6 ms·
I'm curious why humans evolved intelligence and chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans did not.
by WalterBright 1y ago
I'm curious why humans evolved intelligence and chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans did not.
- mikert89 1y agoBecause we are farther way on the evolutionary tree then is commonly thought, there is a tree of common ancestors going much further back (5 million or more years) that links humans with monkeys
- dboreham 1y agoMore energy from the digestive system to power a bigger GPU. Theories abound that this is due to the harnessing of fire for cooking.
- intrasight 1y agoAnd metabolizing alcohol, which also encourages reproduction.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoEvolution doesn't have end goals like building the most powerful computer possible. If caloric excesses are a factor, it's because there was some other selective pressure that made use of the energy to support more neurons. But even then, more hardware isn't the same thing as more intelligence. Elephants and whales have bigger brains than we do. Shrews and birds have a higher brain/body mass ratio. None of them are intelligent to the degree humans are. An explanation for human intelligence has to explain us, not just our brain mass.
- SamBam 1y agoSperm whales may have more massive brains, but they have fewer cortical neurons total, and of course a much smaller brain to body mass ratio. But more importantly for this conversation, our brains use up a staggering 20-25% of our resting metabolic needs. A whale brain uses something like 3%. For us to be able to devote 20% of our calories to our brains, we simply needed to have a huge excess in the number of calories we had available. This is why the cooking hypothesis makes sense. Once we were smart enough to get lots of excess calories, that opened the door to this new fitness landscape of organisms that could devote a ridiculous proportion of their food to their brains. It wasn't that we gave up something else, it's that this wasn't even a possibility before.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoThe point of my comment is that cooking doesn't explain "why". It explains "how".
- dlahoda 1y agowe just got virus into heads(which mutated some cells) forcing us to eat more. we are vodoo dolls driven by craving for flesh.
- bqmjjx0kac 1y ago> More energy from the digestive system to power a bigger GPU. Is GPU already the metaphor du jour? I thought we were still aboard the steam engine ;)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- acchow 1y ago"Why humans evolved intelligence but orangutans did not". There's a different way to think about this that is closer to how evolution actually works and will make the answer clear. Our common ancestor (common to orangutans and humans) did evolve intelligence (concurrently with harnessing fire, clothing etc.). Not all of them, but some of them. And they broke off from the group. We now call them humans.
- thrdbndndn 1y agoI think their question is not about why humans evolved intelligence, but why one and only one single species did.
- Aachen 1y agoWouldn't the first ones always wonder that?
- mathgeek 1y agoThis led me on a tangent that eventually took me to this line on Wikipedia: “Humans have visited the Moon and sent human-made spacecraft to other celestial bodies, becoming the first known species to do so.” How would we know if we’re the first known anything? You don’t know what you don’t know, as they say.
- Aachen 1y agoAh, I meant on our planet. Of course, we wouldn't wonder if it's evident that there is aliens (other intelligent life from another object) at a similar time as when we evolve this level of intelligence. This would be far before we can make technological means to rule out intelligent life on nearby celestial objects, or someone would probably have come up with the question why we don't talk with (the equivalent of) apes and dolphins and such. The other intelligent life would have to be either among us, or visible from where we live (mountains, ocean surface, idk) with whatever we have for senses (like eyesight good enough to observe structures in orbit that are clearly not natural, as an example)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- AlotOfReading 1y agoWe don't know. All of the great apes are incredibly intelligent in comparison to most other animals. The basic roots of our intelligence are probably a common feature to the whole family, but there's no consensus on why it's so advanced in humans. Any paleoanthropologist can rattle off about half a dozen possible explanations, but we honestly don't have enough evidence to really distinguish if, when, and how these were factors at different points in human evolution. Here's a quick attempt at some broad categories, which each have multiple hypotheses within them: * Because intelligence had advantages for individual selection (e.g. mimetic recall hypothesis) * Because intelligence had advantages for group selection * Because intelligence had advantages for sexual selection (spandrel hypotheses often start here) * Because adapting to rapidly varying ecological conditions required so many adaptations that we crossed some kind of barrier and "fell into" intelligence * Because intelligence helped with foraging/hunting (exclusive of sociality)
- gyomu 1y agoDidn't a lot of other great apes evolve intelligence similar to ours, but we more or less drove them all to extinction?
- AlotOfReading 1y agoThe jury is still out on exactly how intelligent other hominins were (and the extent of our involvement in their extinction). Regardless, the term human can apply to all of genus Homo and that's the sense that discussions of "human intelligence" typically use.
- nylonstrung 1y agoThe burial sites of Homo Naledi suggest they had developed burial rituals and primitive art which would mean non-Sapiens hominids were likely smarter than previously believed
- david-gpu 1y agoThe subject of Homo Naledi is very controversial. Take it with a grain of salt.
- nn3 1y agochimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans evolved intelligence too. They are smarter than most other critters in the jungle. Just all not as much as the lineage that leads to humans. It's actually quite difficult to define human intelligence. Every time we think we find something unique by humans eventually some animal turns up that can do it too. It may be all just a question of degree and how it's used.
- droopyEyelids 1y agoAre there any other animals that have a system of writing?
- dyauspitr 1y agoNot even close. Some great apes can learn to use symbols for communication. Bees can use specific dances to indicate direction and distance.
- nradov 1y agoResearchers have taught primates to communicate using sequences of simple symbols. It's sort of like a system of writing but very primitive.
- AngryData 1y agoNo, but humans didn't have writing up until pretty recently either so I don't think that is a great measure of base intellectual capability.
- victorbjorklund 1y agoI dont think any other animal even have language at all (at least not language like we use the word language)
- makeitdouble 1y agoThe interesting part is how do you research that. Starting from what should be considered "writing" to how to identify specific artifacts as abstract words. Some researchers spend years in the forest studying one animal to isolate one single word they're speaking. Understanding other kind of intelligences is a crazy complex task.
- azakai 1y agoIt might just be that we evolved it first. Someone has to (if anyone does).
- Razengan 1y agoWho says they didn't? What would "intelligence" look like WHILE it was evolving? A slightly more unsettling thought: How would newly-emerging intelligence FEEL like, internally? Also, how would humans fare if born and raised in the wild, without any language or tools taught to them?
- throwaway173738 1y agoI can extrapolate based on my toddler that a modern human dumped in the wild would invent language. He has made several phonemes that aren’t in the language we speak at home. And he’s clever enough that even though he’s never seen us stand on furniture, he still climbs drawers and chairs if there’s something he wants that’s out of reach. I think that tool use and language are borne of some innate drive that’s accelerated by culture.
- Razengan 1y ago> He has made several phonemes that aren’t in the language we speak at home. No I mean absolutely zero contact with or help from modern (say since the last 10,000 years) human civilization. I mean literally giving birth in a forest and then raising the baby there without ever speaking a word around it or showing it any tools etc. (this assumes that it will survive to 1-2 years old without any fatal sickness etc. but let's say that the mother/parents will get just enough "outside" help to make sure it does, but the baby itself is not to come in contact with any tech or language)
- hmm37 1y agoI'm pretty sure there were children where the parents basically locked them in cages or chained them to a post in the basement, where they had almost no social contact, etc. And in these cases they were considered effectively mentally disabled by the time they were rescued.
- throwaway173738 1y agoThat’s different. He’s not saying to totally isolate the child, but that the child is born to modern humans without any language or culture or knowledge but who live in a wilderness. So not a place of deprivation but a place of danger and exploration. I would argue that kids are wired to explore, and that the parents would do their best to protect the child. It’s kind of a useless thought experiment because our lineages stretch back unbroken to the beginning of life, and that includes culture and transmitted knowledge.
- hiatus 1y agoI have no expertise in the field whatsoever but can't help but wonder if it is at all related to our consumption of cooked foods. At the very least it reduces the incidence of parasites but I am sure there are myriad benefits beyond treating foods for longevity through methods like smoking.
- throwaway173738 1y agoI have zero expertise either, but I find this field fascinating. Cooking makes it easier to chew so we can devote less of our skulls to chewing muscles. At birth our skulls are barely small enough to fit through the birth canal in one orientation, and one of the prerequisites for a baby to be born is that it’s facing head down and shoulders rotated into that orientation. Maybe cooking is beneficial because it allowed us to have a bigger braincase but also it gave us access to more nutrients from the same food.
- dyauspitr 1y agoThat question is analogous to asking why did some fish grow legs and become mammals. The answer is mutations sometimes specific members of a group will gain a mutation that will overtime cause that group to split off away from the ancestor group. It’s all a matter of chance evolution doesn’t have a direction.
- WalterBright 1y agoMultiple lines of mammals have independently evolved back into being marine life. Whales, seals and manatees do not have a common ancestor, for example.
- mouse_8b 1y agoThey do have a common ancestor, it's just not a marine mammal.
- WalterBright 1y ago> not a marine mammal which is the point. They were not evolved from the same species of land animal.
- naasking 1y agoAll apes are intelligent. Studies have shown that their causal reasoning is almost on par with humans. What they seem to lack is language for communicating sophisticated concepts and persisting them across generations.
- inavida 1y agoThank you. One person. One person is able to question the narrative of human intelligence and arrive at the essential distinction. Maybe a reflexive habit of mind that seeks to find differences between the human and the other and is incapable of seeing the other in the human.
- bigbrained124 1y agoI think everyone overlooks fungi/plant’s impact of evolution/adaptation. Survival of the fittest never includes the gene impacts plants and fungi can force onto creatures. Also cyclical 12kyr catastrophic events leading to small condensation of species under stress.
- kouru225 1y agoI think this is actually an easy question to answer because you’ve accidentally preselected your demographics. Imagine this: among primates, there is an even distribution of species of differing levels of intelligence. All the primates who became intelligent have similar evolution paths because intelligence defines their evolution path (opposable thumbs, large heads, standing upright, etc.) Then because they all have similar evolution paths we put all those into the genus “Homo.” Each of species of the genus Homo eventually either breeds with each other or genocides one another until there are only the Homo Sapiens left. So with an even distribution of intelligence among all primates, it’s logical that, given enough time, all that is left are primates of sufficient intelligence enough to breed with each other or be genocided until there is only one species, or many species of primates who weren’t intelligent enough. This is my guess (I’m not a biologist or ancient historian or anything)
- flohofwoe 1y agoNo other intelligent humanoids have survived besides us, so maybe just a really clever survival strategy ;)
- w10-1 1y agoThey don't compete with us directly, so they survived. We destroyed the many other humanoid/intelligent species, who did compete with us.
- Agraillo 1y agoIt's an interesting question, but maybe more complex than it appears. We cannot get rid of the cultural passing of information (non-genetic) in humans. If we do, we get feral children [1] (also known as Mowgli in popular culture). But I doubt anyone would seriously want to compare this "pure" intelligence with that of other primates. There is a possible agreement that socialization is not an option for humans but a requirement. Maybe if by some bad luck feral children were grouped together for some time, this might be an approximation, but I'm not sure. Overall, using computers as an analogy, it's like humans are only functional after the software installation following the first power-on, which is more or less required for normal activity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
- ViktorRay 1y agoThis may not be entirely accurate. Feral children are those that do not have interaction with other humans. If you had a bunch of human children together and provided them sustenance and all that without adult interaction they might still develop normally and form their own language and means of communication with each other. We don’t know for sure because such an experiment would be horrible and extremely immoral. However I do remember reading a while back that a similar situation happened where a bunch of deaf children in a an environment without much adult interaction did manage to create their own sign language to communicate with each other. So it seems the feral child phenomena might be due to the fact that the child is alone rather than simply due to the child not having adult interaction.
- Agraillo 1y ago> where a bunch of deaf children in a an environment without much adult interaction did manage to create their own sign language You probably had Nicaraguan Sign Language [1] in mind. I think it’s a good example of the human brain’s ability to invent something and acquire knowledge easily. What I tried to show with my comment is that when human intelligence is discussed, it’s easy to refer to all instances of human achievements around us, but they are essentially accumulated cultural knowledge. Because of this, we tend to overestimate our intelligence, at least when comparing an individual human with an individual primate of another kind. So, it’s also interesting why humans are probably unique in this ability to pass on and accumulate information, while other apes (and crows) limit this to skills like retrieving ants with sticks and breaking shells with stones. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
- atbvu 1y agoI'm just curious. Not all animals can evolve into humans. And many animals today have very high intelligence, we just don't know about it.
- tjs8rj 1y agoIs an individual human raised alone significantly smarter than a chimp? How much of the intelligence gap is culture and communication that lets us educate ourselves and compound knowledge vs biology? Homo lived for thousands and thousands of years with the same level of development as other apes
- hollerith 1y agoSince it is impossible to instill human culture into a chimp (and scientists certainly have tried) there must be some important biological differences between people and chimps.
- goodmunky 1y agoTheir biology simply filled a different ecological niche more effectively, it’s the same for all life.
- nvlled 1y agoA semi-serious tinfoiled answer: Humans are a protected species, carefully raised and nurtured by higher organisms that are hundred thousand times larger than us (in terms of space and time). The earth and solar system is just a vivarium of galactic scale. Several "glass wall" mechanisms were placed to ensure we are separated from the rest of the universe, like the oort cloud. Somewhere out there in the universe are humans living freely outside the glass wall.
- nvlled 1y agoPlaying with this outlandish thought further, the idea that earth is an enclosure for research or preservation explains why the solar system is configured the way it is and why tiny adjustments could render it an inhabitable wasteland. As time goes on, the glass walls tend to age and occasionally the "cracks" allows external lifeforms (aliens) to slip past the protection layer, much like how insects or parasites would occasionally slip past any opening. With this in mind, there would be two types of aliens/visitors to our enclosure: (1) lifeforms that are similar to humans in terms of size and biological complexity but more technologically advanced and (2) our protectors who are incomprehensibly larger and more complex than any life on earth. This isn't as outlandish as it seems to be considering there are stars that are million times larger than our own sun. This sheer difference in scale might as well make the protectors exist in a different dimension. This explains why people would say that aliens were here all this time, but from another dimension. Technically they are here, but more accurately to say the protectors surround us. Occasionally protectors would step in to prevent mankind from destroying their own enclosure, much like a terrarium owner would reach into the enclosure to remove unwanted organisms. Frequent unidentified sightings on nuclear sites is the protectors' way of peeking and reaching a "hand". It remains to be seen if humanity would one day evolve to outgrow the enclosure.
- textlapse 1y agoA curious-er question to me would be how did cephalopods (octopuses, cuttlefish) develop sophisticated intelligence a few hundred million years before ‘we’ did separately from us? And they still are alongside us right now. Which to me is fascinating.
- mouse_8b 1y agoWhy did birds evolve flight and people didn't? The other apes are intelligent enough for their niche. At some point in humanity's past, the environment was harsh enough that the less intelligent ones died.