/sci/ - Science & Math

Its because humans are an anomaly
Most mammals are dumb fucks despite having structurally complex brains

Corvid birds are an anomaly also and be smarter than waht is typicall possible for a bird

Octopussy is anomalous too, its relatives, the snails, are almost brainless in comparison

But you know what is remarkable? Insect brains. They are incredibly small, yet has the level of complexity comparable to human. But of course they arent intelligent since they are so small it becomes an impossibility in that size.

>>15299559
1. Humans have had near peers and killed them all because they freaked us out. There were to my knowledge 4 other widespread species like denisovians and neanderthals that we murdered, as well as several species of great ape. Why are there no near-peers? We kill them on sight.


2. Branches of the tree far removed from humans have survived. You're not going to go underwater and stab a bunch of dolphins or orcas to death. Best you're going to do is get a few of them trapped in a bay and stab them to death. With birds, not many options other than pellet rifles. Why are things with cognitive capacity far-removed from humans? Because humans would kill them if they got any closer and actively kill them in their current habitats.

Think about that.

Intelligent pigs? We view them as a nuisance and hunt them from helicopters with rifles, poisons, and sounder traps.

Intelligent crows? We view them as a nuisance that drive away pretty pigeons and shoot them with pellet rifles.

Dolphins? We coral them into bays and spear them to death.

Octopi? We spearfish for them and serve them up as a chewy snack called calamari which is available in most seafood restaurants.

It's not that intelligent species didn't evolve alongside us, or that they aren't actively evolving around us. Humans are just insanely violent, like the most violent creatures on the planet. We kill EVERYTHING. Especially intelligent creatures.

The only ones allowed to live are the ones selectively bred nearly into oblivion.

>>15299576
Is this why God's chosen people want everyone else dead?

>>15299605
yes, they are what remains of a lost human relative species

it is carried in chosen fem DNA

>>15299559
That's an extremely large assumption, anon.

>>15299559
>This decreasing relationship should remain consistent, or at least roughly consistent as we scale down the "tree of life".
This assumption is baseless. High cognitive abilities can evolve in wildly different group of animals, indipendently. You're viewing the matter following the creationist-adjacient interpretation of evolution called "Scala Naturae", that sees biodiversity as a defined process with a specific ultimate goal, us. But that's not true in the slightest. We aren't above any animal, fungi or plant species. Every individual cell today represents over 3 billions years of continuous descendance.

There are entirely different forms of intelligence between different species. Just because Chimps or Crows are good at picking out numbers in a memorized order or doing puzzles doesn't speak anything about their overall intelligence and more about their ability to memorize or solve certain puzzles. I think that the way we look at intelligence as the ability to solve simple puzzles or memorize certain things is missing the point entirely on what human-like intelligence is supposed to mean in this context. Furthermore, it makes logical sense some species would be good at these kinds of things given their skill-sets and these certain kinds of intelligence affecting their environmental pressure, these kinds of problem solving skills are what gives them leverage in some situations. There's nothing to really suggest that "intelligence", or the established ability to solve puzzles or memorize certain things is even within the same ballpark as humans. We're incredibly intelligent creatures, but I think what separates humans the most is the ability to communicate and the ability to go great strides without forgetting certain bits of information. Comprehensive knowledge is really one of the largest reasons only now we've stopped banging rocks against each other, the ability to communicate and gather knowledge is the largest separating factor besides everything else.

>>15299559

>>15299710
> High cognitive abilities can evolve in wildly different group of animals, indipendently.

Yes, and this assumption is equally baseless.

> You're viewing the matter following the creationist-adjacient interpretation of evolution called "Scala Naturae", that sees biodiversity as a defined process with a specific ultimate goal, us. But that's not true in the slightest. We aren't above any animal, fungi or plant species. Every individual cell today represents over 3 billions years of continuous descendance.

Whether or not evolution is a defined process with us being the goal is entirely irrelevant to my point.

Assuming the evolutionary paradigm, do you disagree that it posits a general increase in complexity and intelligence over these 3 billion years?

I find this very hard to believe given that the "tree of life" as portrayed demonstrates exactly this.

>>15299748
>Yes, and this assumption is equally baseless.
No it's not, it's supported by our current biodiversity. We have dumb birds and smart birds, just like we have dumb placental mammals and smart placental mammals.
>do you disagree that it posits a general increase in complexity and intelligence over these 3 billion years?
No I agree, as time went on and biodiversity increased, more complex animal species were able to appear, and with this increase in complexity more intelligent animals were also able to appear. What I don't understand is what you find confusing or conflicting about this.

>>15299797
> No it's not, it's supported by our current biodiversity. We have dumb birds and smart birds, just like we have dumb placental mammals and smart placental mammals.

Sure, organisms may vary in intelligence within a particular group, a certain species of bird may display a slightly greater level of intelligence than another species of bird.

This isn't the point though, the point is that the distribution of intelligence throughout animal kingdom does not represent a gradual rise (or a rise at all) mirroring the proposed evolutionary relationships, as would be expected in an evolutionary paradigm.

> No I agree, as time went on and biodiversity increased, more complex animal species were able to appear, and with this increase in complexity more intelligent animals were also able to appear. What I don't understand is what you find confusing or conflicting about this.

Great, seems like we agree here. Now, what I'm saying is that observation directly contradicts your proposed gradual "increase in intelligence"

Barring humans, it's actually rather consistent across the animal kingdom, with many of the far removed organisms appearing early on in the "tree of life" displaying superior or equal intelligence to organisms appearing much later, despite the increase in time.

>>15299807
>This isn't the point though, the point is that the distribution of intelligence throughout animal kingdom does not represent a gradual rise (or a rise at all) mirroring the proposed evolutionary relationships, as would be expected in an evolutionary paradigm.
First of all the evolutionary "paradigm" doesn't really exist, evolution isn't a set of rules set in stone. Intelligence can only exist in multicellular animals with a nervous systen, which have existed for roughly 600 million years. During this time the nervous system has evolved in many ways, some more complex than others, and comparable levels of complexity were achieved indipendently in different lineages. It took 600 million years of attempts and experimentation to get OUR level. Secondly, we can't quantify or qualify how "gradual" this process was, because 'intelligence' is a quality that, biologically, has a rater nebolous defintion and can only be observed in LIVING creatures. We can't make any substancial claims for animals that are only present in the fossil record, at most we can speculate and infer.

>>15299807
>Great, seems like we agree here. Now, what I'm saying is that observation directly contradicts your proposed gradual "increase in intelligence"
>Barring humans, it's actually rather consistent across the animal kingdom, with many of the far removed organisms appearing early on in the "tree of life" displaying superior or equal intelligence to organisms appearing much later, despite the increase in time.

What do you mean by organisms appeared "early on"? Do you mean more basal lineages? Like how molluscs are more basal than vertebrates? If so, there's nothing weird here. We don't know how intelligent extinct cephalopds were, and the fact that modern ones are so intelligent makes perfect sense. They represent, just like us, the 3 billion years process of evolution that started with the first cell. If anything, their lineage had more time than ours to evolve such complex nervous system.
Another matter to take into consideration is that intelligence can simply plateau for certain groups of animals, due to either anatomical, biological or ecological limitations. So not every lineage is bound to display an increase in nervous complexity over time. Again, there's no "true" paradigm.

>>15299807
Intelligence requires a lot of investment of resources.
Our brain consumes a disproportionate amount of energy in our bodies and even has it's own separate sugar metabolism to prop it up.
Chimpanzees don't have diets including lots of cooked meat and thst was the requirement for hominids to start growing their brains so much in a short ammount of time

So the reason for the lack of intelligence is that if a species can survive without it and don't have a surplus for some reason, it won't form because it's very expensive to have

>>15299569
Are humans a anomaly? Poeple can eb very dumb. Hell I'd argue most poeple are dumb. It's just the top 5percent that is responsible for all our innovation. It's not the average women serving you pancakes that makes america innovative. It's the scientists behind a desk.

>>15299576
Why havnt humans wiped each other out? Why do euorpeans put up with non Europeans? Japanese put up with anybody else? Why don't the natives wipe out the whites that got to america?

>>15299816
humans and ravens display the success of intelligence on the ground level since both are non oceanic creatures

whereas octopus is completely marine intelligence

>>15299901
This is entirely an ad-hoc postdiction founded upon a baseless assumption.

>>15299815
>It took 600 million years of attempts and experimentation to get OUR level.

Based upon this statement, it seems we are in agreement that as elapsed time increases so does biological complexity, great.

>Secondly, we can't quantify or qualify how "gradual" this process was, because 'intelligence' is a quality that, biologically, has a rater nebolous defintion and can only be observed in LIVING creatures.

The gradualism I'm referring to is the evolutionary timeline and appearance of organisms within the timeline, of which is satisfactorily mapped out.

While the definition of intelligence might be nebulous in some sense, the measurement of it isn't, and we're only measuring parameters that we know are relevant to intelligence. While these parameters might not be sufficient to account for the totality of intelligence, they are necessary.

And yes, every point I've made so far involves direct testing of living animals.

> We can't make any substancial claims for animals that are only present in the fossil record, at most we can speculate and infer.

Right, which is what I'm doing.

>>15299816
> What do you mean by organisms appeared "early on"? Do you mean more basal lineages?

Basically, yes.

>If so, there's nothing weird here. We don't know how intelligent extinct cephalopds were, and the fact that modern ones are so intelligent makes perfect sense. They represent, just like us, the 3 billion years process of evolution that started with the first cell. If anything, their lineage had more time than ours to evolve such complex nervous system.

Sure, they're smart creatures, but whether they can meet the threshold of smart or not is irrelevant, what is relevant is their intelligence relative to subsequent organisms.

Which, as you've stated previously, should increase as time elapses.

>>15299984
>as you've stated previously, should increase as time elapses.
No, I've never stated this. As time elapses it becomes POSSIBLE for an increase in intelligence. It's neither a given nor an almost certainty.

>>15300032
Would you say that an increase in intelligence did or didn't happen over evolutionary history?

>>15299807

>as would be expected in an evolutionary paradigm

... and where exactly is that expected in the paradigm outside some new ager pop sci bullshit? Not how nature wörks, not how she behaves at all. Rather, we are dealing with certain complexity thresholds which do allow for emergent traits at certain stages ... and these can equally be lost again, either by submerging or actual ablation.

>>15299901

>Intelligence requires a lot of investment of resources.

Yeah that alone is an argument against the initial faulty assumption here. Tendency to invest into self replication itself is still the priority.

>>15300060
It happened, but it wasn't a constant, ubiquitious or gradual one. Amphibians of today probably aren't that smarter than amphibians from the permian period. Most birds have mantained a similar level of intelligence to Maniraptoran dinosaurs from the Cretaceous until the appearance of Corvids and Parrots. Synapsids have likely remained relatively consistent since the Permian until the extinction of the Dinosaurs.
And this is all speculation. We can't quantify the intelligence of fossil organisms.

>>15299559
>What's up with this?
Intelligence can evolve independently. Just because we are the most intelligent doesn’t mean unrelated lineages can’t also become intelligent. Your idea of the “tree of life” is not reflective of reality

>>15299807
>as would be expected in an evolutionary paradigm.
Cite the literature you think makes this claim or admit you're full of shit.

>>15301054
The necessary increase in intelligence is well recognized throughout the literature, regardless of how badly you would like to deny such, it is an observed relationship.

Here is one example :

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256091745_The_Evolution_of_Intelligence

>>15301174
>The necessary increase
Nope. That's where you're lying. Quote exactly where you think what you linked says this.

>>15299559
>animals demonstrating near-peer intelligence are far removed from humans.
>implying

>>15299941
Remember, those intelligent animals show the intelectual capacity of a 3, 7, maybe 14 year old child at their peak. It's not that people are intelectually incapable (except for rare genetic diseases) it's the malnutrition and bad conditions growing up plus some nefarious anti-intelecrual memes that do it.
As I said, thinking is energy consumption so we have a lot of systems that evolved to limit it as much as possible, like shortcuts, labels, generalisations, stereotypes and other things.
That's why people often lament the lack of nuance in the discussion, if the majority of people are under pressure (and it was shown that financial troubles lover your intelectual capabilities with stress) they don't really have motivation to waste their precious resources on intelectual pursuits that don't result in an almost instant gratification
>>15299946
They tried but there is a lot of instincts that compel us not to, especially on a personal level.
It's easy to come to a conclusion that all people of a certain type must be wiped out for some reason in a political cabinet, much harder to kill a 5 years old child if you're a 19 year old conscript with a brother like that at home. Even the strongest propaganda cracks because we are hardwired to care for all children, that's why domesticated animals have exaggerated child like characteristics in their appearance and behaviour.

>>15299559
I'm a modern day augur. The crows came to me, I didn't seek them out.

They know what's going on in this world and are aware of humanity as it is.

This is not some troll post or bait, be complete in your understanding that we share this world with intelligence and deliberate manifest.

Humans are a plague upon the Earth. Most of us anyway.