God Design

What if intelligence is inherent to the universe and not brains?

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed a few weeks back when I saw a video of ants forming a bridge across a stream. I know ants to be resourceful and hardworking, but seeing those ants in the video build a bridge using themselves piqued my curiosity. How did they know what to do? Were they aware of their problem-solving ability? My brain was bombarded with questions.

I've been messing around with concepts around the universe and consciousness. So far, humans are the only living things that seem to be conscious of our consciousness. This is to say that we are the only ones in the universe that are conscious of our situation, actions, and experiences. So, going back to the ants, they had no idea what they were doing. They just did. And this is where the mystery lies. If they are not aware of what they're doing, then what's happening?

Take one ant away from the army. It's not particularly smart. Take a few more ants and look at them individually. There's not a lot to see there. But collectively? Iron Man's VISION would have to take lessons on the problem-solving ability of ants. Their intelligence is distributed in a way that all each ant has to do is follow simple rules. The intelligence exists in the relationships, the patterns of interaction, and the information flow.

For example, when an ant encounters food, it doesn't consciously inform other ants. Instead, the ant deposits a pheromone trail, say on its way back to the others. When other ants encounter the pheromone trail, they follow the trail to the food and respectively deposit more pheromone, which then creates a positive feedback loop.

In 1959, a French biologist, Pierre-Paul Grassé, while studying termite behaviour, observed that termites have no master plan, nor do they have specific directions when building their complex mounds. Each termite simply responds to local cues in the environment. Pierre-Paul Grassé termed this mechanism 'Stigmergy' - indirect communication through modification of their environment, where one ant's actions change the environment and influence what other ants do next. These local interactions collectively create astounding intelligence.

The universe, truly, is magical. No central coordinator or leader is giving out tasks. If the colony happens to need foragers, the chemical profile of the environment changes, and ants respond to the environment and switch to foraging. The entire process is self-regulating.

You see, it is this decentralised intelligence that has caught my attention for a minute now. It abounds in the universe. You find it in the flocking of birds, in slime molds that can solve mazes, optimise network layouts, and show signs of memory (despite having no brain), in immune systems where there's no master cell. You find it in neural networks (like the human brain), where no single neuron knows or decides anything. You find it in markets, weather systems, languages, and cities.

How can this happen across various phenomena? Is intelligence innate to the universe and not exclusive to brains? It's as if the universe is saying, "Look, with the right conditions, intelligence emerges". It's saying that as long as a system has certain features - local interactions, feedback loops, no central coordinator - it can exhibit intelligence.

Let me stop here. My next essay seeks to discuss the brain and consciousness. I'm going to dive deeper, so prepare your mind. Like I've mentioned a billion times, I've been fascinated lately by the universe, consciousness, and related topics. And the third eye must continue to reveal that which remains elusive to us.