Intelligence – Nature’s Masterpiece | Sunday Observer

Intelligence – Nature’s Masterpiece

31 March, 2019

We have intelligent life on planet earth. It was a major milestone in history, when humans attained sufficient intelligence to be able to reflect on thier own existence. No reasonable explanation for this feat was available until Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution in mid 19th century. Human intelligence too was a consequence of biological evolution.

It all started approximately four billion years ago, when the earth abounded with simple molecules setting the background for the formation of more complex molecules and structures.While a chemical process known as ‘crystallization,’or natural stacking up of atoms and molecules produced solids such as, minerals and rocks on earth, formation of complex long chain molecules built by blocks of simple molecules generated a variety of different compounds. It was perhaps by accident then that one such long chain molecule was assembled in a way that the specific sequence of its building blocks had affinity to molecular blocks of its own kind at every position along the chain. This enabled the particular long chain molecule to produce an exact mirror image of itself attached to it. The two chains then split apart, enabling each long chain molecule to replicate once again, producing copies of itself over and over again. So began the primitive form of life on earth; molecules replicating and feeding on the chemicals abundant in the vast oceans.

This process of replication was subjected to Darwinian evolution over time.There were occasional errors in replication, resulting in slightly altered molecules from time to time. Any error in replication that resulted in a superior molecule replicating better than its parent molecule, generated a tendency to produce more of the newer kind than the earlier.

It was completely natural that the self-replicating molecules which were preferred over time, were the ones that became more and more sophisticated and ingenious in their ways of preserving their ‘signature’. The limited resources favoured those molecules which could find the chemicals by splitting others, or those that built fortified layers in the form of ‘protein’ to protect themselves. The chemical warfare over time made those that survived ever more elaborate in structure, transforming them into vibrant replicators living inside little containers with protective armour -first, in the form of single cell organisms such as bacteria,and then in various multicellular body forms, such as fish and amphibians.The continuing struggle for existence eventually made some of these body forms move out of the oceans onto land as plants and animals. Here too, the competition created diverse forms of life over millions of years, exploiting the conditions on land to make a living for the replicating molecules. Four thousand million years on, you and I now exist on earth, as armoured body vehicles for the nourishment and protection of a very sophisticated kind of replicating molecule known as DNA, the essence of our genome.Today, we carry them inside each one of our trillions of body cells which make up everything from our hair to toe nails, letting the process of replication continue unabated.

Given above in a nutshell are the rudiments of a very complex and multifaceted process of evolution which transformed life on earth beyond anybody’s imagination. For nearly four thousand million years, a set of self-replicating molecules worked unconsciously to produce people like us; people with superior brains capable of figuring out what really took place back then on earth. To help you appreciate the time involved here, let me introduce a metaphor of a steadily evolving replicator travelling through distance, rather than time.

Suppose we have a replicating molecule that moves at a constant speed along a straight line. Assume that the replicator moves so slowly that it takes a whole year to move a distance of just one millimetre, roughly about the thickness of a finger nail. You can imagine how slowly it moves by visualizing how long a year is, when it is moving through this tiny space. In fact, it might seem not to move at all. However, at this agonizingly slow speed the replicator would take a thousand years to advance by one metre, and one million years to navigate just one kilometre.

Consequently, the replicator in our metaphor has made a long journey of 4,000 kilometres. But, it took nearly the first 2,000 kilometres of its passage to perfect the basic cellular structure of single cell organisms. It then set out to create more complex multicellular life, bringing about the advent of all animals and plants that flourished during its last leg of 500 kilometres.Yet, anatomically modern humans did not appear on earth until the replicator reached the very last kilometre, after travelling almost 4,000 kilometres.

Humans began to exhibit greater intelligence only when they began to use tools and fire in the last several hundred metres of replicator’s journey. Then, just inside the last 80 metres or so, a fast growing complex brain enabled humans to communicate with languages, and organize themselves into wandering tribes. But it was not until the replicator reached its last 15 metres that humans gained sufficient intelligence to be able to figure out domestication of plants and animals, bringing about civilization and culture through founding of cities, states and kingdoms across the world.

Having reached a sufficient level of intelligence to query its own existence just 2 to 3 metres (i.e. 2,000 - 3,000 years) prior to replicator’s final destination, some holy sages and gurus took it upon themselves to explain the ‘dignity’ of human condition through a variety of newly found religions and belief systems. Though intelligent, but not as yet, quite intelligent enough, human psyche was besieged by these doctrines to such an extent, that even today they are taken seriously by scores of otherwise intelligent people.

Fortunately, a rapid growth in our understanding of nature assisted by an impressive progress in science, within the last few centimetres, has revealed that our own existence is nothing but an outcome of a long-lasting evolutionary process. Thanks to Darwin,rational and free-thinking intellects now recognise that it includes not only intelligence, but also our thoughts, feelings and emotions which arise spontaneously and unceasingly in a complex brain, crafted ever so elegantly by a process of evolution.

After all, what a stunning masterpiece of nature it is –‘intelligence’ which could recognize itself as a true product of nature’s incredible evolutionary success!

Comments