Intelligence is an aptitude for winning games, primarily reputation games, and primarily by lying. Intelligence is a faculty for deception

— Zero HP Lovecraft (@0x49fa98) March 21, 2019

I agree. Here I quote my own bad self.

Rationality — to the extent that we engage in it — is our hoodwinking engine being repurposed from deceiving, manipulating and managing others to an attempt at understanding the mind of the universe. (And no, I don’t mean some wishy-washy conception of “universal mind.” I mean that our minds are engaging in animism about the universe as a cognitive tool.)

Of course, I got the idea from Peter Watts and modified it a bit. Not many new ideas out there, really. But intelligence and rationality had to evolve from something. Most likely we got to it via that path.