The Theory of Evolution of Intelligence

Aaron Levenstein, 1946 "For the first time in man's long journey out of the dark cave in which he started, the bright sun awaits him. It will not take much now to send him scurrying back to the cave."

Time for a serious topic in this blog. I am going to propose a new theory that is bigger than Darwin's Theory of Evolution of Species, although admittedly not as well supported by scientific research. I am going to call it "The Theory of Evolution of Intelligence".

The basic premise is that we humans are not the only intelligent life to have ever evolved. Although we have never yet detected another manifestation of intelligent life, it may have evolved on other planets yet remain undetected by us, and it may even have evolved at an earlier time on this planet, yet still somehow remain undetected in the fossil record.

It may not be inevitable that intelligence will evolve, but we know for certain that it can evolve, because we did.

By intelligence, I am referring to "intelligent life forms". A life form that can create tools, can manipulate the environment, and that multiplies it's knowledge by inventing ways to keep records, to write, to speak, and to teach and learn through speech and writing. I don't want to put down the intelligence of Chimps and dolphins, but that's just not what I'm taking about here.

This entire theory is based on observation of only one species, whereas Darwin had many species to look at for his theories. So scientific observation is out until we make that first contact. But I do want to look at how we evolved intelligence, and how it might apply to other species, possibly on other planets.

There are some general rules that may apply to the evolution of any intelligence, anywhere. First would be that on any one planet at one time, only one intelligent life form can exist. That is because intelligence will allow one species to wipe out the other almost as soon as intelligence evolves. What I'm referring to here is Neanderthals and the like.

On the road to the evolution of intelligence, the brain evolves first. A species develops a brain through Darwinian evolution, soon after that the evolutionary growth of intelligence slows and stops, as the intelligent species becomes able to prevent the law of natural selection from taking due course on its members. From then on, the evolution of intelligence takes place through learning, and development of technology, and increase in externally stored knowledge such as libraries. The intelligent species will quickly reach a point where all knowledge does not need to be learned by every member of the species, but "experts" will develop to specialize in certain areas, and members will trade knowledge with each other in large civilizations.

Technology will develop following certain inevitable paths.

One of the first discoveries of any intelligent life form, will be fire. Fire is nothing more than the external harnessing of the same chemical reaction that goes on internally to provide energy. Fire will at first provide heat that allows all kinds of possibilities, and later will provide other types of useful energy such as motion, with the invention of machines that can harness the heat from fire. On our planet fire is oxygen and carbon compounds reacting, on other planets it will be whatever the equivalent chemical pair is. I will assume that on any planet, there is oxygen and carbon or some alternative chemical pair. The chemical reaction between oxygen and carbon forms the basis for the energy of almost every form of animal life on our planet.

Another basic invention that I can assume is universal would be the wheel, which is a geometric structure not dependent on the chemical composition of the planet. Of course, what the wheel is made of will vary, but the shape will not. Such things as writing, mathematics, and scientific study will also develop, as they are also universal.

Intelligent life will continue to evolve to the point where nuclear weapons are used. Nuclear weapons are possible on any planet. My theory proposes a new rule at this point in the evolution of intelligence: In any civilization, the point where nuclear weapons are used represents "peak intelligence". From that time forward, the intelligent life form is on a path to the inevitable decline of intelligence and ultimately it's self destruction. That destruction may take place through the massive use of nuclear weapons, or through some other means. But the eventual decline and destruction will not take long by geologic time scale. The fall will be a lot quicker than the rise.

I really have only one intelligent life form available to study, but just looking at Homo Sapiens since the atomic bomb, there is a resurgence of fundamental religions which deny the very science that brought us the atomic bomb. Seems inevitable to me. And at the same time, various groups all over the planet begin to see the need for their own atomic bombs. Instead of coming together in one scientific, rational world with a common purpose, the world breaks down into conflicting religions, each one denying science, but also developing atomic bombs.

The religions promote overpopulation as they reject science. But they accept atomic weapons. They also preach hate against other religions and promise their followers immortality. This of course makes nuclear war or something else inevitable.

I say something else, because the combination of technology and industry, together with overpopulation will inevitably lead to a poisoning of the environment, or to using up all the resources, or to nuclear war, or all three.

Although I only have one species to base my observations of intelligence on, there is a book called "Collapse" by Jared Diamond which studies how human civilizations have failed in specific locations through history.

There are some theoretical exceptions to this evolutionary decline. First is that if, before developing atomic weapons, the intelligent life form develops artificial intelligence. At which point they may be able to leverage their social intelligence to cope with their ever increasing weapons technology, and to overcome the backlash of fear and superstition following the first use of nuclear weapons. The reason I think this is doubtful, is that if nuclear weapons are used, it indicates that artificial intelligence has not developed first. And once atomic weapons are used, the rapid rise of fundamental religions will prevent the development of artificial intelligence. Based on our history, a huge amount of energy is put into religion, war and reproduction. If all that energy had been put into developing artificial intelligence, we would by now at least have a functioning "bulls**t detector". (I have to write that with stars because people are offended by the very word word bulls**t, which of course is bulls**t). Of course, I am assuming the basic bulls**t detector is the most primitive form of artificial intelligence to be of any real use. No offense to computer chess programs, of course.

A second theoretical exception may be space travel. If, for example a civilization has developed space travel before atomic weapons, their problems may be over as they could just migrate to other planets. This is unlikely, as space travel has proven many times more difficult than the development of atomic weapons. In fact, it may be impossible, which would also explain why we have never seen any aliens running around on our planet.

Unless we do get an unforeseen break, we will continue down the path where atomic weapons proliferate, and so do fundamental religions, fear and ignorance; until Homo Sapiens inevitably uses these nuclear weapons on itself on a massive scale.

Since I don't like to end a blog on a downer, her is a little Father's day song from Youtube to cheer everyone back up. (BTW, if the word bulls**t offends you you might just want to avoid this little pick-me-up.)