Order vs. Randomness

[Alex K]

One further thought came to mind. When I think of intelligence I think it includes something along the lines of intentions, goals. Perhaps this is somewhat how we get from intelligence to non-intelligence, roughly traversing our lineage.
Raayan's goal to be a Noble prize winner - a genuine goal, in the upmost sense of the word
A chimp's action to get the banana off the tree - a genuine goal, but only "as-if" in comparison to Raayan's goal
A shark's pursuit of a scuba diver - not quite a goal, in the sense of the first two, maybe more like pseudo-goal
An ant colony building a hill, or a plant attracting an insect - an "as-if" pseudo-goal?
A microbe reproducing - an "as-if it is as-if" a pseudo-goal?
Eventually, we get far down enough, we reach NO GOAL. No guidance. No intention. No intelligence.

We are lucky that EgoRaptor is banned for a while, this would be the perfect place to start rambling about Nietzsche's "Wille zur Macht", the Will to Power, which he thought was the fundamental principle driving the universe.

But seriously, these goals are more or less complicated consequences of Evolution by natural selection. This is what happens when evolution selects for intelligence to increase fitness, if only for funny reasons such as sexual selection. The desire for a Nobel is more or less collateral damage in the quest for evolutionary fitness.