Evolution is the intelligence which created all of the life on earth. In this intelligence lecture we will understand how evolution works through the theory of neurological intelligence.
Review:
The theory of neurological intelligence states that all intelligences are made up of neurons. A neuron is anything that has an identity, an orientation, and has a relationship with other neurons. They must also obey certain ethical rules. We will learn about evolution by breaking down how its neurons work into these different parts. To learn more about the basics of neurological intelligence you can read the posts titled The basics of Neurological Intelligence , Meta Ethics, and Ethics_and_Epistemology.
The post is structured in order to show the identity, orientation, and relationships of each level of intelligence, as well as the ethics that they follow. It will also show how viruses are oppositely oriented to cells.
Chemicals:
Chemicals are the building blocks of all materials. Their structure, and their ability to react and combine with one another are what gives different forms of matter their properties. Chemicals are made of atoms, and when chemicals react with each other their atoms rearrange, and sometimes chemicals will come apart.
There are three nessesary components for a chemical reaction to occur. First there must be enough reactants for the reaction to be completed. Second the reactants must be at the right concentration. For this they must be thoroughly mixed, and for some reactions they must have the right pressure. This allows the reaction to be consistent. Third the reactants must have the right temperature. If they are too cold they will not react, and if they are too hot they will be unstable and fall apart after reacting. Now let's see how chemical reactions take place:
Identity Ethic 1 - Values: Chemicals have certain physical properties such as their shape and weight.
Relationship Ethic 1 - Social Contracts: Chemicals interact with each other through intramollecular forces.
Identity Ethic 2 - Virtue Signalling: A chemical can change its own structure when it is in the right conditions.
Relationship Ethic 2 - Common Good: Two chemicals can chemically react under the right conditions. This changes both of their chemical structures creating a new, or several new chemicals as a result.
Identity: A chemical has an identity determined by its structure.
Orientation: A chemical can act on other chemicals in a chemical reaction, or it can be acted on. This is determined by the chemical's strength as an oxidizing agent or as a reducing agent. Some chemicals, such as fluorine react with almost all other chemicals, and some chemicals, such as helium, do not react with almost anything.
Relationship: Chemicals interact by forming or breaking chemical bonds.
Mutation:
DNA is a molecule that is important for life. It can replicate itself, and creates a cell around it. DNA is sort of like a twisted rope ladder; a rope ladder with four types of rungs. Each rung is made of two molecules fused together called a base pair. These different rungs of the ladder act as a code which tells the machinery of the cell what to build, including how to make new cells and new DNA strands when it is time to replicate.
When a base pair in a strand of DNA is deleted, swapped out, or introduced it changes how the DNA operates. This is called a mutation; it occurs quite often, but randomly, in nature.
Identity Ethic 3 - Autonomy: If a mutation in a cell does not hinder the survival of the cell it may or may not be passed on to the next generation, whether it does depends on the ability to survive that the cell already had; a cell may build up any number of mutations so long as they don't affect its ability to survive. When neutrally beneficial mutations build up in a species over time it is called genetic drift.
Relationship Ethic 3 - Negotiation: When a mutation benefits the cell's likelihood for survival that mutation will usually be kept within the species because it increases the cell's chances of reproducing, and when a mutation is detrimental to the cell's survival it will usually not be kept within the species because the cell will be more likely to die before being able to reproduce.
Not all individuals in a species get the chance to reproduce, so after each generation the total number of individuals with a specific mutation will change. Over many generations of time only beneficial, or neutral mutations are kept within a species due to the two ethics. This is called evolution through natural selection. If enough mutations are picked up by a species then it will become unrecognizable from the species it was many generations, often thousands or hundreds of thousands of generations, in the past. This is how a species evolves into another one.
Identity: Each base pair has an individual identity, which it gains from its unique location along the strand of DNA.
Orientation: Cells are oriented for abduction because as they undergo natural selection it helps their species survive.
Relationship: Base pairs have personal relationships with other base pairs in a sense that their arrangement with the other base pairs directly effects their role in the DNA strand.
Viruses:
A virus is another type of thing made by DNA, but depending on who you ask a virus is not alive. This is because a virus lacks the ability to reproduce on its own. To replicate, a virus will infect a host cell and use that cell's structures to replicate itself. Viruses are oriented against abduction because for them a mutation is beneficial if it helps the virus manipulate its host easier. So over many generations of time a virus will become significantly better at manipulating its host species.
When cells are attacked by viruses they will often die, or they will be altered in a way that weakens their chance for survival. But some with beneficial mutations will live, and pass on their mutation to the next generation. This puts stress on the viruses to get even better at manipulating their hosts, which then becomes a battle of cells and viruses trying to dominate each other. The adversarial nature of these structures means that the two will continue to evolve in new and exciting ways, even without changes to the external environment. This is called unsupervised learning.
Recombination
Many organisms have two or more copies of their DNA inside of them. However these DNA copies have different alleles.
Identity: An allele is the smallest segment of DNA that works as a group. It has a representative identity because it is a code for a specific trait in the organism. Unlike a base pair, an allele can change its position in a strand of DNA without changing the trait it encodes for.
Recombination is an inductive method where a cell will swap the alleles that it has between its two sets of DNA, and then it will swap one pair of DNA with another cell of its same species. This way the two resultant cells will have a new combination of alleles that has not been used by a cell before. When cells recombine without reproducing it is called cellular conjugation, this is often done by bacteria, and when they recombine while reproducing it is called sexual reproduction, which is a form of reproduction used by almost all plants and animals.
Recombination does not create new traits in organisms by itself because it does not introduce new genetic code into organisms. Mutation is required in order to create new and novel alleles. Recombination allows mutations to be taken up in different individuals which allows its viability to be tested when combined with other traits.
Identity Ethic 4 - Branding: When a novel allele codes for a trait that does not effect the organism's survival it may or may not remain within the species. This depends on the survivability of that cell's other alleles in combination with it. This also effects whether or not a beneficial or detrimental allele will be passed on to the next generation, but to a lesser extent.
Relationship Ethic 4 - Responsibility: Alleles that are beneficial to a species in many different combinations of organism are often kept by the species. Alleles that are detrimental to an organisms survival are usually not kept by a species.
Orientation: A cell is oriented for induction, because as recombination occurs it helps the species to adapt and survive.
Relationship: The alleles have a leadership relationship because they are somewhat independent of other alleles, and they are responsible for carrying out the code of the base pairs that they are made of.
Viruses:
Viruses also undergo recombination, however it is a little different than regular cells. When multiple viruses infect the same cell that cell will often create viruses with traits of both the viruses that infected it. The virus is oriented against induction, because the alleles of the newly created viruses are beneficial when they are better at manipulating the host.
Some viruses with double stranded DNA can also swap their alleles between the different copies of their DNA, however they still require the double infection of a host to combine their alleles with another virus.
Multicellularity:
When two or more cells grow but do not split apart they become a multicellular organism. The cells of a multicellular organism need to communicate with each other so that they can act as a single unit. Over time the cells will evolve to meaningfully send and interpret signals. The ways in which they communicate is the last level of intelligence. They can use deduction to understand what the signals they are receiving mean, and know how to react to them.
Identity Ethic 5 - Self Assessment:
In order to send signals to other cells a cell must assess its own needs and motivations. It also needs to understand itself so that it can interpret signals that it receives.
Relationship Ethic 5 - Accountability:
A cell needs to be able to tell other cells what to do, and accept commands from other cells in order to operate functionally as a group.
Identity: The final identity is the cellular identity. Although we talked about cells before, those cells were not nessisarily interacting with each other. However, a cell in a multicellular organism is forced to consider itself in the context of others. This gives it a moral identity.
Orientation: A cell must deduce the correct action to take for the benefit of its host organism given any circumstance.
Relationship: Cells in an organism are linked together, they share resources, and they can signal each other using chemical and electrical signals. All these interactions allow them to aid each other in their ministering relationships.
Identity Ethic 6 - Repentance:
When a cell is told to change it does. Usually the cell will be a part of a bodily system which will instruct it to change.
Relationship Ethic 6 - Mercy:
When cells in an organism need help bodily systems are in place to respond to their signals and help them. The human body has many different systems including the cardiovascular system, the skeletal system, the digestive system, and the nervous system to name a few.
Viruses and Bacteria:
Viruses and bacteria do not form multicellular organisms, but they take advantage of the bodily functions of their multicellular hosts. These pathogens can manipulate the signals that the cells in your body send in order to trick you into helping them. For instance they might make you want to sneeze which will aid in spreading them to other hosts. They are oriented against deduction, because as they evolve they find the best ways to manipulate the signals a body uses to its own advantage.