evolution drives intelligence!!!????

[Switchy]

Since the more intelligence you have the greater your chances at surviving and reproducing, does evolution produce creatures with more and more intelligence as time passes?

And as evolution is unavoidable in the universe, does this mean the production of higher and higher intelligence is the default behaviour of the universe?

If time can be turned into a loop (i.e time travel is possible), then one does not know where the start position is, so could intelligence be the start position (i.e organic intelligence created the universe rather than the big bang creating the universe)?

Switchy

[InfiniteNow]

Even when single celled life was the main...they had to distinguish between their own kind and the kind of others. This evolved greater abilities to distinguish (if their enzymes ate themselves, that would be bad. If they didn't eat invaders, that would be bad as well...) As resources (think food...) went into shorter supply, eating others became necessary to survive, and those that did so more efficiently tended to reproduce more effectively and soon out-numbered those that didn't.

And through billions of years, intelligence was selected for. You will notice that predators tend to be more intelligent than prey, for example. It takes resources...

However, there are other strategies which do not seem to rely on (our presently accepted definition of) intelligence. Bacteria and viruses, bugs and insects, even plants are very robust organisms.

In short, intelligence has been selected for in mammals... but evolution really selects for those who have the right set of tools available to them when the environment changes... The environment drives evolution.

I may edit this later. I'm on a call and cannot fully articulate the point...

[InfiniteNow]

I think you'll have a better idea of what I was getting at earlier by viewing the following post:

http://hypography.com/forums/philoso...tml#post153060


Cheers.

[maikeru]

Originally Posted by Switchy

Since the more intelligence you have the greater your chances at surviving and reproducing, does evolution produce creatures with more and more intelligence as time passes?

Intelligence doesn't always necessarily increase survival and it has significant costs of its own. Remember that fitness is relative. Intelligence can increase survival under certain conditions and makes for rapid adaptation and flexibility when it comes to foods and environments. But greater intelligence generally requires more neurons and greater specialization in the brain, which increases brain size. But the brain is an energy and resource hog. For a puny organ, it sure uses up a lot of energy and oxygen: about 20% of the body's total energy (glucose) and something like 20-25% of the oxygen intake. If that's the case, then this means that 400 kilocalories alone are required to supply the average male brain in a human (on a 2,000 kcal diet) per day. Cutting off oxygen for even a few minutes results in brain damage because neurons die en masse like lemmings going over a cliff. So, I'd say it's a successful route, but one certainly with its dues.

And as evolution is unavoidable in the universe, does this mean the production of higher and higher intelligence is the default behaviour of the universe?

Maybe...if conditions and circumstances allow and favor the formation of it. But I don't think it's a default behavior. More like a possibility that can and may come true, out of many possibilities.

If time can be turned into a loop (i.e time travel is possible), then one does not know where the start position is, so could intelligence be the start position (i.e organic intelligence created the universe rather than the big bang creating the universe)?

Switchy

Must pass. My brain is short-circuiting as I write this. Need sleep.

[Boerseun]

Evolution does not guarantee intelligence, at all. Humans seem to be in charge of the planet, but in sheer weight and numbers, dumb insects are by far more successfull than humans. It's all relative.

As a matter of fact, intelligence is no guarantee to be a handy survival tool, either. Countries stockpiling nuclear weapons clearly show that intelligence might even be detrimental to survival, and might even be the downfall of a species.

All senses and abilities tend to atrophy when not necessary. Birds on isolated islands where there are no predators, tend to lose the ability to fly. The two- and three-toed sloth of the Amazon have such dulled senses that they are basically completely deaf and dumb. They hang from branches slowly munching their way through a tree, and you can pull off a shotgun right next to them, and they'll simply turn their heads slowly towards the gun, and blink. But they have the organs, so clearly it must have served a purpose at some stage, but have atrophied from non-use.

Humans are no different. And through intelligence, we tend to make life easier for ourselves. Why do complex calculations with a pen and a piece of paper, when you can invent a computer? Once the computer/calculator are invented and available, people will use it, and the part of the brain which did mental calculations will slowly rewire itself for other purposes. And generations down the line, we might conceivably be fat and stupid sofa-bound idiots watching old "I Love Lucy" reruns in perpetuity.

There is a very good chance that intelligence will disappear, because of intelligence. When it comes to evolution, there are no guarantees, and no predetermined outcomes. But then again, we're not subject to it anymore, what with orthodontists making it possible for people to have usable teeth to eat with and medical practitioners making it possible for people to procreate who should never even have survived the first ten minutes of their life if Nature had a hand in the matter.

As far as humans go, evolution have stopped. Once again, due to Intelligence.

[InfiniteNow]

I am with you 100% Boerseun. Well said, indeed. However, I then came to your final comment and really disagreed with it. Mostly, I am rather confident that evolution has not "stopped" with humans, but sense the point you were making about surviving our own technological advances and agree with that.

Originally Posted by Boerseun

As far as humans go, evolution have stopped. Once again, due to Intelligence.

So, I guess that's actually 98% agreement with you.

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

I am with you 100% Boerseun. Well said, indeed. However, I then came to your final comment and really disagreed with it. Mostly, I am rather confident that evolution has not "stopped" with humans, but sense the point you were making about surviving our own technological advances and agree with that.



So, I guess that's actually 98% agreement with you.

Fair enough - but in what way would you say is evolution still active amongst humans? Evolution is driven by death. We go out of our way to make it possible for the weakest and least "fit" to procreate, and we revel in "tales of the underdog", and celebrate mediocrity. We are completely screwing up Natural Evolution for humans, and I think it simply don't apply anymore.

Amongst our livestock, natural selection have stopped thousands of years ago, to be replaced by artificial selection by humans. The result is subdued cows delivering redicilous amounts of milk per day, wearing dappled hides that make them stand out like a cockroach on a wedding cake in the wild. A lion will kill them long before they'll kill any other animal, because they're fat, lazy, slow and visible. But that makes them ideal for us. We have effectively removed them from the wild, and from evolution.

Same with us.

You meet a beautiful girl, with the whitest, straightest teeth you've ever seen. Awesome body, nice boobs, the works. So, your subconscious tells you that this is prime breeding material. So you end up having kids with her. And you simply cannot understand for the life of you why your kids are the most ugly, heinous beings to walk the earth. Buck-toothed, fat-assed, whatever can go wrong with them will go wrong. Simply because this most awesome girl turned out to have been panelbeated by a collection of doctors, optometrists, orthodontists, cosmetic surgeons, etc., who fixed her up cosmetically, without changing a single scrap of DNA. This effectively removes us from the set of animals subject to evolution. I'm actually wondering if any human will be able to survive the first ten or twenty minutes of his/her life without medical assistance, say, a few hundred years from now. We fix people carrying bad genes, and make it possible for those bad genes to perpetuate. And every generation is simply a concatenation of ever-worse genes.

I'll be surprised if anyone gets born a few hundred years from now with straight teeth and 20/20 vision.

[ughaibu]

But, haven't you just described an evolutionary future of humans?

[InfiniteNow]

B -

It sounds like you see evolution as change for (your subjective interpretation of) the better.

While I am not in disagreement with the point you make, the sense of what these changes may engender and how that will impact our long-term genetic "stock," my take is that evolution is the change itself, regardless if we see that as a good or a bad thing... That evolution will continue for all living things, humans also, even if these changes do not appear to be acutely positive.

Diabetically speaking, of course...

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Fair enough - but in what way would you say is evolution still active amongst humans? Evolution is driven by death. We go out of our way to make it possible for the weakest and least "fit" to procreate, and we revel in "tales of the underdog", and celebrate mediocrity. We are completely screwing up Natural Evolution for humans, and I think it simply don't apply anymore.

Amongst our livestock, natural selection have stopped thousands of years ago,

A point I was trying to make in Darwin Re-visited thread and everyone jumped down my throat

Switchy
Since the more intelligence you have the greater your chances at surviving and reproducing, does evolution produce creatures with more and more intelligence as time passes?

I agree with most other posters i.e.,
I don't think you can make this assumption Switchy

Look at the human race for example-Where is the intelligence there?

Cro-magnons and Neanderthals had bigger brains. That didn't help them.

Higher educated humans seem to be producing less offspring at the moment.
That seems to go against your proposition.
But even then you can't assume people with high education are intelligent. Most Ph. D's have slightly "above average" intelligence.

Remember too that 50% of the population always have below average intelligence

The education system might be selecting for conformity or persistence, luck(?) or a dozen other traits.