Intelligence didn't suddenly appear in man as something new that had never existed before. Its development was a very long, slowly evolving process which has become increasingly rapid as time has progressed. It exists in all living tissue. It did not just suddenly appear in higher animal forms, but has been present, even though very simplistically, from the very beginning. It was present in the most simple of molecules which first found themselves reproducing. The level of intelligence was extremely simple relative to that found even in the simplest animals of today.

Intelligence began its upward evolution when it first started being selected out of the most primitive of living structures as each "proto-organism" became capable of recognizing those sorts of basic ingredients it required for survival. This precognitive recognition began through natural selection with the initiation of life. The simplest of reproducing molecules in the primordial soup survived best if they were made of those ingredients which were abundantly available to them. There must has been an abundance of certain elements (C, H, O, N, etc.) and of amino acids for life to have formed in its present state. The proto-organism's ability to recognize which elements and amino acids it required for replication and survival was a manifestation of primitive intelligence. This ability to recognize what ingredients were required for reproduction and survival became increasingly complex as more information became programmed into these complex molecules or proto-organisms.

The existence of chaos has directly influenced the non-linear evolution of intelligence. According to physicist Paul Davies, linear systems display the characteristic that the whole is approximately equal to the sum of its parts. By contrast, in non-linear systems the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and cannot be reduced or analyzed in terms of simple sub-units acting together.⁷... Chaotic systems are non-linear.

As previously stated in the discussion pertaining to the science of chaos, very small differences in the initial conditions of any system will produce very great differences in the final phenomena. A small initial error will produce an enormous final error. Any errors in an ordinary dynamical system will grow in proportion to time at a linear rate. By contrast, the growth rate of errors in a chaotic system is exponential.⁸

Chaos endows any system with a random element of freedom to explore a vast range of alternative pathways and behavior patterns. Although chaos can result in destruction of a system, it also allows for the creation of new and innovative structures.⁹... The exponential growth rate of errors in any chaotic system leads to the creation of systems of greater complexity at an exponential rate. This helps explain why evolution of the universe and its lifeforms has also probably occurred at an exponential rate.

Since the natural entropic process resulted in alterations in proto-organisms, there were occasional changes which enhanced each molecule's chance for survival. This "increased fitness" became part of the intelligence system and improved its chance for survival. So began a very long, slow evolutionary process of intelligence which has progressed to what we presently see in man. Although it cannot yet be determined what the non-linear rate of evolution of intelligence has been, I would favor an exponential process for the reasons indicated above.

Netscape CTRL + D MAC Command + D

page 6.4

End of Chapter