W D Hillis: Intelligence as an Emergent Behavior or, The Songs of Eden
Hillis considers here that intelligence might be a symbiotic phenomenon, exemplified with apes having the ability to copy, and songs starting to evolve ontop of this substrate.
He argues that it could be possible to construct a different artificial substrate which will enable the emergence of intelligence on top of it and gives some estimates of the needed computational power.
Link: http://www.longnow.org/views/essays/articles/ArtEden.php
