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*Hits blunt* "Isn't it kind of weird no animals come close to homo sapiens with regards to intelligence?"

WhiteRabbitEXE

WhiteRabbitEXE

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,706
Arizona
luffie said:
haha literally everyone replying to my post doesn't bother to prove the language part, which is what i expected. Demonstrably false? especially the LANGUAGE part? and why don't you show some proof for it then? Yet not a single proof? typical.
Its amazing to see ppl claim about something that no one else has been able to prove, because everyone everybody is just proving based on their own assumption, which is why no one has actually provided an answer for op.
Go do your wiki research, and do you google research and whatever it is, prove it (language), and then collect your noble price.
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Orcas communicate using non-instinctual, learned, complex linguistic systems that are unique between populations with innovations and alterations between pods/super pods within the same population. Numerous other animal species are capable of processing/parsing, learning/utilizing, and in some cases even teaching human language. I mean, should I keep going as to why your rambling nonsense barely passing as language itself is stupid? Because I can, but it got boring after two extremely simple and well-known rebuttals to whatever kind of malformed thesis you got going on there is.
 
Yahsper

Yahsper

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,563
luffie said:
haha literally everyone replying to my post doesn't bother to prove the language part, which is what i expected. Demonstrably false? especially the LANGUAGE part? and why don't you show some proof for it then? Yet not a single proof? typical.
Its amazing to see ppl claim about something that no one else has been able to prove, because everyone everybody is just proving based on their own assumption, which is why no one has actually provided an answer for op.
Go do your wiki research, and do you google research and whatever it is, prove it (language), and then collect your noble price.
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Are you really trying to disprove the fact that other species communicate with each other? Animals have language, even going so far that they have proven regional dialects.

We lucked out on our larynx, allowing a complex set of vowels, in turn allowing us to convey more complicated messages to each other. But all species convey information about their environment to others.

It's your outrageous claim so the burden of proof here lays with you at this point.
 
Amalthea

Amalthea

Member
Dec 22, 2017
5,715
Maybe every inhabitable planet whose ecosystem survives long enough evolves a species that are both too intelligent and too dumb at the same time wich in the end results in a mass extinction. Maybe we will all kill ourselves but if we're lucky some animals will survive.

Maybe multiple species will adapt to our abundant relicts and trigger a new level of sapient evolution where vastly different kinds of humanoids will evolve, the most evolutionarily fit ones would naturally be the ones that will repeat none of our mistakes.
 
Biske

Biske

Member
Nov 11, 2017
8,290
NineConsonants said:
Industrialization hasn't even been happening for 200 years. Even the few hundred thousand of basic humanity is noting on evolutionary time scale. We didn't keep them from being as smart.
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I don't know about that. I get that evolution doesn't have a goal and you can be just as wildly successful doing nothing all day and licking moss from a rock, but clearly there are some creatures that are on a path of higher intelligence and it logically follows that when in our case we reach a dominant point where we are capable of wiping out other ecosystems cause we exist so far outside of any natural balance that it surely would interfere with other creatures going further down an intelligence path.

Fucking things over with pollution and climate is more recent but things like wiping out beaver populations for hats, etc has always been something humans do. So at whatever point we reached the plateau of "can make my own shit and understand whats going on so fuck balance" everything else was forever fucked.
 
Boiled Goose

Boiled Goose

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
9,999
Intelligence has evolved independently several times. Dexterous land mammals like us. Birds like crows and cockatoos. Sea mammals like dolphins. Even invertebrates like octopods.

We've already killed off other hominids
 
Boiled Goose

Boiled Goose

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
9,999
NineConsonants said:
Industrialization hasn't even been happening for 200 years. Even the few hundred thousand of basic humanity is noting on evolutionary time scale. We didn't keep them from being as smart.
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Actually, we've already done that. Intelligence on our scale results in domination. That means removing competition. Two intelligent species is unstable
 
WhiteRabbitEXE

WhiteRabbitEXE

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,706
Arizona
Biske said:
I don't know about that. I get that evolution doesn't have a goal and you can be just as wildly successful doing nothing all day and licking moss from a rock, but clearly there are some creatures that are on a path of higher intelligence and it logically follows that when in our case we reach a dominant point where we are capable of wiping out other ecosystems cause we exist so far outside of any natural balance that it surely would interfere with other creatures going further down an intelligence path.

Fucking things over with pollution and climate is more recent but things like wiping out beaver populations for hats, etc has always been something humans do. So at whatever point we reached the plateau of "can make my own shit and understand whats going on so fuck balance" everything else was forever fucked.
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No species is on a path to anything except for 1) what will most immediately improve the abilities to survive and reproduce (the prior only in service of reaching the latter) or 2) extinction. And in the case of #1, that can change very quickly.

Animals roughly equivalent to a human toddler aren't inherently marching towards adult human intelligence, they're species that happen to be equivalent to a human toddler because that level of intelligence was selected for at some point. There's not really any driving reason for any of those species to reach human intelligence anyway. An orca has no real reason to be smarter than it is, it's already a highly successful apex predator. Increased intelligence isn't going to do much to help chimps combat their biggest threats, improve their hunting techniques in worthwhile ways, or allow chimps to suddenly utilize many of the notable strengths humans have at their disposal that they don't have the necessary physiological adaptations for.

Existing species have already found their niches, and those whose niches are being destroyed for some reason or another aren't going to find a new one by selecting for intelligence, and new niches aren't opening up for exceptionally intelligent species.
 
Boiled Goose

Boiled Goose

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
9,999
Isn't it weird that no other species comes close to giraffes regarding long necks?

Pot head giraffe conversation
 
leburn98

leburn98

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,637
Slje4Af.jpg
 
samoscratch

samoscratch

Member
Nov 25, 2017
2,846
The discovery of fire and cooking food is what really allowed us to become so smart. The nutrition offered by cooking allowed for much more complex brain development.
 

Euler.L.

Alt account
Banned
Mar 29, 2019
906
People are also always overstating the intelligence of dolphins. Various tests and studies showed that dolphins' problem solving skills aren't particularly high compared to other animals.
 

DeltaRed

Member
Apr 27, 2018
5,746
We're not prey so our offspring can grow up utterly helpless for years but safe. Other animals need to be good to go very quickly and can't afford a giant brain
 
eonden

eonden

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,126
Kcannon said:
Nah. We can do stuff like throwing things with accuracy and walk/run for long distances without getting immediately tired, allowing for easier spreading.

Plus, opposable, flexible thumbs. It allows us to carry water around. Super underrated ability. Dunno how those monkeys are firing guns in the first place.
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Yes



Even if we were to reduce our intelligence level to "lower levels", we still have a ton of abitilities that would make us top predators (and allowed us to survive with shittier tools while we built up our knowledge base). Plus, being pack hunters with great communication is always a great plus.
 
MilesQ

MilesQ

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,490
Isn't there a theory that we killed our closest and close in intelligence cousins as we evolved?

Not the neanderthals, but something else. I can't remember the name now. Someone help me out.
 
Siggy-P

Siggy-P

Avenger
Mar 18, 2018
11,869
Kcannon said:
Nah. We can do stuff like throwing things with accuracy and walk/run for long distances without getting immediately tired, allowing for easier spreading.
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I was responding to a poster who suggested if animals had equal intelligence, not if humans were dumbed down.

Endurance running wouldn't mean shit if the opposing stronger and faster animals were smart enough to figure out a way to counter it (of which there are many, many ways to kill a human).
 
Siggy-P

Siggy-P

Avenger
Mar 18, 2018
11,869
luffie said:
Language is a skill simply unique to humans, it is not an evolutionary trait (the origin of language is one of the greatest mystery). For anyone wishes to debunk the notion that humans is the same as other species, please explain the existence of language in humans, if you can, you can collect your nobel prize. This, and among many other things, are the real gap in evolution that general science didn't actually bother to explain, hence the theory of macroevolution in humans are actually full of holes and errors.
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luffie said:
haha literally everyone replying to my post doesn't bother to prove the language part, which is what i expected. Demonstrably false? especially the LANGUAGE part? and why don't you show some proof for it then? Yet not a single proof? typical.
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Your claim that language is not an evolutionary trait is a clear simplification of study on the subject in order to present a misrepresentation of the subject.


Language is widely considered to be an evolutionary trait, because the human brain evolved to be capable of more complicated forms of communication and cognitive functions increased.

The other theory, which I presume is what you're reffering to, is that language is a byproduct of evolution rather than a specific trait. Which is irrelevant to whatever point you're making as it was still the result of evolution.

Animals also do in fact communicate with each other, in a simpler manner but it still provides undoubted evidence that they are capable of rudimentary language and communication.
 
Kcannon

Kcannon

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,671
Siggy-P said:
I was responding to a poster who suggested if animals had equal intelligence, not if humans were dumbed down.

Endurance running wouldn't mean shit if the opposing stronger and faster animals were smart enough to figure out a way to counter it (of which there are many, many ways to kill a human).
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There are also many ways to kill an animal.

Again, we can make tools for trapping, throw rocks, employ poison from other species, set fire into the field and so on.

The ability to carry things and use projectiles is a HUGE game breaker for us. It's not just intelligence. Give a chimp the same intelligence of a human and the first thing they'll do is try to escape. It would know that it doesn't stand a chance unless in a melee, but even then they still wouldn't risk it. Even animals like jaguars and bears would become hesitant to attack since their newfound intelligence would mess with their instincts and territoriality.
 
Siggy-P

Siggy-P

Avenger
Mar 18, 2018
11,869
Kcannon said:
There are also many ways to kill an animal.

Again, we can make tools for trapping, throw rocks, employ poison from other species, set fire into the field and so on.

The ability to carry things is a HUGE game breaker for us. It's not just intelligence. Give a chimp the same intelligence of a human and the first thing they'll do is try to escape. It would know that it doesn't stand a chance unless in a melee, but even then they still wouldn't risk it. Even animals like jaguars and bears would become hesitant to attack since their newfound intelligence would mess with their instincts and territoriality.
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I mean more like if you went to caveman days, and had packs of animals roaming around with the intelligence of humans, they'd be significantly threatening. They'd also be smart enough to work around those traps and tools that we use, as we are also smart enough to do.

Obviosuly if animals nowadays gained that inteligence it wouldn't mean shit, the Planet of the Apes gif I just posted for fun.
 
MarioW

MarioW

PikPok
Verified
Nov 5, 2017
1,156
New Zealand
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
No species is on a path to anything except for 1) what will most immediately improve the abilities to survive and reproduce (the prior only in service of reaching the latter) or 2) extinction. And in the case of #1, that can change very quickly.

Animals roughly equivalent to a human toddler aren't inherently marching towards adult human intelligence, they're species that happen to be equivalent to a human toddler because that level of intelligence was selected for at some point. There's not really any driving reason for any of those species to reach human intelligence anyway. An orca has no real reason to be smarter than it is, it's already a highly successful apex predator. Increased intelligence isn't going to do much to help chimps combat their biggest threats, improve their hunting techniques in worthwhile ways, or allow chimps to suddenly utilize many of the notable strengths humans have at their disposal that they don't have the necessary physiological adaptations for.

Existing species have already found their niches, and those whose niches are being destroyed for some reason or another aren't going to find a new one by selecting for intelligence, and new niches aren't opening up for exceptionally intelligent species.
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Human encroachment on (or destruction of) natural habitats is exerting huge evolutionary pressure on many species including populations of almost all that we'd consider intelligent. Selecting for intelligence is a reasonable possible outcome in rapidly changing ecosystems where "resourcefulness" is going to be necessary in a species sink or swim situation.

Crows are probably best placed to "step up" over time given they can more easily coexist with humans seeing as they are mostly ignored and have lower energy requirements than bigger species like apes, and their already greater intelligence might be a platform to build on when competing in urban areas against large populations of pigeons, rats, cats, dogs etc.
 

Deleted member 11413

User requested account closure
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Oct 27, 2017
22,961
jotun? said:
Vastly different degrees of motivation between throwing away trash and getting food. A hungry human could probably solve far more difficult puzzles to get food than a bear could
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Well yeah, hungry humans already have. You don't see bears inventing animal traps, planting fields of crops, beekeeping, or any other of the many, many methods human beings have developed to secure food for themselves.
 

Deleted member 12790

User requested account closure
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Oct 27, 2017
24,537
luffie said:
haha literally everyone replying to my post doesn't bother to prove the language part, which is what i expected. Demonstrably false? especially the LANGUAGE part? and why don't you show some proof for it then? Yet not a single proof? typical.
Its amazing to see ppl claim about something that no one else has been able to prove, because everyone everybody is just proving based on their own assumption, which is why no one has actually provided an answer for op.
Go do your wiki research, and do you google research and whatever it is, prove it (language), and then collect your noble price.
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Gorillas have been taught sign language before and been observed passing it down to their children.
 

brainchild

Independent Developer
Verified
Nov 25, 2017
9,484
eonden said:
Yes



Even if we were to reduce our intelligence level to "lower levels", we still have a ton of abitilities that would make us top predators (and allowed us to survive with shittier tools while we built up our knowledge base). Plus, being pack hunters with great communication is always a great plus.
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That channel is such a brilliant way to educate people about nature (explaining variables of life as if it were an RPG is quite intuitive and entertaining). I'm glad it has been so successful.
 
Sander VF

Sander VF

The Fallen
Oct 28, 2017
26,131
Tbilisi, Georgia
My understanding is that our ability to have technology and civilization is the result of multiple highly fortunate adaptations that just happened to result in how hominids are.

We basically won a big evolutionary lottery.

People often misunderstand evolution and think it's some linear progression towards "better" and that a human-like sapient technological life-form is some sort of a logical endpoint, but evolution is just about adapting to your environment. We just happened to get adaptations and experience processes to synergize to make us what we are, almost as a lucky side-effect.



Also why it's likely there aren't that many technologically asvanced aliens within any range we might ever feasibly travel. Too many barriers to get lucky with, worsening the odds. Like, your species lives underwater? Tough luck, you ain't getting past stone age no matter how smart you are and whether or not you have opposable thumbs. Can't smelt metal for shit.
 
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iksenpets

iksenpets

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,537
Dallas, TX
Most animals are about as smart as they need to be for what they do. An elephant is in the upper echelons of animal intelligence, but since it's not doing complex hunting, or in direct competition with any complex hunters (save for the relatively recent human obsession with killing them) there's little pressure for getting greater intelligence. A wolf is similarly intelligent, and uses that for pack hunting, but doesn't need much more than what it has because it's never going to get into tool building, since it's already equipped with killer jaws and has nothing that could serve the role of human hands in building things. Dolphins would be in the same category.

Humans seem to have stumbled into a pretty unique evolutionary path where primate features opened a way to tool use which made intelligence more useful, and that intelligent tool use opened a path to adopting a pack hunting lifestyle, which then opened up even more uses for intelligence. And then it appears based on the archaeological records of human tools that language is a huge force multiplier when it comes to intelligence. You have millennia of early humans making the same basic tools over and over, with no innovations in tools or lifestyle, and then a sudden explosion in creativity as language is born. So you need a whole lot of intersecting pressures to get you smart enough to develop language, which then rockets you a huge degree forward. (The fact that dolphins seem to have some degree of proto-language without a similar explosion would imply that the advanced tool use part is really, really important. The hand may be more important in leading to our brain than anything else)
 
Kinggroin

Kinggroin

Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,392
Uranus, get it?!? YOUR. ANUS.
Depends on your POV.

Like, maybe making rockets and mass transportation is genius only from the perspective of a human. But, you ever watch the shits ants do? Also, they aren't in the business of self destruction.
 
Mr. Poolman

Mr. Poolman

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
7,034
Our best skill is not our intelligence (one could argue many humans aren't that intelligent anyway), our best skill is the capability to continue what past generations learned and improve unto that.

The world's smartest Chimpanzee will not be able to teach his childs what he knows.
 
HotHamBoy

HotHamBoy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
16,423
luffie said:
because, despite what many people assume, humans are just not the same species like any other animals. We did not evolve from fish/whatsoever (there are no explicitly accurate empirical evidence for that, don't bother arguing with me for this pls), so the notion that we somehow evolve so much better in others in terms of intelligence is bs, we are already better because we are humans.
Language is a skill simply unique to humans, it is not an evolutionary trait (the origin of language is one of the greatest mystery). For anyone wishes to debunk the notion that humans is the same as other species, please explain the existence of language in humans, if you can, you can collect your nobel prize. This, and among many other things, are the real gap in evolution that general science didn't actually bother to explain, hence the theory of macroevolution in humans are actually full of holes and errors.
To anyone who wants to debate about dna and macroevolution with me, pls don't, just explain and prove the origin of language and answer op's question (which no one has), then you would have been right. All mumbo jumbo theory about evolution and stuffs will still break under the origin of language problem.
Op has the right question, now op just need to search for the answer.
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8CXQ.gif


You should really read the book Blindsight.

Here's a link to a free version.
 
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Deleted member 2226

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,846
introspective squid said:
Back in the day the American National Parks had a bit of trouble to find a design for trash cans that humans could use but bears couldn't open:
"But it turns out it's actually quite tricky to get the design of these cans just right. Make it too complex and people can't get them open to put away their garbage in the first place. Said one park ranger, "There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists."
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I think that's less intelligence and more laziness/motivation.

But it's illustrative of the point that intelligence is really a spectrum of different elements that we combine together, and no animals come close in all aspects, some can in specific ways (there are probably problem-solving crows better at said problem-solving than adult humans.) we also have the ability to transfer information in ways no other animal can, which is an impossibly huge advantage to developing intellect.
 
VeryHighlander

VeryHighlander

The Fallen
May 9, 2018
6,436
I think it's possible there are creature deep down in the oceans that probably rival our intelligence. I mean think about how short of a lifespan land walkers have compared to ocean dwellers. We descend from creatures that were close to the surface water but what about creatures that never decided to leave? I mean shit, isn't that the evolution of whales/dolphins? Land walkers that decided to go back to the water? Idk *hits blunt*
 
HotHamBoy

HotHamBoy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
16,423
luffie said:
because, despite what many people assume, humans are just not the same species like any other animals. We did not evolve from fish/whatsoever (there are no explicitly accurate empirical evidence for that, don't bother arguing with me for this pls), so the notion that we somehow evolve so much better in others in terms of intelligence is bs, we are already better because we are humans.
Language is a skill simply unique to humans, it is not an evolutionary trait (the origin of language is one of the greatest mystery). For anyone wishes to debunk the notion that humans is the same as other species, please explain the existence of language in humans, if you can, you can collect your nobel prize. This, and among many other things, are the real gap in evolution that general science didn't actually bother to explain, hence the theory of macroevolution in humans are actually full of holes and errors.
To anyone who wants to debate about dna and macroevolution with me, pls don't, just explain and prove the origin of language and answer op's question (which no one has), then you would have been right. All mumbo jumbo theory about evolution and stuffs will still break under the origin of language problem.
Op has the right question, now op just need to search for the answer.
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It seems you do not believe in evolution. Where do you think we came from?
 
blame space

blame space

Resettlement Advisor
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Oct 25, 2017
15,420
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