Re: Existential Risk and Fermi's Paradox

From: Larry (entropy@farviolet.com)
Date: Tue Apr 17 2007 - 08:15:22 MDT


On Tue, 17 Apr 2007, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> On 4/17/07, Kevin Peterson <kevinpet@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is my take on Fermi's paradox as well. There doesn't seem to be much
>> pushing evolution towards intelligence as we have it. If not for the
>> coincidence of the complex social organization and recent arboreal origin
>> giving us hands that can use tools, we wouldn't be here. Consider that our
>> only relatives similar enough to speak of are endangered and we see that
>> while having, say, agriculture, fire and spears may be a distinct survival
>> advantage, the precursor to that level of technology/intelligence isn't
>> that
>> big a deal.
>
> We naturally assume that intelligence is something really special, and that
> once it takes hold it will conquer the Universe. In reality, it may be that
> intelligence is just another adaptive trait, about as specialised and
> generally useful as the giraffe's neck. Life has spread over the surface of
> the planet over billions of years doing very nicely without human level
> intelligence, whereas complex abilities such as vision and locomotion have
> evolved independently of each other many times.

Not to mention the universe is intrinsically intelligent. The real change
has been in the efficiency of intelligence.

  0) The universe got here somehow

  1) The slow intelligence of random chemical reactions

  2) gives us simple self replicators

  3) gives us simple animals/plants and sexual reproduction

  4) gives us simple nervous systems

  5) gives us complex nervous systems and complex tool use

  6) gives us beings able to rapidly custom design beings

Our brains are nothing but speed up evolution. The birth and
death of firing patterns replacing the birth and death of life
forms.

Its built into the circuitry that way all through us. At each
level nerve pulses compete to make it to the next, the
"dominant" pulses generating negative feedback that supresses
the lesser. That way your hand on the stove pulls you away from
worrying about your overdue bills for a moment.



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