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Of all the life we can see only one (or a few for the more generous of you) species has what humans commonly call intelligence. Intelligence as we commonly ref
by bun_at_work 5y ago
Of all the life we can see only one (or a few for the more generous of you) species has what humans commonly call intelligence.
Intelligence as we commonly refer to it is not a given in evolution. Evolution seeks forward propagation of genetic material, it doesn't seek an "intelligent" state.
It's reasonable to assume there is life elsewhere in the universe. It's quite a bit more of a stretch to assume there is _intelligent_ life elsewhere in the universe, aside from the problem of defining what intelligence is.
- potatoman22 5y agoIf we can't define intelligence well, why is it unreasonable to assume there's intelligent life? Maybe most life is intelligent, just not on Earth.
- bun_at_work 5y agoI'm late to respond to your comment, but I qualified my statement with a reference to how we commonly refer to intelligence. Speculating about what's in the universe while ignoring what data we have is fooling, imo. There are an estimated 8.7 million species on earth. The common interpretation of intelligence puts the ratio of intelligent-to-non-intelligent species we know of at about 1:8,700,000. Nothing I've seen in the literature on evolution suggests that evolution will lead to intelligence under than definition. Mammals led to humans, and only after the dinosaurs were wiped out by a mass extinction event. So while I can't say for sure that intelligent life is more or less common at a universal scale, it makes far more sense to assume the rest of the universe and the mechanics of evolution are consistent with what we see on Earth. I don't think we'd be that unique in the cosmos, which seems to me to be an egotistical thing to think, anyway.