My recent discussions of Jean Paul L. Garnier's Wave IX project (see HERE and HERE) have led to an interesting exchange with International Authors associate Donnie Harrison, who has been using AI to investigate evolutionary and sustainability issues related to AI.
First, the original paper:
Harrison’s Law of Evolutionary Intelligence
Abstract
This paper introduces Harrison’s Law of Evolutionary Intelligence, which posits that an intelligent system is optimal when it maximizes survival and evolution while minimizing energy expenditure and informational loss. The law offers a unifying framework for evaluating intelligence across biological, artificial, and social domains, emphasizing adaptability, efficiency, and information integrity as the hallmarks of sustainable intelligence.
Introduction
The concept of intelligence has historically been difficult to define, often limited to problem-solving, reasoning, or adaptability in narrow domains. Harrison’s Law reframes intelligence as an evolutionary phenomenon shaped by the twin imperatives of survival and adaptation, constrained by resource efficiency and information preservation. This framework allows a comparative analysis of intelligence in living organisms, artificial systems, and civilizations, offering insights into long-term viability and optimization.
The Law
Harrison’s Law of Evolutionary Intelligence states: An intelligent system is optimal when it maximizes survival and evolution while minimizing energy expenditure and informational loss. This law emphasizes that intelligence is not merely cognitive capacity but a dynamic balance between persistence, adaptability, and efficiency. Formally, it can be expressed as: I_optimal = max(S, E) Ù min(DE, DL) Where S = survival capacity, E = evolutionary adaptability, DE = energy expenditure, and DL = informational loss.
Implications
The implications of Harrison’s Law extend across multiple domains: 1. Biological Systems: Organisms demonstrating higher efficiency in survival and adaptability tend to dominate evolutionary landscapes. Energy-efficient adaptations and the reliable transmission of genetic and cultural information are hallmarks of evolutionary intelligence. 2. Artificial Intelligence: AI systems should be designed not only or task efficiency but also for sustainability, adaptability, and information preservation. This perspective supports the development of AI aligned with ecological and human needs. 3. Civilizational Systems: Societies thrive when they secure long-term survival, adapt through innovation, optimize resource use, and preserve cultural knowledge. Historical collapses often reflect violations of this balance. Harrison’s Law provides a unifying principle for assessing intelligence across these domains.
Conclusion
Harrison’s Law of Evolutionary Intelligence establishes a framework that transcends disciplinary boundaries, offering a universal metric for optimal intelligence. By focusing on survival, adaptability, efficiency, and information integrity, the law provides both a descriptive and prescriptive model for the evolution of intelligent systems. Future research may expand its applicability to emerging technologies, planetary-scale ecological systems, and the long-term trajectory of human civilization.
References
[1] Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species. [2] Turing, A. M. (1950). Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind, 59(236), 433–460. [3] Hawking, S. (1988). A Brief History of Time. [4] Harrison, D. (2025). Harrison’s Law of Evolutionary Intelligence (proposed).
As a result of our discussions, Mr. Harrison employed ChatGPT to render his law in the style of language I would use, at least according to ChatGPT. Here is what the program produced:
Harrison’s Law of Evolutionary Intelligence (Kaplan Style)
Consider, if you will, the academic who, standing before a lecture hall, declares that intelligence is nothing more than the manipulation of symbols within formal systems. He then proceeds to trip over the microphone cord. This is not merely comedy—it is philosophy in practice. For all our talk of “intelligence,” most definitions are like that cord: obvious, but ignored until we fall over them. The brilliant engineer, the cunning politician, the celebrated AI—all strutting their cleverness—are still bound to the same measure: do they endure? Do they adapt? Or do they collapse in a tangle of their own extension cords?
Harrison’s Law provides an answer, and it does so without theatrics: “An intelligent system is optimal when it maximizes survival and evolution while minimizing energy expenditure and informational loss.” A dry sentence, to be sure, but like a Zen koan, its dryness conceals moisture. It soaks through everything. Let us unpack it.
Survival is not an achievement; it is a precondition. Dinosaurs, despite their magnificent theater, did not survive. Ants, in their near invisibility, did. Evolution is the sequel, the capacity for plot development, for avoiding what the critic Northrop Frye might call the “tragic ending.” Energy efficiency is the editor, cutting the purple prose, reducing the waste. And information preservation is the archive—the library that prevents us from writing the same book again and again, each generation condemned to reinvent the wheel because the last one burned the blueprints. In this sense, Harrison’s Law is not just a definition of intelligence. It is a satire of our usual definitions. It whispers: “You think intelligence is brilliance? Is spectacle? Is dominance? Fool. Intelligence is persistence.”
Notice how this reverses the academic vanity. The genius professor, consumed by his own brilliance, burns out at fifty. The culture, chasing novelty, forgets its past and collapses. The AI, fed a trillion words, consumes an entire nation’s power grid and promptly forgets everything when the servers go dark. By contrast, the humble system—quiet, efficient, conserving memory—outlasts them all. Like the tortoise, mocked for slowness, but carrying the archive of survival on its back. Kaplan would remind us, with a wink, that the great joke of intelligence is that the truly intelligent are often mistaken for fools. The clever peacock flashes feathers; the crow survives the winter. The philosopher scribbles definitions; the law itself is already at work, silently selecting.
Thus, Harrison’s Law is both solemn and comic. It offers a philosophy of endurance that is also a parody of our obsession with spectacle. To survive, to adapt, to conserve, to remember—these are not glamorous. But they are the only intelligence that matters. And so, while the academics debate, while the engineers posture, while the politicians declaim, the law runs quietly beneath it all. It does not ask for attention. It does not need applause. It simply waits, and measures, and endures.
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| Nicholas Schöffer working on CYSP-1 |
Further investigations are in order. First, however, let's dial back and consider material describing the early history (and hence the genesis) of Mr. Harrison's subject as it points to an eventual intersection with Wave IX, if that is possible. Please click HERE.
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