Does life evolve towards intelligence?

[Mr Anonymous]

Do animals above a certain level of complexity evolve inevitably towards greater intelligence? In that sense, could the process of evolution be described as intelligent?

Evolution as a process itself doesn't determine specific evolutionary outcome - it's the specific evolutionary outcome which governs the course of evolution.

Y'know. That would look so profound published on the back of a match-book cover. If only I hadn't given my career as match-book cover writer up, I'd have £14.79 in my bank account this very day...

 

[valich]

Intelligence is measured by the IQ test. And animals do really badly at IQ tests as many researchers have found out.

Yeah but an IQ test only measures how well you do on an IQ test - not how intelligent you are. It begs the question by assuming an IQ test measures intelligence. Just because someone's a chess pro doesn't mean they are intelligent: it means they know how to play chess good. I guess I should just say that an IQ test does not measure intelligence: it measures how well you do on an IQ test.

 

[Clockwood]

A well made IQ test is supposed to be an accurate reflection of how much ability and potential an individual has overall. That isn't to say that IQ tests can do all that. After all, we are still trying to get the theory of how the human brain works. It will be a while before we have a truely accurate test honed down.

 

[valich]

Since everything goes from high energy to low energy and intelligence is high enegry I will say no, not necessariy. This being true with the system being constant and no foriegn stimulants. However for some "God knows why" reason we are in fact getting more intelligent according to evolution. If I boil water and take out the heat its more likely to become cool, same if I swing a suspeded pendulum from left to right. Everything seems to look towards the point of rest but living things, at least humans, suspiciously defy this rule and in fact made it this far. Maybe the higher the conciousness the actual lower the energy? But Einstien cleared this mess up a bit with his theory on relative universe.

Animals are the perfect example of how life is created, born, and evolve from low energy - through input from an external source (the sun or background radiation) - to a higher level of energy, then dissipates that energy until death, forever losing energy in the process to add to the disorder and equilibrium in the universe (The Second Law of Thermodynamics!!!).

In the process, through evolution, we fill niches that become available through changes in our environment. If those niches require a greater intelligence, then eventually those species that are most suitable for an organism with a greater intelligence will be more apt to adapt to survive in that environment. And this is where we are at today. Because humans have been smart enough to learn how to defend themselves and not get killed off by other animals.

This is the co-evolution of predator-prey. The prey finds a way to ellude the predator and that becomes a fixated allele that evolves into an adaption to do so (like butterflies and insects who have evolved to be able to change their camouflage patterns to look like leaves, or reptiles that can change their colors to look like dirt or sand). The predator then does the same thing by evolving an adaptation to counter the prey's adaptation to its environment (evolution of receptors or eventual recognition of those behaviorial patterns in the prey that they use to try to allude it), or environment hazards.

Most of us assume there is no God.

 

[valich]

A well made IQ test is supposed to be an accurate reflection of how much ability and potential an individual has overall. That isn't to say that IQ tests can do all that. After all, we are still trying to get the theory of how the human brain works. It will be a while before we have a truely accurate test honed down.

Exactly! If I posted online what my IQ was, everyone would instantly call me a liar, and I myself think it's a bunch of bull!

 

[valich]

cosmictraveler:

Do you think bacteria are supergeniuses?

Most bacteria haven't evolved at all anyways, so that's irrelevant? Cyanobacteria have been around for 4 billion years, crocodiles since dinosaurs. Some animals/organisms have found their niche and have been able to survive there without any need to evolve or to become more intelligent to survive: others have had to change, else become extinct.

Evolution has no direction, per se (although life does: life-to-death), but organisms fill those vacant niches in the environment every place on earth: from the deep sea vents of open volcanic ridges to the icy cold of the Antarctic.

 

[valich]

i recall reading somewhere that the fossil record shows that evolution tends towards intelligence. The general trend is a progressive enlargement of brain size relative to body size. Not just humans, but animals as well.

This is true among primates - at least homos (as in hominidae homos, not "homos") - but not all animals. And even among hominidae this is debated because Neanderthals had larger cranial skulls than homo sapiens. So this is not a "general trend," but I think it is a general trend where the need can be filled - where the environmental niche becomes available to secure that enlargement of brain capacity, or increased intelligence.

But can we safely say that enlargement of the cranium is equivalent to increased intelligence? I don't know. But I think that on this forum we should assume this and go from there.

 

[Arch_Rival]

Ah yes, i found my reference. The Sixth Extinction by Richard Leaky and Roger Lewin. Page 96, there's a graph there of encephalisation. Fish and reptiles remained about the same for the past 200 mya or so, but birds, carnivores, rodents, insectivores all experienced enlargement of brains. The highest is humans and cetaceans, ie dolphins.

Although the general trend is increase in brain/body ratio, the increase is not gradual, but in spurts.

I imagine intelligence to be the natural outcome of evolution because intelligence is a very versatile advantage, and this increases chances of survival by alot, therefore intelligent species are the ones that inherit this planet eventually.

Imagine an early human, with not much intelligence. He does not have much in the way of physical advantage, not particularly strong or fast, but he learnt to use tools, eg a bone as a club. Then he and his friends clobbered a sabre-tooth tiger to death, and has food for the winter. He finds the fur keeps him warm, and wears it to save his own body fat. All these are factors that help him survive. It is intelligence that enabled him to find ways to overcome odds that mere physical advantage couldn't do.

Or take for example a chimp who learns how to use a twig to get at termites. He now has an additional food source, therefore higher chance of survival. Same with a sea otter using a rock to smash open shellfish.

In short, intelligence enables animals to come up with a solution to an obstacle without waiting for evolution to endow it with some sort of physical advantage to solve that obstacle. Animals waiting a few million years for their advantage to come will more likely become extinct.

 

[cosmictraveler]

It isn't how much one knows, it's how one uses what they know to either be a benefit or a destructive person. There are many with great intellects but they can't build a log cabin or repair a broken birds wing. They can only intellectualize about how those things are accomplished which doesn't make them less intelligent because they can't do something with their high IQ's it just shows that High OQ's are only what people know, not how they can do things. To be able to create is above that which can be measured with any tests and because someone fails a intelligence test doesn't mean they cannot create some great poetry or build something that's never been built before.

 

[valich]

In terms of predator-prey competition, it is either the predator or the prey that will acquire the most intelligence to outwit the other and survival. But if the predator survives then he has nothing left to prey on!

CharonZ and Spuriois_Monkey were both right on track with their posts: there is no single direction to evolution, per se; and evolution tends to fill the niches available in the environment.

Where there is an open empty niche in the world, Nature seems to always find a way on Earth to repopulate that empty niche with life. In some cases, as in predator-prey relationships, intelligence acts as a single directed force that determines what organism survives: which one can evolve with the best adaptations to survive the other. Bt this scenario does not apply to all levels of organisms.

To complicate matters, we have had catastrophic envirnomental factors in the past (meteors and vast volcanic eruptions) that wiped out up to 97% of all animal life on earth, including the most inteligent. Only the smallest mammals and the most enduring protozoans survived to reproduce again.

If there is a one-directional drive in evolution it would be "to survive" and to "reproduce."

 

[CharonZ]

Actually it is not survive per se. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many species that die right after mating. One could say however that there is a tendency to propagate by whatever strategy (not to be confused by producing lots of offspring..).
And btw bacteria are evolving. A lot. Due to their short generation time they undergo the fastest observable evolution rates.
In fact we have instances in which we could identify the emergence of new traits even in frozen cultures...

 

[valich]

Do viruses mutate faster than bacteria? I don't know?

By "survival," I am referring to "Survival of the Fittest," i.e., in the longterm - multi-generational. After longterm accumulation of randomly inherited alleles allowing them to be better adapted.

I'm also thinking that there may be a direction in evolution among higher level animals - or more complex organisms with a brain - for more intelligent animals to survive (I'm uncomfortable using the word "higher level"). More intelligent animals are better apt to manipulate their environment to survive and reproduce.

But then along comes a massive meteor impact or worldwide volcanic activity that wipes out all of the so-called "higher level" more intelligent, larger animals and only leaves behind small rodents, fish, insects, and ants. Then we're back to phase 1.

 

[CharonZ]

Actually survival of the fittest is seldom am accumulation of alleles in a certain organism, but at best a higher frequency of certain alleles in a population that may be beneficial. Remember evolution is a process observable only on a population, but not really on a individual level.

About viruses, they are a borderline, most do not consider them to be living organisms. Since they don't have an own metabolism, they don't have generation times per se, only multiplication rounds within a host organism. As such comparisons are slightly tricky.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

'With this low mutation rate, replication of even the most complex DNA viruses, which have 2 X 105 to 3 X 105 nucleotide pairs per genome, will generate mutants rather rarely, perhaps once in several hundred to many thousand genome copies. The RNA viruses, however, lack a proofreading function in their replicatory enzymes, and some have mutation rates that are many orders of magnitude higher 10-3 to 10-4 errors per incorporated nucleotide. Even the simplest RNA viruses, which have about 7,400 nucleotides per genome, will generate mutants frequently, perhaps as often as once per genome copy.'
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...ween+different+viruses&hl=en&client=firefox-a

I once did a course which had a nice graph in which different viruses were compared. But unfortunately I can't find it anywhere anymore. I remember from the graph that there were differences again between different Virus 'types' within the classification DNA and RNA.

 

[river-wind]

Arch_Rival hit the nail on the head. Evolution doesn't tend towards intelligence per say, but since intelligence has proved to be a usefull tool in survival, many species have increased in brain power over the last few million years; often time in exchange for physical strength.

It should be noted, though, that brain size does not always equate to intelligence. Neandertals had a larger brain case than modern Humans, but their tool making and burial rituals appear much more primative than thier more upright homonid cousins of the same time. Efficiency of the brain matter is an important factor in determining intelligence, as well.

My dog, when she was just 1 year old, figured out that barking and running towards a door caused the humans in the house to go and open that door. Durring dinner one day, she began barking loudly, and ran to the front door. My step dad went to see who was there, and as soon as his hand hit the door knob, my dog sprinted full speed back to the dining room, where she jumped up onto his seat and grabbed a solid mouthfull of his dinner before we could get to her.
There was no one at the door - I'd say that animals can be pretty intelligent.

 

[valich]

Actually survival of the fittest is seldom am accumulation of alleles in a certain organism, but at best a higher frequency of certain alleles in a population that may be beneficial. Remember evolution is a process observable only on a population, but not really on a individual level.

About viruses, they are a borderline, most do not consider them to be living organisms. Since they don't have an own metabolism, they don't have generation times per se, only multiplication rounds within a host organism. As such comparisons are slightly tricky.

I already replied twice that it is accumulation of mutations within the population and not the individual - "multi-generational." I hope that by "population" you are not confusing this with a "community" of different species? I am referring to the "accumulation" of mutated alleles within multiple genes because the resulting change in a phenotype trait almost always involves the accumulation of random chance mutation in multiple genes.

For a list of DNA vs. RNA viruses (dsRNa, negative ssRNA, and positive stranded ssRNA viruses) see:
http://www.virology.net/Big_Virology/BVFamilyGenome.html
http://www.virology.net/Big_Virology/BVFamilyGroup.html#III

But there are also pneumonas, thermaplasms, and prions (replicating protein structures without DNA or RNA), and RNA virons (some virons are thought to be able to replicate within the host without the use of DNA via using enzymes, ribosomes, tRNA, and ATP). And at the most primitive level of replication are self replicating crystals.

 

[c7ityi_]

evolution is a spiral. life evolves towards unity.

animals and plants don't have a free mind... they are controlled by nature, their brain is not advanced enough to go against nature. humans do stupid things because they have an advanced brain, it becomes too much for us. but later, we'll learn to control it and work with nature like the ancient egyptians.

 

[valich]

Unity towards what?

In terms of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics the end result is maximum entropy, or maximum disorganization. The unity is equilibrium. And in terms of life, equilibrium or unity can only be achived by death.

Life comes and goes. Life evolves then it is all destroyed, then it evolves again.

To answer the question posed by the title of this forum, life evolves towards intelligence where the environment niche allows it to do so. Where intelligence is a facter that will help the organism survive better than an unintelligent organism, then intelligence will prevail and tend to evolve. But it is no sure thing. Any form of terrrestrial, extraterrestrial, or disease or environmental factor can come along in an instance and wipe all intelligent forms of life out.

 

[c7ityi_]

This world is restless, everything is in motion, everything tries to reach the rest state, unity, balance, nothingness, perfection. But because of the resistance of matter (the "will" to exist, to be limited, unique, "conscious") it cannot, so it must concentrate into points of energy, of matter and beings where the self (copy of unity) is recognized. The reason why there are so many different things in the universe is because the "self" is all these forms.

Imagine "nothingness". It contains nothing, but everything can be imagined there. So it also contains everything. Information is only possible by separation. You have to have something to extract things from, there must be a base to put things on. These words could not be visible without the negative background which separates them, but they existed here before I wrote them, they just couldn't be detected because I hadn't separated them from myself yet. Everything already exists, it's just a matter of "separating", or rather, reflecting two complementary sides of unity.

Just kidding..

 

[valich]

"The world is restless" - sounds like you're advocating GAIA as a living being. When you refer to the "resistance of matter," what are you talking about? You sound like a sci-fi "space cadet." "Imagine nothing...also contains everything"??? Uh-ah, ET will be landing on your doorsteps tonight. Prepare a party to celebrate his arrival.