Does life evolve towards intelligence?

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?

 

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Nope. Evolution has no direction per se.

 

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hmmm...maybe evolution could be said to have direction in the sense that it likes to spread out. If possible it likes to fill up all niches available. When the situation permits it of course. The niche of empty space isn't filled up because it is too much of a jump to make for current life.

But filling up all niches basically means no direction i guess, because it is all directions.

 

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Does greater intelligence mean that destroying where you live, polluting your air, water and land, killing off all the animal life and building where you shouldn't?

 

cosmictraveler:

Are you saying humans aren't intelligent?

Clearly, we are. We just do not think globally. Plus a lot of it is due to competition. Humans are more focused on competing with one another than collaborating.

Xylene:

Evolution is not intelligent; it is random. Evolution is not even a thing - it's just a word used to describe the tendency for our universe to self-organize. A species only develops intelligence if it is forced to, which requires cirumstances to be just right.

 

So that means humans are not intelligent then since they don't meet your standards. So what do you see then as intelligence ? I look at animals as intelligent, they seem to live rather well and it would be better if humans weren't around to kill them off, what do you think about that?

 

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

 

Not if they were designed by animals. For example question 17 on the dog's "animal IQ test:

17. Describe 42 different facts that can be detrmined from the smell of urine.

 

cosmictraveler:

Do you think bacteria are supergeniuses?

 

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.

 

Here’s my explanation. All energy ultimately comes from the sun. However so does the lion’s and hyenas, so the question is why are they not as smart? Let’s assume everything initially came from bacteria just as a fast sports car and a wheel barrel both basically come from the mineral called bauxite. A car is smarter than a wheel barrel because of its configuration and thus because of the energy configuration of the hyena’s bacteria it has evolved so, and so did the Homo sapiens. Bacteria must have come in different shapes and sized back in pre-earth anyways, though all pretty much have similar nucleonic components and are thus identical. Think the human face for better understanding; same nose, ears, and eyes but different in color and shapes. This type of differences is called superficial differences, and we still see traces of it today. Of cause every difference is superficial, just depends on your point of reference.The big implication of this is that if humans are the highest energy living beings due to the superficial differences of our own bacteria then safe to draw conclusions that hyenas are definitely also going to be as smart as us, and maybe even walk and talk like Sapiens with sufficient morphology. The biggest implication of this is that there may also be other species on the evolution band wagon; ahead of us, even smarter than us. So the dog you see in the park is maybe about one hundred thousand years away from teaching you mathematics. All this being true if all specie evolved from the same basic bacteria, which is true because as chemistry has the atom and its superficial differentiations into elements so does Biology and the basic cell. If we are getting smarter so should other species if nature is anything close to balanced and fair. Plants were the earliest living species and are still way back on the evolution line. Some of the plants in the Amazon rain forest are amongst the oldest living things on earth. We must have been plants once because we had to manufacture our own food for us to get this far, just as the Homo sapien hunters and gatherers also did most the medieval times. So why are we getting smarter instead of dumber? Well it’s like a domino effect, ideas usually lead to further ideas and the chain never stops(the chain, not homo sapiens). Like many things surviving is an opportunity, especially in biology. Many late extinct species are not able to do anything about humans because they lacked the capacity to at the time. Intelligence is like a pendulum, its swinging but only for a while per specie.

 

I think your assumption that intelligence will automatically emerge is a false one.

 

They have been here on Earth allot longer than humans, does that answer your question.

 

Uh, no.

 

Bacteria use humans as some kind of super mall and real estate at the same time....We just try to keep them in check.

 

It occurred to me that once life reached a certain level of complexity, and intelligence reached a certain level, the various species could direct their own evolution by ensuring their own survival. Every animal in existence knows enough to move away from danger when it threatens, even if only because the creature feels discomfort. If by doing so it survives to have more baby whatevers, doesn't that mean that the evolution of its own particular line is being guided by its own intelligence?

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Somewhat.

It seems, however, that evolution has sort of 'stumbled' across our intelligence, capable of (peaceful?) galactic colonization. I wouldn't speculate any further than that.

 

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.

 

Life evolves to life, obviously.
Intelligence can aid this process, but isn't the ultimate goal of evolution.

 

If life evoloved towards intelligence, then there would be furries. There aren't any.