danshawen
Valued Senior Member
What exactly makes it "instinctive"? What makes failing to breathe, or to drink or to eat, or to mate "instinctive", as opposed to something more obviously intelligent like avoiding a predator about to eat you? "Instinctive" is the same as "intelligence" when you get right down to it. In either case, the lack of action on the part of something intelligent means survival is lost. This is how evolution works. No guiding intelligence is really necessary to make it work that way; it's really a lack of intelligence that is the undoing of those individuals who, for whatever reason, fail to survive. Nature is relentless and ruthless about this, and doesn't care what aspect of cognitive intelligence failed the unfortunate individuals who were not able to anticipate what factor of their environment caused their early demise. Only the ones who succeed in anticipating danger (or opportunities) and act on those "instincts" to survive will make it. Groups of cooperating intelligent animals can also improve their chances of survival by deploying some members of the group as foragers and others as scouts for spotting predators or game. Humans and dogs co-evolved together because one had a keen olfactory system that could be deployed in various ways, and the other could use weapons to bring down larger game, thus allowing them to hunt together more effectively than either could otherwise manage alone.No. It's instinctive, not intelligence.
Do you see no "pattern" to the deployment of intelligence here?
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