5 ms·

To me (as a complete layman), this is the most interesting topic in biology, the 21st century's origin of species topic. Intelligence in biology. For species l

by netcan 10y ago

To me (as a complete layman), this is the most interesting topic in biology, the 21st century's origin of species topic. Intelligence in biology. For species like this spider or octupi where our last common ancestor is so early, it begs the question is how much of the evolution of these minds is a product of convergent evolution. That would be a partial answer to one of the Drake Equation's components. Biological Intelligence is such a big question and it goes to the core of discovering what we are.

jerf 10y ago
Some sort of middling-high degree of intelligence seems very likely, because we have it in multiple lines on this planet (octopus, multiple bird lines, whales and dolphins, etc.). It is less clear that the next step to a technological intelligence is very popular; I can't prove it but I seriously doubt all this middling-high intelligence developed in the last ~2 million years during humanity's ascent. Very likely many of those middling-high intelligences were around for millions of years before hominids began their intelligence explosion (with the hominids themselves being another "middling-high" intelligence for who knows how long before then). It's not out of the question that many dinosaurs or other things extinct for millions of years were middling-high intelligence too. We can't get great data on this, because it is also likely that the first technological species precludes the natural development of any future one at least concurrently, and possibly for extended periods of time. (i.e., even if humanity accidentally designs its replacement, whatever form that may take, that won't be relevant data for the Drake equation, or we may "pollute" the genetics of the planet with a lot more intelligence than could ever naturally develop, causing intelligent species to start popping up every few hundred thousand years all over the place even if they all kill themselves off if our most cynical commentators are to be believed). We do have good reason to believe intelligence is really quite expensive. We humans pay a lot for it, if you really get into the biology of it. It may be the case there's a quite significant gap between "middling high" and the technological intelligence the Drake equation is about, and having only one sample that said "somebody made it" tells us not much, since we are the observer observing that fact.

by netcan 10y ago

jerf 10y ago

Some sort of middling-high degree of intelligence seems very likely, because we have it in multiple lines on this planet (octopus, multiple bird lines, whales and dolphins, etc.). It is less clear that the next step to a technological intelligence is very popular; I can't prove it but I seriously doubt all this middling-high intelligence developed in the last ~2 million years during humanity's ascent. Very likely many of those middling-high intelligences were around for millions of years before hominids began their intelligence explosion (with the hominids themselves being another "middling-high" intelligence for who knows how long before then). It's not out of the question that many dinosaurs or other things extinct for millions of years were middling-high intelligence too. We can't get great data on this, because it is also likely that the first technological species precludes the natural development of any future one at least concurrently, and possibly for extended periods of time. (i.e., even if humanity accidentally designs its replacement, whatever form that may take, that won't be relevant data for the Drake equation, or we may "pollute" the genetics of the planet with a lot more intelligence than could ever naturally develop, causing intelligent species to start popping up every few hundred thousand years all over the place even if they all kill themselves off if our most cynical commentators are to be believed). We do have good reason to believe intelligence is really quite expensive. We humans pay a lot for it, if you really get into the biology of it. It may be the case there's a quite significant gap between "middling high" and the technological intelligence the Drake equation is about, and having only one sample that said "somebody made it" tells us not much, since we are the observer observing that fact.