“Intelligence,” OUT OF NOTHINGNESS!

[max-greece]

Suppose I role a pair of dice 1000 times. The result of each roll is random, but the sum of the outcomes is non-random because of standard deviation. In the end, I will roll seven about 167 times, and snake eyes about 28 times. In fact, that exact outcome has the most potential. The set of all possible outcomes contains more variations on that outcome than any other outcome.

That's right. But now, suppose that every roll of the dice caused changes to their geometry-- or even to the number of dice you were rolling. Can you still say that there's anything predictable about the outcome over even a few rolls? No-- you'll end up with a Butterfly Effect in all cases-- you may be able to trace a line BACKWARD through each outcome, but you will never be able to predict future states.

Possibly true but I am not sure you can say it is necessarily true. Some aspects of evolution may be more predictable than you imply, particularly in response to a single change in the environment.

Ivory poaching, for example, appears to be leading to an average reduction in the size of elephant tusks. Island isolation of larger mammals appears to lead to dwarfism often enough to deny true randomness and so on.

How would you distinguish between truly random and merely very complex?