[extropy-chat] In the Long Run, How Much Does Intelligence Dominate Space?

[Lee Corbin]

Robin writes

> > However, the point that seems to be remaining here between what you
> > have written and what I wrote is a question of integrity: just how
> > much wholeness is (or are!) an entity to be supposed to consist of?
> >
> > Consider again a housewife: yes, her intelligence is also composed
> > (we surmise) of competing tendencies and hypotheses, but it is
> > proper to regard her as a single entity.  ...
> 
> Among the usual variation around us it is not hard to identify 
> "single entities".
> But among the sort of variation we imagine for future creatures, I find it
> much harder to figure out that "single entity" means.   So like Damien, I
> prefer to use terminology, like coordination scale, that seems more
> robust in such situations.

Nature does exhibit examples, all right. Consider beehives.  Yet so far
(outside of science fiction) in the organizations that seem most capable
of dominating their environment, intelligence is focused in responsible
individuals.  That is, although selection does operate on the level of
the genes in animals, and can act at the level of groups, we do not
attribute much intelligence to genes or groups. And rightly so, I think.
A single owner, for example, of a vast ranch may delegate tasks, but he
conceives of the whole place as his personal fiefdom.

Can you make it seem more plausible that an AI wanting to dominate its
environment would stop anywhere short of the boundary of another equally
aware and powerful "entity"?  And I still cannot imagine a loosely
composed entity being capable of sustaining itself against a centrally
composed one. Hence I do not see selection ultimately favoring loose
entities "coordinated at other scales".

Of course, "nations" spring to mind, but I still consider their actions
to be best described as I vaguely alluded to above: an actual plan of
a nation will be understood and orders issued from the level of certain
of its highly intelligent units, namely people.

Lee