The Intelligence Virus

A few days ago I was writing about how humans (and any intelligence worth its salt, maybe even worms) are meaning machines. We extract features from reality - randomly - and we base our actions on them. Surviving makes those features become "the truth", regardless of the reason for that survival. Meaning is the axiomatic foundation upon which our lives are built as a combination of genetic and learned principles that govern the very basis of our identity. I was also saying that intelligence has nothing to do with it. We can extract more meaning, combine it in a lot more ways, but in the end, it's just a tool. I thought about it and I saw it as an infection. From the very first creature that thought "I am so smart" lifehood has been virused by this concept of being intelligent. It was, quite literally, the first tool. Something coming from within, but separate and abstract at the same time. A lot of people are talking now, in the context of AI, about recursive self improvement. The…