What intelligence is, and why one Reddit essay says computation came after life
Bargian · reddit · 2026-07-28
A long Reddit essay argues that intelligence is not reasoning, planning, or computation, but an embedded system’s ability to adapt accurately to reality under uncertainty and consequence.
The author traces intelligence from biology to consciousness to computation, arguing that computation is a late invention rather than the origin of intelligence. They claim biological intelligence was shaped by real consequence inside living systems, while machines only model adaptive loops from the outside and cannot truly experience embodied consequence.
The piece pushes back on the common hierarchy that treats humans as more intelligent simply because we reason abstractly, and suggests even simple organisms can be highly intelligent in relation to their own viability.
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