Think Spot: Where’s the intelligence? by Renton Maclachlan A most remarkable phenomenon occurs in some people’s minds in regard to complexity. Most would acknowledge that as complexity of information and design increases, there has to be an increase in the intelligence and ability of the one who produces it. Most people would recognize that a three-year-old’s drawing is not a chance collection of lines. Moving up in complexity through newspapers, cameras, computers, etc., to the space shuttle—which is reputed to be the most complex machine ever built by man—the increase in complexity is automatically linked to greater skill and thought. The more complex an item, the more intelligence it takes to produce it. But when we come to the enormous jump in complexity between the most complex human production and living things, be it even the humble amoeba, the phenomenon I spoke of strikes without warning. Those who often see themselves as among the most rational of people suddenly throw their rationality out the window. Rather than following through on the logic that increased complexity requires a corresponding increase in intelligence, they now say that increased complexity requires a decrease in intelligence to the point that no intelligence is required to make the most complex of machines!
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