Why aren't all animals becoming smarter?

I would presume that there is only enough room for a single sufficiently intelligent species on a single planet. The Neanderthals were arguably on a similar level of intelligence to humans, but with the introduction of humans to their habitat, they went extinct. This may or may not be a direct cause and effect, but one way or another, it lets us speculate that the niche is actually a very small one.
From the history of humanity, and the level of (evolutionary fell-founded) xenophobia, I would say that even if at some point in relatively modern history there would have been more than one more or less equally intelligent species, their cultures would have conflicted constantly, eventually driving all but one of the species extinct.
This, of course, is nothing we could extrapolate to other planets and possible life-forms, but the conclusion would still be that the fact that out of millions of modern and extinct species, only one has evolved to a high level of intelligence doesn't allow us to make predictions about the rarity of intelligent species on other possibly life-inhabited planets.
All we can deduct from our planet is that life, once it has come to existence, has the ability to spread over the entire planet and transform it completely. Also, that consciousness is a possible outcome in the evolution of a nervous-system or its analogies. How likely either of the events (processes) is, is up for speculation, but the fact that life seems to date back to times where conditions that could support life were relatively new, would indicate that abiogenesis isn't a very unlikely process, although based on a single example, the conclusion may not be very good. On the other hand, we can follow the evolutionary path and see that the development of a nervous-system has proven to be a rather good adaption in more complex animals, but this of course may be just the only realized option out of many others.

 

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A thoughful discussion in post141 by fo3, but by evolutionary time scales, the now achieved "ability to spread over the entire planet and transform it completely" is but a "blink of an eyelid."

It is much too early to conclude that this ability is stable (IMHO it is not.) instead of nature's greatest "trial and error" mistake. - Check back with me and see how it is all going about "one breath cycle" (instead of and "eye blink") from now - perhaps 10,000 years from now.

 

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I was not referring to man-kinds domination of the planet that has taken place in the last 10,000 years, but to life as a whole, spread to almost every part of the planet, changing its atmosphere completely and covering it with a green photosynthesizing blanket, that has been there for more than 500 million years.

 

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In the last 100, 000 years don't you mean?
A typo yes?

 

Yes that was the greatest "climatic disaster" in all of Earth's history (from POV of the anarobic life forms that once dominated the planet). They did send a few of their kind into "survival shelters" (the intestines of cows, deeply burried muds etc.) where they are patiently waiting for their come back, with "global warming" being their current greatest hope to rid the Earth of that posionous gas, oxygen.

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Reiku: As the post I made was not really about the human domination on the planet, it is irrelevant, but as you insist on picking, then no. I do not consider humans dominating the planet over the last 100,000 years, as there are evidence of a population bottleneck being present in that time, which took human population to a very low level.

 

Humans have only developed, because they have superintelligence, something which no other animal has achieved, so... yes, the human had dominance over the last 100,000 years... do you refute this>?

 

yes, because it is a shitty representation of what actually happened.

 

Your anthropocentric standpoint has no scientific basis. I would hardly call a population of a few thousand stone-age humans dominating the world.

 

Spurious, the curious, explain your scientific diagnosis... please.

And Fo3, humans where the VERY FIRST INTELLIGENT BEINGS, able to collapse the wave function...

 

If you restrict "human" to homo-sapien (I think, but just trying to exclude the Nieanderthals, who may also be homo-sapiens. - I never can keep all this straight.) I believe only 50,000 BP can be defended.

Approximately 50,000BP is when the "Out of Africa" event occured. This event has several competing explainations. My little known, and definitely little accepted one, has it based on the greater evolution rate of the human gene pool caused by the enviromental pressure of the bigger brained and stronger Nieanderthals, who did, as modern cognitive science suggests, precieve their environment as the end result of many stages of neural computational transforms of their sensory transducer signals sent to the brain. I.e. by "EMERGENT PERCEPTION" with up to even a 1/3 of a second delay due to time required for neural chemicals to difuse across synaptic gaps IN A SEQUENCIAL CHAIN of nerve "firings."*

In contrast to this accepted POV, I believe humans about 50,000 years ago developed an alternative mode of preception (still in use today). I.e. some small inbreading group (containing the midacondal DNA of "eve" which all still share, of course) developed a "real time simulation" of the environment (in the parietal part of the brain) and precived it consciously, instead of the delayed "emergent perception" the Nieanderthals still had. This gave these early humans, despite their smaller brains and weaker bodies, a great advantage in conflicts with the Nieanderthals, (when it came to dodging a thrown spear or ducking a thrown rock, etc., not in "hand to hand" death struggles.)

In a few thousand years, this small African group "exploded" out of Africa and killed off all of the other types of "humanoids" then living. - That is what I believe. If you want to read some more on this, and several "proofs" that the current POV of cognitive science it wrong (I am definitely a "crackpot" from their POV) see:

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1294496&postcount=52

BE warned that link is focused on showing that there is not necessarily a conflict between physics (which governs the firng of all nerves as it controls the movement of every atom within each nerve, etc) and "Free Will" (as I believed to be true for at least 40 years.) but the real-time simulation and evidence for it is also presented etc. there.
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*Shortest known chain is 6 units long. Sheep can perceive and discriminate a wolf from other approaching similar size four legged animals so quickly (in lab tests with flashed photos) that there is only time for diffusion across 6 synaptic gaps.

 

Thats good knowledge.

 

Firstly, there is no accepted definition of intelligence that excludes all the animals besides humans. Neither is there a definition of intelligence, that includes a strict line between unintelligent/intelligent.
Also, a quantum mechanical observer doesn't need to be intelligent.

You keep posting pseduscientific, spiritual, anthropocentric crap in every thread I see you in.

 

There is a definition. No other animal has human intelligence other than humans...


Your waisting my time intentionally aren't you?

 

Oh, and now we are suddenly talking about human intelligence? Well, then I will say that no other animal has chimpanzee intelligence than chimpanzees.

All of the mentioned capacities have been observed in animals other than humans, in different degrees. But I suppose you will subjectively pull a line somewhere, saying that no animal is past this, and human intelligence is something fundamentally different. If you plan to do that, please don't bother.

 

Fo3... your latest ground-breaking post...

Oh, and now we are suddenly talking about human intelligence? Well, then I will say that no other animal has chimpanzee intelligence than chimpanzees.

... ''Reiku: As the post I made was not really about the human domination on the planet, it is irrelevant, but as you insist on picking, then no. I do not consider humans dominating the planet over the last 100,000 years, as there are evidence of a population bottleneck being present in that time, which took human population to a very low level.

In the last 100, 000 years don't you mean?
A typo yes?

Humans have only developed, because they have superintelligence, something which no other animal has achieved, so... yes, the human had dominance over the last 100,000 years... do you refute this>?

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spuriousmonkey
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You don't even know the topic, so why should i presume you'll ever contemplte the information i supply?

 

That is nonsense. Even a piece of photographic film has enough "intelligence" to collapse a wave function.

For example in the famous two slit interference experiments where the intensity is so low that only one photon exists if any do, at one time, and it must therefore go thru both slits (something humans will never be very "gut-feeling" capable of understanding) it does so as it is in a "mixed state." Then later when it hits the photographic film. that film alone "condenses it ito a single point" eigen or pure wave function as it dies and causes a "latent image" of the diffraction pattern to begin to accumulate. No human need ever even look at it. After this pattern it chemically developed, it can be scanned and displayed on an oscilloscope tube etc.

I think a cock roach has much more intellgence than does a piece of photograpic film does. Do you disagree?

BTW, your confusion, misunderstanding etc. is probably caused by the use in English word "observation" when quantum theory is described to those who have little real understanding of it (Never did a calculation even of the classic particle in well problem). It is very unfortunate that "observation" is used instead of "classical interaction." If "classical interaction" were used instead, then you would not have posted such nonsense. Film does make a "classical interaction" with the photon.

 

Post rubbish much?

 

That'e cheep, considering the evidence I just presented, to show that we were in fact talking about human intelligence...

What part of this do you not understand?

 

There is no fundamental difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence. As there is no strict line between human intelligence, animal intelligence and no intelligence at all, your claims of humans being the first intelligent being are invalid. There is also no reason why higher intelligence should be the measure of dominance on the planet in the first place. And intelligence and the collapse of a wave function have nothing to do with each other. Could I be any more clear?