Counterpoints: - Cave art from 44kya https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/440000-year-old-cave-art-depicts-earliest-known-mythical-beasts/ https://www.sciencefocu

Counterpoints: - Cave art from 44kya https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/440000-year-old-cave-art-depicts-earliest-known-mythical-beasts/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/440000-year-old-cave-art-d... - 'Venus' statues - some possibly as old as 300k years!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines I agree that the fact intelligence has arisen in wildly separate parts of the 'tree of life' probably indicates something about the likelihood for intelligence to develop elsewhere. Like you said, it's not a fluke, but it's also not something that only arises under very specific progressive conditions. I'm not sure whether it recedes or not - that's an interesting and slightly terrifying question