21
The Fridge / Does size matter in a dino fight?
« on: March 07, 2015, 09:15:33 AM »
The more resources the group has access to, the greater the collective intelligence of the group and the smaller the units it is made off, the more powerful, smarter and resilient it becomes. Big organisms are not resilient. For a species made of small numbers of large animals, fatal injuries to individuals or epidemics are catastrophic, while a species made of large numbers of small animals can handle it much easier. A species of large animals enjoys an advantage over a species of small animals of similar collective intelligence and resilience only if it greatly exceeds it in power. Thus, lions represent a great threat to baboons, but a very small, almost negligible threat to humans (even to hunter-gatherers like the Khoisan or the Hadza), thanks to their much higher collective intelligence. In turn, though humans have unparalleled collective intelligence, bacteria and insects thanks to their very small sizes and tremendous numbers have such superior resilience that they can readily beat human groups in many situations.
Taking all this together, an organism that is as small as a bacteria but can congregate with other such organisms into hyperintelligent swarms would be the ultimate life form. It would also easily devise a way to tap into the energy reserves of the solar system, thus adding power to resilience and intelligence.
Taking all this together, an organism that is as small as a bacteria but can congregate with other such organisms into hyperintelligent swarms would be the ultimate life form. It would also easily devise a way to tap into the energy reserves of the solar system, thus adding power to resilience and intelligence.