Stars, Diamonds and cockroaches. Who is the most brilliant? I'm afraid for the ladies, but stars and diamonds can only dream of the cockroaches' shining and I know that, very wisely said by Beyoncè, "if you like it, put a ring on it", won't work with a beetle. And saying to your lover that her father is a thief, because he has stolen stars to put in her eyes, will definitely sound different with our Blattaria friends instead of celestial bodies. Nonetheless the cucarachas are luminous: they are living beings, so they are intelligent.
Ok, stars: do you now how much energy they produce? Joule, joule, joule...A lot (Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs). But they don't have the slightest control over the process. It simply goes. Stars are not inventive in their job: pile up enough weight and you'll light as well.
Diamonds. Are they reliable? Oh yes, they are very well organized. Very hard joint. But they don't move at all. No dynamics.
Cockroaches? They run like hell. And they adjust their actions constantly. Try to catch them: they'll escape. Do think this is trivial? No my friend. It' genius. Because only matter that is alive can change its path, not because of a collision, but because the forecast of that collision. Still not impress?
Ok, I'll spell it out: living beings manipulate the causal chain, without necessity of touching everything. They are oracles. I give you an example: your hand is in front of
a fly. You make a small jerking. Microscopic waves of air and tiny packages of photons are running like demons to antennae and eyes of our small winged friends and they whisper their demoniac mantra: "Buzz off". My hand was far from start the movement. But the fly read telepathically my intention. Seriously, what was it? Don't you buy the demons parade?
Ok. Information. Disappointed? Why? Living beings are superimposing on physical properties a semiotic environment of information.
Information is evoked by organism with their being there. In the universe, nothing needs information. Photons don't carry it: they carry themselves. Bodies are not exchanging information: they exchange energy. But if you are alive, it makes a difference exchanging less or more energy. So you need to be careful.
Moreover you need to have a plan. Otherwise entropy will crash you, so you need to escape. And energy alone doesn't have a clue: you need to rely first of all on the normative procedures encoded in the self-organizing application that is your genetic code, the story of your execution. There is always time to elaborate non-linear plans like in self-conscious intelligence. But first, you need to come out with something. This something is the information processing that a living being represents with its own being there: primeval intelligence is procedural.
I love when a plan comes together, especially when the very existance of being a plan happens to be for pure chance of energy permutations.
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