I always thought there was a very basic intelligence proof that the biologists & neurologists overlooked. Engineering. What are humans? If we focus on early-

I always thought there was a very basic intelligence proof that the biologists & neurologists overlooked. Engineering. What are humans? If we focus on early-noticed similarities with Great Apes, people often took to saying "We are the tool users", but "We are the builders" is maybe just as accurate. We produce not just jackhammers, but skyscrapers. Tool users modify their environment adaptively for utility, builders modify their environment adaptively for utility. The evidence is in the works. Building a stacked stone house requires creating an abstract concept of a future dwelling you would like to have, figuring out how the wall works in that dwelling, modifying the wall according to the layout of the terrain, finding and modifying the appropriate piece of stone that works in the correct position, and then iterating on this piece by piece as each stone provides a slightly different opportunity for the next stone. It requires persistence in pursuit of that abstract goal much longer than routine biological feedback loops; We're talking about a delayed gratification "Marshmallow Test" because you don't get to enjoy sanctuary from the weather until you're done. It requires a consciousness of the environment, the available tools, one's one's own limitations, and the shifting outlines of a hypothetical future. There's literal Gantt Chart type prioritization and preparation involved. I don't see how this could possibly be less complex cognitively than a mirror test. A number of of animals build nests, piece by piece in the fashion of a human rather than purely through biological secretions. I argue that all of them, even the really weird ones (eg ant nests), are in one sense intelligent.