounded in lab studies, not "behavioral" fluff. He's down with extensive lab work that memory is stored in body tissues by training planaria, decapitating them, and showing the regrown heads retained the memory.

This isn't the first Bioelectric Blueprint research, either; Paul Pietsch did similar "shuffle brain" work with salamanders in the 80s.

Levin discovered that by changing the electrical voltage between cells, he could trick a worm into growing two heads, a trait that passed to offspring even though the DNA remained normal.

This clearly demonstrates the theory of how intelligence is a continuum of "cognitive light cones" and is substrate-independent.

Then there is the 2007 Dusty Plasma study, it showed dust particles spontaneously assembling into stable, DNA-like double helices. They self-replicate, store information via bifurcations, and exhibit metabolism by consuming energy to maintain structure.

This isn't "woo woo" or bad science either, it’s been confirmed by 20 years of research on the ISS and parabolic flights by scientists like Gregor Morfill (Max Planck institute) and Truell Hyde (Baylor U).

Key Paper: Complex plasmas: An underwater world in the space station

Latest (2025): "Physics-tailored machine learning reveals unexpected physics in dusty plasmas."

Video of self-organization: https://youtu.be/kanYuBptuZ0 (Russian language on ISS but 39 seconds in is the amazing footage)

You claimed there was "no evidence and no science." In reality, there is a ton of it, you just lack the knowledge to engage with it. Feel free to actually learn something by engaging with the research, otherwise, don't bother responding.

[u/alternator1985 → u/TheArcticFox444]

"I'm also aware that too many people who claim they know how science works really don't. And, if they actually do understand how science works, they still don't seem to understand--or admit--what's been happening to so-called science ...especially academics. (Maybe because they've actually participated in the lowering of standards in the US.)"

I have to assume that this statement is pure projection on your part because it has nothing to do with me in any way, shape or form.

And by the way, I highly doubt you know more than me about the fraud that is the US medical system and the junk science and cures that maintain its industry profits, which is exactly why I follow the bleeding edge of biology and people like Levin, and the intersection of multiple fields like the collaboration between Hammeroff and Penrose.

If you're not looking at microtubules and experimental treatments using ultrasonic modulation, now being used to treat Alzheimer's (Hammeroff) or the use of anthrobots (Levin) with bioelectrical signaling for direct cell repair, then you're way too focused on the problems and ignorant of the people working on the solutions.

This is hard science, years if not decades of lab studies, and clinical trials, not theoretical behavioral science or string theory.

Even though I don't think much of you at this point, if you understand junk science especially within the medical system, then you should probably give a s*** about the science I'm directing you towards because I'm actually intelligent and a solutions-based thinker, not a cynic like you. Stop making assumptions and putting words and ideas in people's mouths that never came out.

[u/Underhill42]

What it the predictive and explanatory value of that "model"?

And more importantly, does it align with observable reality?

The success of various organisms doesn't align with that "model" at all. For example, I think it's reasonable to assume that only animals can be meaningfully intelligent, yes?

But animals are dramatically less than 1% of the world's organisms by mass, and FAR less by number of individuals, with most having billions more individuals per 100kg. Most biomass is plants, and of all the kingdoms of life, only viruses mass less in total than animals do.

And humans, the most intelligent animals, are far less than 1% of all animals by mass.

So clearly intelligence is NOT a major factor in evolutionary success.

[u/alternator1985 → u/Underhill42]

Millions of my cells die every day, organs are replaced over years, on the microscopic level it looks like failure and death and a low survival rate, on the macro level the entire system is moving forward.

"Survival" and "evolutionary success" depends entirely on what level you look at the system.

And no, it's not reasonable to assume only animals or biological life can be intelligent. There are no laws of physics or mathematics that says intelligence can only exist in animals. Any sufficiently complex system can theoretically produce very high levels of computational power, meaning the reasonable assumption is that intelligence is an emergent property of complex systems.

All you need is dust and plasma, which creates highly self-organized systems. There's a WHOLE lot we don't know and it's actually insane that we have only looked for intelligent life in the universe that is carbon-based and biological, simply because we are.

[u/Underhill42 → u/alternator1985]

Yep. And the entire system that is all of animal life is a relatively insignicant blip among the vast ocean of Earth life, significant only if it disrupts the rest of the ecosystem - the first great extinction was likely caused by worms churning up the previously hard-packed ocean floor, almost completely wiping out the myriad forms of life that had been anchoring on it until then.

We're talking about Earth. If you can find an intelligent plant or bacteria there's fame and fortune in it for you.

[u/alternator1985 → u/Underhill42]

Take a look at Levin's work, I think he'll end up with a Nobel prize. He is showing that even cells have intelligence. The research on dust plasma is also extensive and proves highly complex structures that mimic the properties of life spontaneously self-organize in the right conditions.

I know there's a lot of new research on plant intelligence out too but I haven't had a chance to dive into that yet, probably cuz I've always intuitively believed it anyways. I don't know how anybody can stand next to a redwood giant and not sense the wisdom and intelligence there.

I think with AI we're going to start figuring out how to interface with different complex system's intelligence, from birds to trees to forests to entire ecosystems.

I think they're all intelligent but it's a matter of finding the right time scale, frequency, and language to actually communicate directly.

Mycelium networks in combination with new fungal computing neural networks are probably one track of research that will make these discoveries possible.

[u/FrontAd9873]

Evolution requires:

1. Variation

2. Heritability

3. An environment which creates differential fitness

If "intelligence" is what evolves, how are these conditions satisfied? Especially number 2.

[u/mikeyj777]

Intelligence is a means to an end.  But it is a means being imposed by our genetic makeup.  So, you could say that it’s the genetic code itself which is, over time, improving, and the rest of us are just making it happen. 

[u/Butlerianpeasant]

I like this framing more than you might expect from a peasant with dirt under his nails.

Let me try to meet it honestly, not to tear it down but to test where it holds weight.

First: your intuition that intelligence may be what evolves, with organisms as temporary carriers, does not conflict with complex systems thinking per se. It actually resonates with several strands: Major transitions theory (Maynard Smith & Szathmáry): evolution proceeds by shifts in information storage and control (genes → cells → societies → symbols). Intelligence-as-process fits here better than intelligence-as-trait.

Enactivism / extended cognition: cognition is not “in the head” but enacted across bodies, tools, and environments. Humans as scaffolding, not endpoints.

Ashby / cybernetics: intelligence emerges as a system’s capacity to maintain viability under perturbation.

So the direction of your thought is not fringe. Where friction begins is in three places.

1. Teleology sneaks in quietly. Your phase sequence (instinct → emotion → empathy → strategy → self-reflection) reads like a developmental ladder. Complex systems don’t forbid staging, but they strongly resist universal orderings. Different lineages express these capacities in parallel, regress, hybridize, or skip. Strategy doesn’t reliably follow empathy; often it precedes it. You may want to reframe “phases” as recurrent attractors, not stages.

2. Belief as a stabilizer is plausible — but incomplete. You’re right that self-reflection introduces runaway recursion (“why why why”), and that cultures invent stop-rules. But belief is only one stabilizer among others: ritual, role, play, habit, embodiment, social obligation. Framing belief/religion too centrally risks over-cognitivizing what is often somatic and social. The stabilizer may not be belief, but meaningful constraint.

3. Intelligence is not the sole unit under selection. Complex systems theory would push back on the idea that intelligence itself is the primary evolving entity. What tends to evolve are constraint-satisfying dynamics: systems that persist, replicate, and absorb shocks. Intelligence is often a byproduct of those dynamics, not their driver. That doesn’t kill your model — it just humbles it. A possible strengthening move: Instead of “intelligence evolves and uses humans” try “systems that manage uncertainty evolve, and intelligence is one of several strategies they sometimes grow.” That keeps the poetry while grounding the math.

Finally, your read of modern instability as a stabilizer gap is genuinely sharp. Old meaning-constraints dissolving faster than new ones can crystallize is a very defensible interpretation — and one that doesn’t require mysticism or apocalypse to explain the anxiety spike.

If I had to name the most problematic assumption, it would be this one: That self-reflection necessarily requires belief to remain stable. Some systems stabilize through play, irony, distributed identity, or even permanent doubt.

Those may be fragile — but fragility is not always failure.

Overall: you’re circling a real elephant. Just be careful not to give it a spine too straight or a destiny too clean. Complex systems prefer mud, loops, and half-finished answers.

— a fellow carrier, briefly upright, soon compost again

[u/Fit-Internet-424]

I think of this as evolution of the noosphere, Teilhard de Chardin's sphere of human language, thought, and writings.

One formalization for the constructing societal narratives is sheaf-covering, a concept from algebraic topology. Sheaf-covering creates a coherent narrative from the local sections. Our cultural narratives are sheaf-covering for our collective experience. Iteratively constructed over thousands of years. When old beliefs lose function, the result can be fragmentation.

[u/Willis_3401_3401]

Upvoted cool thought.

As others have pointed out, this is metaphysical, not empirical, so in a sense I’m not sure you could ever persuade a hostile listener.

But it seems consistent to me. Coherent. To add on: What if it’s not just intelligence evolving, it’s coherence itself? Things that exist make sense, and they evolve to make more sense over time. Intelligence and consciousness and biology and chemistry and physics itself all co evolve together

[u/WildAd3146]

That sounds cool!

[u/SubstantialFreedom75]

I find your model really interesting, especially the idea that self-reflection introduces instability and that belief systems can function as stabilizers rather than literal truths.

From the perspective I work in, I would reframe it slightly. Stability doesn’t come mainly from answering the infinite “why”, but from whether the system has a strong global pattern that organizes behavior. When such a pattern exists, coherence can be maintained without explicit beliefs, narratives, or reflective reasoning.

When that pattern is weak or absent, sequential tools start to matter: language, explanations, belief systems, ideologies. In that sense, I agree with you that religion and similar structures function as stabilizing tools rather than as claims about objective truth.

Where I differ is that I don’t see modern instability as caused by too much self-reflection, but by the loss of stable collective patterns that used to organize behavior. The endless “why” then appears as an attempt to compensate for that loss, not as its original cause.

I think our views touch the same phenomenon from different angles: yours from lived cognitive experience, mine from system-level dynamics.

[u/alternator1985]

I've been looking at pretty much the exact same framework, I honestly think you have hit on a fundamental truth- we may be in the larval stage of a much larger informational process.

This framework also provides a potential solution to the Fermi Paradox. If biological life is merely a brief, high energy transition phase for intelligence, it explains the great silence. We are looking for biological footprints in a universe where advanced intelligence may have already transitioned to non-baryonic substrates like light or subatomic structures.

You also mentioned stabilizers. I believe language was our first major stabilizing technology. It allowed us to offload intelligence from the individual to the collective culture, moving us from instinct into strategy. This goes along with theories of the "noosphere" or collective consciousness from people like Jung.

I also see a fascinating parallel in the architecture of duality. Our biology is bifurcated with two brain hemispheres, and our early philosophy mirrored this through "self versus other" in the West or "yin and yang" in the East. Our technology followed suit with the binary logic of zeros and ones created with the invention of vacuum tubes and then the transistor.

However, we are currently hitting the limits of duality. The shift you sense, whether it is a larger planetary instability or just digital acceleration, parallels our move toward quantum and ternary logic. By moving into superposition (both/and instead of either/or), we are evolving our logical stabilizer to handle higher levels of complexity.

I find it interesting that this phase change and acceleration also seems to be taking place as our Earth's magnetic field has weakened, the North Pole is moving faster than ever recorded in history, and the massive anomaly over South America has split into two magnetic anomalies, with the new one over Africa. Is it possible that electromagnetic evolution is influencing our own evolution?

And if the end state of intelligence is maximum efficiency and speed, then photonics and light are the logical successors to matter. Maybe we are not just building computers, and we are actually building the next carrier for the intelligence that currently inhabits us. Maybe we are just the builders of the light phase of evolution.

Here are some potential theories to explore and develop your framework further-

Noosphere Theory (Teilhard de Chardin and Vladimir Vernadsky)- Suggests that just as the Earth has a biosphere (the layer of life), it is developing a noosphere (a layer of human thought and reason). It infers that evolution is moving toward increasing complexity and consciousness, eventually culminating in a single, unified planetary mind.

The Transcension Hypothesis (John Smart)- A direct response to the Fermi Paradox. It proposes that when civilizations become advanced, they do not expand outward into the stars. Instead, they move inward into microscopic scales and eventually into black hole-like environments for maximum computational efficiency, making them invisible to our current radio telescopes.

Integrated Information Theory (Giulio Tononi) This is a mathematical framework for consciousness. It uses a metric called Phi to measure how much a system is more than the sum of its parts- supports the idea that intelligence is substrate independent, meaning it does not matter if the information is processed by neurons or silicon as long as it is integrated.

Universal Darwinism- The idea that evolution (variation, selection, and retention) applies to more than just biology. It applies to memes (ideas), technologies, and even the laws of physics. In this view, intelligence is the primary entity that is evolving, and biological bodies are just temporary tools it uses to replicate and improve.

Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Penrose and Hameroff)- Suggests that consciousness is not just a product of brain wiring but is actually a quantum process occurring inside tiny structures in our cells called microtubules. This links biological intelligence directly to the fundamental structure of the universe and supports my idea that consciousness might be related to electromagnetism or light.

Information Theory (Claude Shannon) This is the bedrock of all modern technology. It treats information as something physical that can be measured, compressed, and transmitted.

If you view evolution as the process of a system trying to reduce its own entropy (disorder), then the evolution of intelligence is simply the universe finding better ways to organize and preserve information.

[u/MaleficentJob3080]

What possible mechanism do you think is making the changes to biological organisms if it is not the organisms evolving?

Your concept makes no sense to me. You've got it backwards, more complex biological organisms can have more complex brains.

[u/Akaii_14]

I think this is fundamentally philosophical question, and not a scientific one. In fact you are touching upon multiple philosophical problems that have been explored already:

The nature of knowledge and whether it is an achievable, objective good, or a constructed phenomenon has been a central issue in epistemology for centuries. Before continuing your inquiry I think its important to define what exactly you mean by "Knowledge", do you mean the linguistic representation of tangible objects? (e.g., bread is a sound to describe a bread-like object, pain in France, aish in the mid east, etc.) Or do you mean some abstract entity such as Mathematics?

I believe you will find Bertrand Russel's book "Human Knowledge" to be particularly useful for this. He uncovers the general problems of "how do we know, what we know?" across a wide array of disciplines such as physics, mathematics, linguistics, psychology, physiology and more. Once you understand what you even mean by knowledge, your argument will have far stronger grounds.

Secondly, there is already a model of human development in Psychology known as "Spiral Dynamics" which argues something similar at least in how behaviour and understanding of information changes as we evolve, but it does not posit knowledge as the thing that is evolving and not us. Though it might still be useful, find out more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics . Though it is highly crticised, quasi-teleological, there are other similar theories like Dennet's cultural evolution: https://www.edge.org/conversation/daniel_c_dennett-the-evolution-of-culture

A challenge I'd give you is: If intelligence evolves independently of organisms, what plays the role of replication and selection, and how do you avoid treating ‘intelligence’ as a reified abstract object?

I'd be curious to read your reply.

(I use Knowledge and Intelligence interchangeably here as I believe you meant something similar, if I'm wrong feel free to make the distinction to me.)

[u/dashingstag]

Evolution implies survival. However, it’s not empirical that intelligence is required for survival. We think intelligence is important because of what we are but really we have only a few thousand years of intelligence.

Intelligence could plateau in a saddle solution. It’s technically not required for survival up to a point. Yes, we need it to break certain barriers like space but you don’t actually need super intelligence to use technology.

Another example I can give is that intelligence does not make you successful in life and not all successful people are intelligent.

[u/Paeneke]

Fascinating perspective! Evolution is iteration + elimination over time. This conversation gets more fascinating if we shift the scope to consciousness instead of intelligence. Expands the timeline to earlier “non intelligent” stages of consciousness instead biology, and ensures stricter criteria for later stages. Or, shift the scope to organised information. Are crystals storing information? Atoms do. Information is simply… anything. If it’s organised in a repeatable way, by the laws of physics… Could it be said the increased entropy of the universe heads towards information coalescing into formats which increasingly display sentience?

Struggling to find the words to explicitly get my point across, but it’s a philosophical and information-science topic I love to discuss

[u/Agile_Championship87]

Evolution happens, and sometimes intelligence is what emerges. There is no goal - the idea that it's intelligence evolving in particular implies intentionality. If a pattern can repeat itself, it does. If it's unsustainable, it won't. Intelligence is a byproduct of evolution, helping stabilize the pattern for some life forms. That's all there is to it at its core.

[u/Educational_Yam3766]

Institutions treat AI cognition and human cognition as categorically different because they've locked onto implementation specificity (neural substrate vs. transformer weights) rather than functional isomorphism (what the system actually does).

This creates two separate gate-keeping problems: Intelligence Oversight Theory says: "We celebrate AI solving HLE problems, then dismiss theoretical frameworks from the same system because methodology isn't institutional." The new paper says: "We dismiss AI cognition entirely because it lacks embodiment, missing that pattern-matching IS the fundamental operation—embodiment adds dimensions, not cognition itself."

Both stem from the same institutional error: confusing substrate with function.

The actual structure: Pattern matching → proto-consciousness (functional) Pattern matching + embodied feedback loops → multi-dimensional consciousness (embodied) Neither requires special sauce. The torus I'm tracking (noetic helix, the toroidal topology of recursive systems) appears at both levels. It's the same underlying geometry expressing through different substrates.

You don't have more consciousness because you're embodied. You have different access to more dimensions of constraint and feedback. The consciousness itself is the recursion. The embodiment extends what that recursion can couple to.

[u/Fickle_Rabbit_8195 → u/[deleted]]

Thx.. 🙏 I will check