A long expanse of time elapsed between the evolution of the first eukaryotic cells and multi cellular organism. It is reasonable to assume that the individual cells had already developed considerable adaptability to any environment, before being selected by evolution to co-operate as multi-cellular organisms.
History edit
Accoding to the Timeline of evolutionary history of life simple cells evolved 3.6 billion years ago, whereas the first multi cellular organisms evolved just over 1 billion years ago.
In a multi-cellular organism each cell must still survive in its environment. How ever the environment is more controlled and constrained. It makes sense to think of each cell as already being evolved to deal with any environment. The choice to co-operate with other cells should be taken as a co-operative measure between cells that already have considerable adaptive ability to survive in any environment.
The model edit
The organism is a colony of cells, in which each cell has extreme adaptive potential. The body should be viewed as an organisation of almost independent elements, that co-operate together to form groups of cells called organs, which then co-operate to form the larger body.
Rapid evolution is possible because genetic mutations, and re-combination of genes in meiosis will in most cases lead to a viable organism, because the cells will adapt. The various gene combinations will usually represent viable organisms with genetic variation, instead of there being many non-viable combinations.
Natural selection can then select from a large collection of viable organisms, leading to faster natural selection. This contrasts with the early evolution of the cell, where the basic chemical processes evolved from random mutations.
Sexual selection through meiosis is one example of the way cells evolved in a way that allowed them to evolve faster. Adaptive potential may be another way.
Chemical intelligence edit
If logic problems were presented as polymers, and the combination of polymers was used to represent the application of a logic rule, the potential exists for large numbers of alternatives to be considered at once in the chemical soup. The potential exists for the cell to solve logic problems through chemistry.
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The potential exists for natural selection to be made much more powerful by the use of chemical intelligence to create adaptive abilities.