Re: Does evolution mean that nature has intelligence?

On May 8, 10:12 pm, William Morse <wdNOSPAmo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Mon, 04 May 2009 15:14:39 -0700, rnor...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On May 4, 5:53 pm, warre...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:





On May 4, 10:45 pm, "rnor...@xxxxxxxxx" <rnor...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 4, 3:40 pm, warre...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On May 3, 10:26 pm, "rnor...@xxxxxxxxx" <rnor...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 3, 12:37 pm, warre...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

I think it was St Thomas Aquinas who made the assertion taking
a quote
from the Bible that men don’t gather grapes from thorns or figs
from
thistles. So if you are an intelligent being you cannot be the
product
of a stupid, unintelligent universe. There seems to be some
sense to
that view. If evolution is true would that mean that nature has
intelligence? Is it correct to say that nature expresses
intelligence
through natural selection? I apologize in advance if I am
beating an
already dead horse as I have said before in my other posts I am
still
new so please be kind.

I believe the real issue is what you mean by "intelligence".  If
you
mean a relatively sophisticated type of human intelligence
involving
the ability to predict the consequences of your actions and choose
alternative behaviors depending on your estimation of the value
(cost/
benefit) of those consequences then, no, nature does not have
intelligence.

However our experience both with natural systems (animal
behavior) and
artificial systems (computer controlled equipment) shows us that
systems that obey relatively simple rules can behave AS THOUGH
they
were "intelligent" and SEEM to be acting towards a goal or
purpose.
For example, marine snails who forage on rocks during low tide and
hide in crevices during high tide are simply obeying a rule like
"if
you have been under water for a long time, move towards the light
and
up; if you are in the air for a long time, move away from the
light
and down".  It is really a little more complex than that, but not
much
more.  Flocking animals like schools of fish or flocks of birds
are
easily simulated by computer programs with simple rules:  "move
towards the center of the group that you can see but avoid
getting too
close to any individual; move in the general direction that most
of
the group is going in".  Simple control system type machinery can
easily explain how the blood circulation to specific organs of the
body is finely tuned to the metabolic "needs" of that organ.  Some
tissues work by "if the oxygen content is low, relax".  Others
work by
"if the pressure is low, contract more forcefully".  In general
each
organ and tissue of the body obeys simple rules based on local
environmental conditions and signals generated by others organs
and
tissues yet the collection of all the organs and tissues operates
as a
finely tuned, smoothly controlled machine often operating at
maximal
efficiency.

Natural selection also acts on a very simple rule:  organisms
that are
generally more capable of managing to solve the problems of living
tend to leave more offspring that those that are less capable.
 As a
result, given that the ability to solve those problems is partly a
result of genetic information that is imperfectly transmitted from
generation to generation, organisms change over time and are often
exceptionally and remarkably well adapted to their particular
environment.  No intelligence is involved even though the result
SEEMS
to be what we expect from "intelligent design."

So the short answer  is, no, nature is not at all intelligent but
it
sure looks like it!

Thank you for the reply thoughtful and helpful. Would intelligence
need to be designed I don’t think I ever understood that. Couldn’t
intelligence arise spontaneously, but I do get the point. Just
because
it appears intelligent doesn’t necessarily mean it is

Actually it all again depends on what you mean by "intelligent" and
what your basic assumptions and preconceptions are about how things
can arise.  It does seem that things like "intelligence" and
"consciousness" DID arise spontaneously because we humans claim to
have those properties and we claim that other animals do not.  Even if
you grant some aspects of intelligence and consciousness to other
species, you can always go far enough back, all the way to the
primordial slime if you wish, to see that at one time these did not
exist and at a later time they did.  Of course "arise spontaneously"
does not at all mean that a random event happened and, poof, there
they were!  They develop gradually over time as the nervous system
became more and more complex until they could emerge eventually fully
expressed in one highly social and socialized species which had the
ability of abstract language.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Well I haven't quite pinned down "intelligent" just yet as for what I
mean by "arise spontaneously" I can equate it to an analogy please
understand I don't mean this literally. It is as if it grew from a
setup that was fertile for it to do so in the same way an apple grows
from an apple tree. So if I were to reverse it I could say in the same
sense an apple arises spontaneously from an apple tree. I am
attempting anthropomorphize intelligence as though it were organic,
it's just a metaphor that at least for me completely removes the need
for an external outside force like the one you get if there were to
use the metaphor of a designer. Would this metaphor keep consistency
with what we have learnt about natural selection and evolution?-

The analogy is not really pertinent because making apples is an
essential part of being an apple tree.  That is the way that apple
trees reproduce so without apples you would have no trees.

Evolution is a strange beastie because of the random walk nature
inherent in mutation, the source of variation on which selection can
operate.  There are serious philosophical questions about whether
things are "inevitable" in evolutionary systems or even if things are
"virtually inevitable" (will occur with a very high probability --
high enough to be a virtual certainty).   Given that life has evolved,
is it inevitable that something like animal life will happen?  Is it
inevitable that something like a nervous system will happen?  Is it
inevitable that the nervous system will evolve to the point of
developing intelligence?  The usual expression for this problem is
known as "replaying the tape" and there is much arguing over exactly
what would happen if we did replay the tape of evolution.

My own impression is that a world of plants, fungi, and microorganisms
could exist and sustain itself perfectly happily without a trace of
animals.  There is no indication that some form of nervous system,
seemingly a necessary substrate for intelligence, is at all necessary
for a well functioning and orderly ecosystem and biosphere.  So while
intelligence is a possible "spontaneous" outcome of evolution, it is
by no means a necessary one.

(My newsreader didn't want to properly include your post so I have to put
my follows in parentheses)

(I waited a while to disagree with this post. but now is the  time:
Intelligence, even a central nervous system, is not  necessary, but then
viruses are not necessary. The question is not necessary  or spontaneous,
but expected.The world of plants is after all not necessary - it did not
exist for billions of years during which time life kept going on quite
nicely.  The evidence of evolution is that intelligence, like
minimalistic parasitism, is expected. It is an available niche, and those
tend to be filled, given sufficient time and enough variation.)

Is it my post that is the problem or your news reader? I am simply
using Google Groups, but doing nothing special that I know about.

The question about the "inevitability" of intelligence is something I
merely speculated about. I haven't run the numbers nor have I looked
up any other opinions so mine may be wrong and yours right. Still,
given a universe only some dozen billion years old (give or take a
couple billion) and given the several billion (three, give or take
one) that we have had life on our one known example without
intelligence, it seems quite likely that many other instances of life
that might be out there do not exhibit intelligence. That is not to
say that eventually they might, perhaps many billions of years into
the future if they last that long. But is the argument simply one of
probability or does it rise to the level of virtual certainty?

As to plants, I do think that something like heterotrophs vs.
autotrophs would be a virtual certainty. The same for some form of
motility, the cellular forms we see in bacteria and protists. But I
wonder about the form that more complex organisms might take; whether
we could necessarily liken them to our earthly Kingdoms of
multicellular eukaryotes, let alone to phyla. My example of plants-
fungi-microbes was simply to illustrate the complete lack of a
requirement for animal life at all. Given a multicellular autotroph,
some form of heterotrophic scavenger would be a requirement to close
the ecological loop and the microbes are necessary in any event as the
first stages in evolution.

.

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