Stanley Wilkin Intelligence exists for one reason: survival optimization. There's no mystery. Biology doesn't care about philosophical “why”—it selects for traits that prevent extinction.

The thalamocortical loops, gamma oscillations, and layered cortex you describe? They're just evolutionary upgrades to serve older, deeper brain regions (amygdala, hypothalamus, brainstem) that run the real show: threat detection, hunger, reproduction, and fear. These ancient regions don't know” or care about intelligence—they demand fast, efficient data to outwit death.

When humans use intelligence for abstract thought or art? That's a byproduct. The hardware evolved to:

1. Predict predators faster,

2. Secure more food with less effort,

3. Outmaneuver rivals,

4. Protect offspring longer.

Modern society masks this, but the wiring hasn't changed:

- Hoarding resources = survival against scarcity.

- Social alliances = survival through numbers.

- Even “irrational” behaviors (tribalism, greed) trace back to limbic hijacks of cortical systems.

The research feels aimless (“a racing car idling”) because academics ignore the race: Staying alive. Intelligence isn't the destination—it's the turbocharger in a never-ending survival engine.

Closed or open? Closed. Evolution doesn't have a grand plan. Intelligence exists because it worked.

Jairo,

I agree with you and the role you appear to prepose for the environment and the rationale until the end. Intelligence needs data, how can that work in a closed system? While I understand this does not reference data alone the lack of a system negates that.

Stanley Wilkin My prior “Closed” label was misleading, because I was conflating two different ideas:

Evolutionary teleology (“why”): that intelligence exists for survival

Systems theory (“how”): whether a neural loop needs ongoing inputs

Following optimal activation, a specific thalamo‑cortical loop will oscillate in the gamma band only so long as it continuously integrates incoming sensory and modulatory signals. In systems‑theoretic terms, it is an open loop: it requires external data to sustain, recognize, and adapt its resonant activity. Without that environmental coupling, the loop would be unmoored—like a racing car revving its engine off the track.

A reasonable model, but why 'intelligence' ?

Stanley Wilkin I’m using “intelligence” here functionally, not philosophically. That is, I’m not referring to introspective awareness or human reasoning per se, but to the adaptive ability of a system to:

Recognize patterns in real time

Prioritize responses under threat

Predict outcomes to optimize survival

So in this framing, “intelligence” isn’t a goal, it’s a side effect of pressure to reduce uncertainty faster than competitors. The term could be swapped for something like “adaptive cognitive efficiency,” but we use “intelligence” out of convention.

Yes — I’m using “intelligence” in a stripped-down, survival-first way, not the philosophical or romantic version of it.

Yes, but so much left out. process of learning of course, not necessarily there as it requires understanding and processes of aiding the exchange and transformation of learning or knowledge. once that transformation we get something different.

Stanley Wilkin Just to clarify—when you refer to the ‘process of learning’ and the ‘exchange and transformation of knowledge,’ are you asking about the transformative dimension of intelligence: how incoming data is not just received but restructured into new internal representations, enabling genuine understanding and insight?

Stanley Wilkin I follow your shift toward learning and transformation, that’s where intelligence feels most alive: when it recontextualizes and reorganizes knowledge. But here’s the limitation I keep running into: the ancient regions of the brain still govern what gets through.

Intelligence doesn’t transform just anything — it only works within the parameters the limbic system allows. If a signal is tagged as threatening, disruptive, or ego-destabilizing, the transformation process shuts down or warps.

So while intelligence can restructure meaning, it does so only when it’s not colliding with ancient survival imperatives. Otherwise, the lower brain pulls the plug.

Your last comment was instructive indicating different processes are at work and there is more here than just the brains immediate functioning. That the view we share relies on shared components of the brain, doing the same work with the same results without checks and comparisons seems remarkable beyond the rudimentary functions of survival ,although that alone can create additional benefits. Although human beings are not the only species to affect the environment none does it so extensively ,providing feedback at times based on shared new experiences and cooperation.

Stanley Wilkin Absolutely, what’s astounding is that the same survival‑driven machinery lets human societies reshape entire ecosystems through shared innovation and cooperation. That feedback loop—where collective experiences alter selection pressures—pushes our predictive engines into ever more abstract domains.

Efficient prediction requires modeling complex futures—art and math, for example, are simply byproducts of our pattern‑extraction rigs being repurposed for environmental manipulation rather than predator evasion. Just as grid cells in the entorhinal cortex evolved to map physical terrain, Riemannian geometry maps abstract spaces to compress uncertainty about social and technological worlds.

I’d love to see a study that tracks amygdala threat‑responses, dorsal‑vagal shutdown, and synaptic reconfiguration simultaneously during ‘transformative learning’—to my knowledge, that dataset doesn’t exist yet. Transformation isn’t magic: it’s metabolically expensive, and our ancient systems only allocate dopamine, oxygen, and neural real estate if they register safety.

And asking ‘why intelligence?’ is a bit like asking why hemoglobin?—it emerged because it optimized prediction efficiency in a changing world. Any deeper ‘why’ is superfluous.

Stanley Wilkin Building on our conversation about how ancient brain circuits gate higher cognition, I’d like to share a few real‑world examples that underscore the point. In conditions like schizophrenia, autism, and ADHD, genetic or developmental alterations in limbic and brainstem “gatekeepers" don’t merely disrupt emotion or arousal—they trigger a cascade that undermines cortical processing itself. Intelligence, learning, and meaning‑making literally become secondary to the imperatives of raw survival circuitry. When those subcortical systems falter, the cortex simply cannot carry out its transformative work.

I hope these clinical illustrations bring clarity to why no amount of “transformative learning” machinery can override a compromised survival platform.

Jairo

I'm a sceptic.

the understanding of these conditions plays a role in our experience of them, the clinical testimonies construct these problems in a way thatis not clear in bodily problems. to understand the clinical nature of these conditions we need to factor in the clinician. Each of these has a history outside of the momentary interruption of professionals.

Although clinicians say there is a long history of evidence for these conditions, there isn't. Every burp in the past becomes a disorder. Thre are rare instances in the past but not enough for a new illness or illnesses.

Sorry, this whole business needs to be reconsidered, including the continued obsession with Descartes, everything is in the brain ideology. Emil Kraepelin decided all mental illness was physical and that sudden decision has created the present understanding, including drugs and doctor power. he had no empirical evidence.

Stanley Wilkin with respect, I think the problem isn’t misbehavior at all but ancient‑circuit dysregulation.

In conditions like schizophrenia, autism, and ADHD, it’s not that people are “acting out” by choice—their brainstem, hypothalamus, and limbic systems are chronically over‑activated by underlying pathophysiology. To me, “mental illness” describes exactly that: normally quiescent survival circuits pushed into overdrive by genetic or developmental factors.

These ancient regions are literally designed for survival—they don’t know jack about what’s “appropriate” behavior. When they stay in alarm mode, they hijack resources—dopamine, oxygen, neural real estate—and the cortex can’t sustain attention, memory, or executive control. The behaviors we observe aren’t the root cause; they’re downstream symptoms of subcortical circuits screaming for help.

Until we address that ancient‑brain overload, no amount of talk therapy or cognitive training will truly restore higher‑order function.

Stanley Wilkin You’ve raised concerns about reductionism and the historical framing of mental illness, but let’s be clear: this isn’t 1880, and we aren’t debating Kraepelin’s hunches. We’re working with decades of neuroimaging, electrophysiology, developmental neuroscience, and real-time tracking of brain-state transitions. The brainstem–thalamus–cortex hierarchy is not speculative—it’s replicated, visualized, and quantified.

You say transformation involves more than immediate brain function. Fair—but where else is it happening? Every shift in cognition, identity, learning, or meaning shows up as network reorganization, modulation of neuromodulators, phase-locked oscillations, and metabolic allocation—all happening in and through the brain.

You question diagnoses like autism, ADHD, and schizophrenia. Fine. The DSM is imperfect. But even outside those labels, the neurophysiology of dysregulation is constant:

Disrupted salience network = poor interoceptive filtering

Hyperactive amygdala = threat tagging that blocks learning

Dysregulated LC-NE system = chaotic attention gating

These aren’t cultural artifacts. They’re biological facts.

And yes—the PFC is not in charge. It’s the last to activate, the first to shut down under threat, and entirely dependent on brainstem clearance and limbic permission. Flow states? Gone without vagal tone. Abstract thought? Doesn’t even start without thalamic–reticular calibration.

So I’ll ask plainly:

If transformation, intelligence, and learning don’t rely on this architecture, what is your model?

Where does your version of intelligence live? And what evidence, measurable, observable, falsifiable, supports it?

Because right now, the only thing “constructed” here seems to be resistance to biology that’s already settled.

I’m curious: why is the PFC so often treated as a near‑mystical seat of intellect, when its functions are entirely contingent on permission and resources granted by these ancient subcortical circuits?