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Don't chimpanzees etc. also coordinate hunting/raiding parties? I also recall a segment from BBC's Blue Planet, where an octopus and another fish whose name I
by Razengan 7y ago
Don't chimpanzees etc. also coordinate hunting/raiding parties?
I also recall a segment from BBC's Blue Planet, where an octopus and another fish whose name I cannot recall (grouper?), two entirely different species, communicate with each other via the color of their skin to surround and trap prey.
> Our most amazing ancestors were not kings and emperors, but rather these pre-historic hunters and gatherers who carved out a niche as alpha predators using brains, language, and primitive tech.
Of course. What profoundly intrigues me though, is trying to imagine what it must have been like to be -conscious- even before that primal epoch:
To be just on the cusp of awareness and intelligence.
To have thoughts and desires and fears and hopes and loves and hates and plans and dreams, but not knowing what to do with them, or being able to communicate them.
We spent tens of thousands of years being helpless against the environment, against hunger, disease, predators, against each other's instincts and urges.
Imagine being left behind during a hunt, broken and bleeding out.. All the individual suffering that has taken place on this planet, all the sentient thoughts that died alone and confused.
Then imagine how many other worlds out there must be going through the same development right at this very moment.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoOrca whales and dolphins also will hunt larger prey. One on my favorite examples is that of the orcas in Eden Australia. The orcas would shepard baleen whales to whaling vessels in the bay, then help the whalers kill them in exchange for the tongue and lips of the prey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_Sou...
- jlj 7y agoWe don't know for sure that humans on our own planet are unique in having the qualities you described. Many animal species show advanced social structures and intelligence. We are resourceful, that's for sure.
- Razengan 7y agoCertainly. Even as a causal observer it's easy to notice these things in other animals. Intelligence is not a boolean flag.
- k3liutZu 7y ago> Then imagine how many other worlds out there must be going through the same development right at this very moment. I guess we could argue this point against large swaths of the Earths animal kingdoms as well. Do we know where to draw such a line?
- Razengan 7y ago> I guess we could argue this point against large swaths of the Earths animal kingdoms as well. Yes that's what I meant to say with "being on the cusp of awareness and intelligence." Many of them are going through what we must have gone through.