Skip to main content
Figure 2 | Nutrition & Metabolism

Figure 2

From: The intelligence paradox; will ET get the metabolic syndrome? Lessons from and for Earth

Figure 2

The “intelligence paradox”: entropy’s dark laughter. Throughout evolution the need to adapt has been driven by a stressful environment, suggesting that if intelligence ever evolved to a high enough level, it would alter the environment to remove the stress. This would thus remove the driver for further development of intelligence and adaptability (and hence longevity). However, if it reached a high enough level, it may well also fulfil the original driver for life itself; acceleration of entropy. Thus, it is possible that mankind, or ET, may be reaching a point where the original driver for entropy is still occurring through technology, but the individual driver for intelligence and adaptability has been removed. The universe could be playing a very cruel joke on us.

Back to article page