Question:
does higher intelligence imply higher complexity ?
2009-03-14 07:51:45 UTC
why do scientists state that higher intelligence has to emerge out of something simpler ? Is it not an assumption ?

Can a higher intelligence (say GOD) be an extraordinarily simpler concept, yet can control the events in the universe ?

Expecting some intelligent answers ! I know that there are great thinkers here !!!
Five answers:
2009-03-14 08:25:05 UTC
The assumption in your question is that there actually is something called "intelligence" and that it can be "higher" or "lower".



First demonstrate by scientifically rigorous observation that those concepts actually exist, and then worry about how they came to exist.



Personally I don't see any scientific evidence whatever for concepts like "intelligence", "consciousness", "mind", etc. The brain is a complex biological structure that affects the behavior of the rest of the body. End of story, IMO.



By all means study how brains evolved to be the way they are, and how they affect the rest of the body, but leave "intelligence" out the science, until you can actually define what it is.
Michel Verheughe
2009-03-14 09:00:23 UTC
An interesting question because Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who influenced very much Charles Darwin, meant that evolution was nature's way to seek constantly a higher level of "intelligence."



Today, most scientists agree that "intelligence," understood as the human capacity to understand rather complex abstract ideas, is not at all a natural development. Perhaps we are the "weirdos" of nature.



I'd like to quote here, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

chapter 23, 1st paragraph.



"Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck around in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reason."
Frank N
2009-03-14 14:03:47 UTC
Intelligence is a measure of the mental capacity of a brain. Mostly, that's a measure of its ability to deal with complexity. The consistent evidence from everything manmade is that a more complex construct requires greater intelligence to create it. Entities which are more complex, or more intelligent, than their creator are extremely rare, if they exist at all.



Man has become quite skilled at observing and evaluating and measuring the complexity of 'natural' objects: the laws of physics, life, and human thought. Man has never observed any of these being created. The most natural and obvious hypothesis is that they were created by some entity with an appropriate level of intelligence. That's the same hypothesis you use when you look at a car. That suggests God.



It's appropriate to look for other possible explanations. One common reason for doing so is to avoid even considering the possibility of the existence of a God to whom you are accountable. But that's not the only reason.



Starting with some brilliant insights by Darwin and his peers, evolutionary biology has provided an intellectual framework for observing how the complexity of an organism can increase incrementally over generations. We can see it at work. It doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics, since each organism isn't a closed system, and there's plenty of energy being added.



The farther back you go in time, the harder it is to make the case for incremental development. The hardest cases to make are the first instance of something that qualifies as life, including the ability to reproduce itself. This applies most especially to the mechanism of DNA. Going farther back requires some mechanism for the 'accidental' formation of simple amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, see the famous Miller-Urey experiment.



The two main hypotheses thus are (1) it happened via natural processes, and (2) God did it. We can neither prove nor disprove either.
Stan Dalone
2009-03-14 08:07:12 UTC
While "God did it" is an extraordinarily simple answer (and an easy one) to difficult questions, the concept of God isn't as simple as it seems.



In fact, by the same line of reasoning, God must be far MORE complex than humans, since he possesses much greater intelligence than they do.
2016-10-17 10:26:39 UTC
hi! i'm no longer especially intelligent or we could desire to declare knowledgeable, yet in attempting to understand your strengthen or question. i do no longer understand why you assert "With appreciate to himself" ? As for motivation , i might anticipate its just to show how clever he's. What different reason ? because of the fact the question is synthetic and hypothetical it surly would not exist ? Sorry yet it quite is all i can understand. have a good day.


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