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I mostly agree with you, but referencing Michael Levin, I'll contend that even individual cells have quite some intelligence. Granted, different from ours, but really good at solving the kind of problems cells have to solve.

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Agreed. Michael Levin's work and discoveries are mind blowing! I was actually referencing that with the "electrical signals" nod (as well as neuronal activity) and Alan Turing's reaction-diffusion theory of morphogenesis with the chemical gradients. I'm not a molecular biologist so i don't know anything about the details, but the emergence of global phenomena from these local interactions fascinates me.

There's no intelligence without teleology. Intelligence and information are only meaningful concepts of you assert (necessarily without any evidence except the circular kind) that some differences matter.

Do the cells "have" to do anything? Do we? Sure, they might die if they do the "wrong" thing, but 1. Who's to say the inert state of "dead" matter is any worse than the state of a living cell, and 2. Cells clearly aren't always optimizing for their own survival anyway

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