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We, as a species, are also any other animal. At the moment, there's very little we can tell about the exact make up of their intelligence. Imagine, with your
by craigsmansion 7y ago
We, as a species, are also any other animal.
At the moment, there's very little we can tell about the exact make up of their intelligence.
Imagine, with your current intelligence, growing up in a world where you can move in three dimensions which has poor visibility but carries sounds very well. There are no fixed spots, so there is no "here". You also have no opposable thumbs, so you will never create tools or written records.
Now imagine that evolving over eons and generation upon generation: you might end up with a world view, a culture, and thought process that is complete alien.
What we observe as whale-songs might simply be them re-telling their Edda in an Ent-like fashion. We might be inadvertently hunting members of a species that is intellectually equal to ours, but too alien to understand.
- cygx 7y agoHumpback whales have been known to protect other species (eg seals or gray whales) from orcas. Also, not all 'killer whales' are created equal: Some populations restrict their diet to fish and don't hunt mammals at all. It's not impossible that some animals besides humans could be capable of moral reasoning at that level. On the flip side, let's hope intelligent life forms from an environment totally alien to us never arrive here and get a taste for human flesh...
- magduf 7y ago>Humpback whales have been known to protect other species (eg seals or gray whales) from orcas. I wonder what the humpbacks have against orcas. >let's hope intelligent life forms from an environment totally alien to us never arrive here and get a taste for human flesh... If they have a book with the title "To Serve Man", run for the hills.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zone) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zon...