The evolution of intelligence

This article is of philosophical nature, unrelated to software development.

It is safe to assume that it is impossible for a complex intelligent mechanism to come into existence without an evolutionary process. However, without the duality and interaction of sexes it is hard to imagine that evolution would have had consequences beyond plain adaptation, which accounts mostly for our physical differences.

Now, the same mechanism can also have a mule as an offspring. Furthermore, the birth of Leonardo da Vinci and Karl Rove demonstrate that religious blessing of a marriage is not a necessary requirement for intelligent offspring. There are no birth privileges other than genetic inheritance.

It is dangerous to hear someone say that his family is privileged. As far as science can tell, some of us did not branch off of Neanderthals raped by gorillas, and others off of chimpanzees assaulted by Neanderthals. We are one and the same species known as Homo Sapiens with some physical differences resulting from adaptation. The whole purpose of science is to reduce the effects of birth defects and other unlucky incidents.

There is no social law that prescribes the creation of artificial privileges between a child born to a banker and one born to a family labeled as poor. One child should not have to be enslaved by Student Loan so the other child can lavishly spend the interests while growing his capital to capture more slaves.

Imposing equality is unjustifiable, though. Suppose half of us are born blind. Is it just to take one eye from each of the other half and give it to a blind? It is equally unjustifiable to remove the eyes of thousands so they will be used by those labeled as privileged.

A privileged Saudi prince does not even know the names of all of his wives while many can only afford a leftover by serving the prince. The Saudi family will dump privileged children like bushes until there will be nowhere to grow but the sands of the desert. The role of intelligence is to question whether they should be helped to agonize millions of Arabs until they reach that stage? That is even assuming that the help is not provided so our privileged ones will collect their sacks of money!

It is reasonable to conjecture that life usually manages to create intelligence. Once that happens, the intelligent life form becomes equipped to commit the Great Sin through self-awareness. Eventually, the extent of gap between the enslaved and the masters gives rise to a sequence of clashes until it is replaced with another cycle of darkness.

Intelligence enables us to hunt for survival, and then use the same weapon to take away our neighbor’s possessions. It aids us in building homes as we destroy the home of our homes. The intelligence of the oppressed is passionate and caring until they gain power. The intelligence of the powerful is greedy and selfish.

It is highly improbable that intelligent beings ever leave their planet. The means for inter-star transportations require far more scientific progress than the means of mass destruction. The initial applications of intelligence cannot possibly be for anything other than survival, unless the intelligent beings are the result of a sudden robotic creation.

In any form of intelligent life, when a certain level of civilization is reached, there will be those who would want unlimited amount of welfare and pleasure. For every such being, there will have to be several thousand poor and needy at various levels of service. Thus, the beings will be overly occupied with the mess of their sub-intelligent individuals rather than cooperating effectively in scientific matters.

Let us imagine a hypothetically peaceful form of intelligent life. It stands to reason to assume that there will be anomalies, say one in a million. Perhaps most of these anomalies will not cause any more damage than John Wayne Gacy. However, there will be those who will seek power and control much like we naturally do. As a matter of fact, seeking power and exploitation of others for personal desires seem to be the initial products of intelligence.

Contrary to the preceding hypothesis, it so appears that the anomalies of our species are the peaceful ones with a slightly higher percentage than one in a million. There are very few cases like Cyrus the Great in our history filled with Alexander the Greats. Two thousand years after we crucified Jesus, we are still slaughtering one another in his name just as Pope Urban II encouraged us. The only difference is that we have replaced the bravery of the knights with precision bombs. After all our intelligence had to complement our bigger dreams of ambition.

We may or may not be a good sample of intelligence in the universe of existence. Furthermore, the conclusions are drawn from our past and present. However, it is hard to imagine intelligent beings that start thinking about a spaceship as soon as their Eve takes a bite off the apple of knowledge.

The first sign of intelligence is the ability to retain experiences by passing them on to the next generation. It is more likely that such experiences will be filled with stories of aggression and invasion. When these stories get written down they create the foundation for historical feuds with a few exceptions such as the message of Jesus.

The shift to worldwide peace and cooperation needs a huge shift in perspective while we have difficulty quitting smoking. Revolutions and freedom wars will only get us closer to our destiny. The cycles of darkness and light are perpetual.

Humanity as a whole evolves and adapts like plants. The liars and cheaters in control affect the behavior of those hoping to serve as leaders. Owing it to their charlatan nature, they live better and therefore longer while affecting more generations. This shapes up the overall behavior of humanity.

To every action there is a reaction, and the natural response to an obvious oppression is to turn into a charlatan just to survive. Virtues of honor, patriotism and love for our kind are replaced with low instinct-driven behavior for survival.

We have replaced bravery and honor with cheating and deceptions to the point of extinction of the latter. Gathering money has become the only goal for most of us whether we are doctors, scientists or politicians. It is the desire for pursuit of money that shapes our morals and determines our ethics. How can this possibly change to a worldwide cooperation for peace and happiness for all, with the goal of fighting the real enemy, the forces of universe?

It is sad to imagine no ears to hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony through the conduit of creativities including those of Edison and Marconi. Yet, the same mechanism that has filled our lives with romance and comfort is also responsible for robbing us from living a decent life. The robbers are sub-intelligent anomalies of our species incapable of any form of creativity, or any taste for enjoying it.

Sub-intelligent kind can only feel pleasure in ways that Nero could. Unlike their predecessors they enjoy watching the consequences of their atrocious behavior on high-resolution big screen inventions of our intelligent kind. We know Bin Laden was watching the twin towers.

On the other hand, hearing Beethoven on a planet other than earth will be the first step towards immortality and perpetual evolution of terrestrial intelligence. We have come a long way making a worldwide scientific cooperation reality. Alas, in parallel we have compounded worldwide feud at a much higher rate.

Z++ abstract software development language is freely available form ZHMicro.