The evolutionary process contains an intelligence ratchet: as competency increases, selection struggles to see the structural genome, further driving selection for competency mechanisms.

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• Evolution makes problem-solving agents, not solutions; commitment to mutation and uncontrollable environments as ratchet for intelligenceclaim0.843
• Multi-scale competency increases the apparent IQ of the evolutionary process, enabling better generalization.hypothesis0.833
  Hypothesis linking competency to evolutionary learning efficiency.
• Multi-scale competency likely explains the remarkable evolvability of living forms because it flattens the fitness landscape, allowing mutations' negative effects to be buffered while positive effects accumulate.claim0.814
  Mechanistic claim connecting multi-scale competency architecture to evolutionary robustness
• What processes drive the expansion of intelligence on evolutionary time scales, and what causes changes in the intelligence of a being during its lifespan?question0.813
  Guides the exploration of scaling cognition.
• Evolution actually searches not only genotype space but a more tractable space of behavior-shaping signals that exploit cellular intelligence.claim0.812
  Central thesis of the paper.
• Biology's robustness, open-endedness, evolvability, and unique complexity likely depend on the fact that evolution works with an agential material.claim0.812
  Central claim linking life's properties to the inherent competencies of its material substrate.
• The competency of biological material hides the quality of genomes from selection, putting pressure on competency mechanisms.claim0.808
  Evolutionary ratchet argument for intelligence.
• The kind of relationships necessary to produce evolutionary individuality – the generation and heritability of fitness differences at the collective level – are the same as those required to produce organismic individuality – the information integration and collective action characteristic of a self.claim0.808
  Core conjecture linking evolutionary and organismic individuality.