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every small step toward recognizing intelligence of others is a great leap for humanity. I think before human species is able to move any further in its develop

every small step toward recognizing intelligence of others is a great leap for humanity. I think before human species is able to move any further in its development, the first step it must to make is to step out of the "i'm the top of the God's creation" closet. http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/132650631/new-language-discovered-prairiedogese http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/132650631/new-language-discove... : --------------- So he devised a test. He had four (human) volunteers walk through a prairie dog village, and he dressed all the humans exactly the same — except for their shirts. Each volunteer walked through the community four times: once in a blue shirt, once in a yellow, once in green and once in gray. He found, to his delight, that the calls broke down into groups based on the color of the volunteer's shirt. "I was astounded," says Slobodchikoff. But what astounded him even more, was that further analysis revealed that the calls also clustered based on other characteristics, like the height of the human. "Essentially they were saying, 'Here comes the tall human in the blue,' versus, 'Here comes the short human in the yellow,' " says Slobodchikoff. Amazingly, it doesn't stop there. Slobodchikoff's next move was to see if prairie dogs could differentiate between abstract shapes. So he and his students built two wooden towers on each side of a prairie dog village. They then made cardboard cutouts of circles, squares and triangles and ran them out along a wire strung between the two towers, so the shapes sort of floated through the village about three feet from the ground. And the prairie dogs, Slobodchikoff found, were able to tell the difference between the triangle and the circle, but, alas, they made no mention of the difference between the square and the circle. --------------------- I wonder how aliens analyze our intelligence: - sent round blue flying saucer - a lot of buzz - sent stick-looking device http://abcnews.go.com/International/ufo-china-closes-airport-prompts-investigation/story?id=11159531 http://abcnews.go.com/International/ufo-china-closes-airport... - a lot of the same buzz. Conclusion: probably the humans can't distinguish the abstract shapes.

grantismo 15y ago
I would expect aliens capable of interstellar travel would have better metrics than "buzz" :]
- VladRussian 15y ago
  of course, they would be looking for fine structured mental field waveforms that they would expect us, like any sentient species, to naturally produce ... and i guess they are still waiting for us to generate the waveforms
rokhayakebe 15y ago
the first step it must to make is to step out of the "i'm the top of the God's creation" closet I want to give you 100 of my own karma points. I just do not know where this believe that we are better comes from. [This is totally hypocritical coming from me since I eat meat. Nevertheless]
- VladRussian 15y ago
  thank you, i appreciate it :). In my understanding, meat eating is just a stage in the species development. I.e. eating meat, as a more efficient energy source, allowed a bunch of species move to the state of mental development we can observe among the advanced predators, ie. likes of wolves, cats, apes/humans, etc... I think humans have exhausted how far the _extensive_ (ie. size increasing) brain development of meat eating species can go - it seems we're near the biomechanical limits - the brain consumes ~25% of our body energy. The further development seems to require to "shrink the die" of our brain and/or increase/improving of the energy intake. "Shrinking the die" is biological evolutionary process that will take time on the scale of several generations at least (Einstein's brain, smaller, yet more densely packed and having more energy generating cells than the average human's brain, shows that it is a viable, in principle, option) Wrt. improving of the energy intake - i think we're on the brink (ie. in the next few decades) of bio-engineering of the meat-comparable and, this is much more important, more effective-than-meat energy carrying and generating proteins (or whatever compounds it will result in) for human consumption, and in result - move of the humans past the meat (as meat eating would be an artificial dumbing down of yourself) and we'll see the world in the new light. Meat consumption would become just an ugly habit of the past, like torturous executions (ie. burning at stake, disemboweling, quartering...) that were an enjoyable public spectacle just few hundreds years ago.
- sukuriant 15y ago
  side-question: what does eating meat have to do with thinking you're better than other kinds of creatures? Do lions think they're better? Dogs? Raccoons? Barracuda? Dolphin? Seal? Any-other-carnivore/omnivore
  - rokhayakebe 15y ago
pavel_lishin 15y ago
That UFO looks like a fucking spotlight pointed at clouds. Go home, UFOs. We're yet too dumb for you.

grantismo 15y ago

I would expect aliens capable of interstellar travel would have better metrics than "buzz" :]

VladRussian 15y ago
of course, they would be looking for fine structured mental field waveforms that they would expect us, like any sentient species, to naturally produce ... and i guess they are still waiting for us to generate the waveforms

rokhayakebe 15y ago

the first step it must to make is to step out of the "i'm the top of the God's creation" closet I want to give you 100 of my own karma points. I just do not know where this believe that we are better comes from. [This is totally hypocritical coming from me since I eat meat. Nevertheless]

VladRussian 15y ago
thank you, i appreciate it :). In my understanding, meat eating is just a stage in the species development. I.e. eating meat, as a more efficient energy source, allowed a bunch of species move to the state of mental development we can observe among the advanced predators, ie. likes of wolves, cats, apes/humans, etc... I think humans have exhausted how far the _extensive_ (ie. size increasing) brain development of meat eating species can go - it seems we're near the biomechanical limits - the brain consumes ~25% of our body energy. The further development seems to require to "shrink the die" of our brain and/or increase/improving of the energy intake. "Shrinking the die" is biological evolutionary process that will take time on the scale of several generations at least (Einstein's brain, smaller, yet more densely packed and having more energy generating cells than the average human's brain, shows that it is a viable, in principle, option) Wrt. improving of the energy intake - i think we're on the brink (ie. in the next few decades) of bio-engineering of the meat-comparable and, this is much more important, more effective-than-meat energy carrying and generating proteins (or whatever compounds it will result in) for human consumption, and in result - move of the humans past the meat (as meat eating would be an artificial dumbing down of yourself) and we'll see the world in the new light. Meat consumption would become just an ugly habit of the past, like torturous executions (ie. burning at stake, disemboweling, quartering...) that were an enjoyable public spectacle just few hundreds years ago.
sukuriant 15y ago
side-question: what does eating meat have to do with thinking you're better than other kinds of creatures? Do lions think they're better? Dogs? Raccoons? Barracuda? Dolphin? Seal? Any-other-carnivore/omnivore
- rokhayakebe 15y ago

pavel_lishin 15y ago

That UFO looks like a fucking spotlight pointed at clouds. Go home, UFOs. We're yet too dumb for you.