Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, November 16, 2013, 18:56 (3807 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Most forms of panpsychism are theistic...
DAVID: See my most recent entry about the panpsychism neuro-scientist. He is not a theist.-Many thanks for a most stimulating article. I greatly appreciate the way you draw attention to articles that support ideas you disapprove of. -dhw: ...but you've obviously forgotten my atheist alternative. Instead of inexplicably conscious first cause energy, we have non-conscious energy which throughout eternity has transformed itself into matter, and as matter has gone on changing, the energy within it has inexplicably become conscious of change. That consciousness has evolved within the materials it initially gave rise to, and it has continued to evolve through cooperation. No single overall consciousness, but only an infinite number of individual consciousnesses contained within matter, though possibly surviving the disintegration of that matter.-DAVID: No, I haven't fogotten. It is one of the most convoluted cockamammy (sp?)weird theories I have every come across.
 
Nothing convoluted about energy becoming matter. Nothing convoluted about consciousness evolving within materials through cooperation (compare bacterial consciousness with human consciousness). Nothing convoluted about individual consciousnesses within matter (that's us, folks, and all our fellow organisms), or possibly surviving physical death (your own belief in human and animal souls). The problem, of course, is the beginning of individualized consciousness ... but that's no more of a convolution than the never-beginning consciousness of your God. No, David, if you really want a convoluted, cockamamie weird theory, I recommend the Turell Theory of How Evolution Works.-dhw: Information is useless unless there is an intelligence that knows how to use it. We are all built of cells, which you say are automatons, and we all have coded DNA. If our independent human intelligence "emerges" from the interactive cooperation of automaton cells, then intelligence may have "emerged" in all forms of life, reaching back to the very formation of DNA. And if intelligence is energy, other organisms may have it too (after all, you believe in animal souls).
DAVID: Nicely put, talking all around my point. How do you create 'emergent' intelligence. I assume you simply woke up one day and were very intelligent without studying or reading anything. And you are obviously extremely intelligent. Intelligence is developed over time by a plastic brain absorbing knowledge. Intelligence is the use of developed knowledge.-I take intelligence to mean the ABILITY to use information, and that ability evolves with experience and the acquisition of knowledge. We know how it's used, but we don't know where it comes from or even what it consists of. It is inextricably linked to consciousness (awareness), and maybe it "emerges" from the interactions between cooperating cells. A newborn baby must have it, but we don't know HOW intelligent the child is until it starts to use that ability. The same applies to all organisms. So why are you so certain that humans have the ability but ants don't? How can you tell whether an organism is behaving intelligently because it is intelligent (i.e. has its own ability to use information) or because it has been preprogrammed to behave as if it were intelligent?