"What is intelligence, exactly? Maybe that sounds like a simple question. We know—or think we know—what our own kind of intelligence is like. After all, we experience it on a daily basis. But there are other kinds of intelligence. There is the intelligence of the hive—the complex behavior that arises from individually unintelligent organisms following a few simple behavioral rules in response to cues from the environment. And there is a kind of intelligence that inheres in the ecosystem as a whole. Evolution, over time, has created entities as diverse as crinoids and mushrooms and harbor seals and howler monkeys, all without a predetermined goal and without devoting even a moment of thought to the subject. You might even conclude that this kind of thoughtless intelligence is more powerful and patient than our own."
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Science fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesNovelists from CanadaPeople from Los AngelesPeople from Toronto
Original Language: English
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Part 3, introduction (p. 235)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Charles_Wilson
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Robert Charles Wilson
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