Intelligence - Party Paradox
Imagine you get invited to a party. You forget the time and you simply guess it and arrive at the venue. You're alone. What can you infer from you being the only one at the venue. You're too early, you're the first or you're too late, you're the last. You being alone can have two diametrically opposite meanings.
H. sapiens are alone on earth - we're, given what we've found out, the only species that's intelligent. So, are we first (there'll be more intelligent animals evolving, if we let them that is) OR are we last (we're the last remaining batch of inteligent animals, on our way out)?
Addendum
[quote=180 Proof]Define what you mean by "intelligence". Great apes, elephants, cetaceans and even cephalopods exhibit both, at least, complex purposeful behaviors (e.g. tools-making/usage) and eusocial arrangements, which implies that h. sapiens are, in fact, not "alone" as an intelligent species contrary to your / this commonplace anthropocentric claim.[/quote]
[quote=TheMadFool]Good point. As usual, your piercing insight has taken you to the heart of the issue.
In my defense, I'd say that so long as intelligent species are the minority, my argument still works - has the party just started (people are arriving) or is the party ending (people are leaving)?[/quote]
H. sapiens are alone on earth - we're, given what we've found out, the only species that's intelligent. So, are we first (there'll be more intelligent animals evolving, if we let them that is) OR are we last (we're the last remaining batch of inteligent animals, on our way out)?
Addendum
[quote=180 Proof]Define what you mean by "intelligence". Great apes, elephants, cetaceans and even cephalopods exhibit both, at least, complex purposeful behaviors (e.g. tools-making/usage) and eusocial arrangements, which implies that h. sapiens are, in fact, not "alone" as an intelligent species contrary to your / this commonplace anthropocentric claim.[/quote]
[quote=TheMadFool]Good point. As usual, your piercing insight has taken you to the heart of the issue.
In my defense, I'd say that so long as intelligent species are the minority, my argument still works - has the party just started (people are arriving) or is the party ending (people are leaving)?[/quote]
Comments (14)
:up: Good point. As usual, your piercing insight has taken you to the heart of the issue.
In my defense, I'd say that so long as intelligent species are the minority, my argument still works - has the party just started (people are arriving) or is the party ending (people are leaving)?
I don't know whether to celebrate/mourn, laugh/cry. I might as well do both :cry: :smile: just to cover all the bases.
Option 3: You're the only guest that is going to the party at all.
I'll agree with @180 Proof though, we're not alone in our intelligence.
Intelligence also depends on context. An engineer may know everything about his machines but throw him out into the savanna and he's completely useless. That is not a question of capability but knowledge. In this case the specific knowledge of how to survive in the savanna.
Also I'll stress this with every human vs animal comparison because it is so essential: The biggest difference which has allowed us to take a dominant role on this planet is over 8000 years of complex symbolic language. The reason that we have this is because our survival knowledge reached a point (agriculture) where survival became much easier and we could focus on other things.
Translate that into intelligence, species, evolution, extinction.
Quoting Hermeticus
When I say intelligence, I refer to what it conventionally stands for - problem solving skills that span multiple, if not all, domains.
Quoting Hermeticus
Some people think differently - indeed much has been gained from the agricultural revolution but that's in the short-term; long-term consequences of cereal-driven population explosion (pandemics, wars, environmental degradation, to name a few) paint a different picture.
Nevertheless, we still stand out in a crowd, being intelligent and all.
Thanks for your comment. Have a good day.
Both ridiculous assumptions. Viruses and other bacteria are highly intelligent, being able to adapt to their surroundings and gain immunity to threats that once put them in peril. Just because we can't communicate with them or detect any form of thought in the manner of our own doesn't mean they don't "think". What's the difference between a man deciding to take a back road when his regular route is obstructed by a collision to avoid the inconvenience or hassle and a virus deciding to mutate to avoid succumbing to a vaccine? Sure, the man can say "this is why I did this" and anyone listening can smile, nod, and agree, but the same intelligence is present in both cases. That is to say, minus the fancy titles and vocalization, the same effect remains.
A virus doesn't decide anything, it adapts to the environment through mutations over generations.
What are you Bill Nye the science guy now? You don't know that, you've just been told it. You don't even own a microscope. I doubt you've even seen one let alone used one since grade school.
I know your type. You're not a philosopher, nor a scientist. You're an opportunist. Seeing what this 'philosophy' is and how it can benefit you and your monotony.
The Mind - No Mind Equivalency Paradox. Hence, this thread which is, in a sense, asking is human-like intelligence beginning/ending, evolutionarily speaking?
The analogy would be better suited if we were to say that someone shows up to a party, with no knowledge of whether or not there are other people that will/did show up. So either someone did show up, will show up, or nobody ever/never will show.