Could Have The Smartest Dinosaurs

[Gold Barz]

Evolved into a more intelligent dinosaur, obtaining human-like intelligence?

And if us humans had suddenly got extinct, which evolutionary lineage do you think would have the best chance of taking our place, obtaining our kind of intelligence and dominating the planet.

 

[hypatia]

Troodontids had the largest brain-to-body ratio, they are believed to have been as intelligent as modern-day birds. And we need to consider several factors...if over time the brain to body ratio became less, they would still half to over come not having workable hands, which seems to make a difference when it comes to the evolution of humans.

 

[Gold Barz]

Yeah, they had some flaws that would go against them evolving with human-like intelligence...like no opposable thumbs.

"And if us humans had suddenly got extinct, which evolutionary lineage do you think would have the best chance of taking our place, obtaining our kind of intelligence and dominating the planet." - How about this question?

 

[hypatia]

Dating from the late Paleocene age..my answer would be Rodents. With there ability to reproduce quickly and their problem solving ability. Of course humans evolved because of human needs. I'm pretty certain rodents {or any other species} would not develope human needs. But you never know..its a strange world indeed.

 

[Gold Barz]

Werent we similar to rodents once, way back when the dino's dominated the planet.

 

[hypatia]

http://http://scienceweek.com/2004/sb040813-1.htm

 

[thecolor11]

I thought we already knew that rats are secretly using us as an organic computer.

 

[matthyaouw]

hypaia- Your link won't work for me.

thecolour11- What? could you explain yourself and provide references?

 

[hypatia]

ahhh rats! it was just data on the rat/human genome studies

 

[hypatia]

edited...



http://snowball.frogspace.net/labnotes/wd_plans.html

 

[Gold Barz]

But yeah, weren't we similar to rodents once?

 

[reasonmclucus]

Can we be sure that there were no intelligent dinosaurs? If dinosaurs had a civilization, would any artifacts from that civilization have survived until today?

 

[Gold Barz]

Small chance that they were intelligent from evidence gathered.

 

[Dayle Record]

We make a lot out of our technological "advances", what if it were better for the planet, and web of life if reptilians had remained the predominant life form, and we didn't evolve? They were cold blooded and would have had to stay where the climate suited them, and would have possibly been easier on the planetary system of life than we are. Intellect can be different than we define it. What if Whales and Dolphins are the supreme life form, possibly Elephants, even now? I imagine the Whales and Dolphins to be very special creatures, seemingly telepathic, ecstatic, Earth friendly. With the exception of our interference, sonar, and poisoning of the oceans, maybe their lives are innately better than ours. They certainly have little ability to do harm, but seemingly live lives of long pleasant associations, lots of travel, close knit societies. Same with the Elephants; they have communication skills that are miraculous, and families and bonds that are very strong.

 

[iansmith]

They certainly have little ability to do harm, but seemingly live lives of long pleasant associations, lots of travel, close knit societies.

You might want to rethink the way dolphin associate. In some group, dolphin commiting homicide, infanticide and gangs of male dolphins have been recorded attacking and "raping" females.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9699310

 

[Dayle Record]

What I am saying has less to do with species self harm, than planetary harm. Considering the whole system, the dolphin is less harmful than the human.

 

[reasonmclucus]

Small chance that they were intelligent from evidence gathered.

What could have survived, particularly if they didn't have styrofoam?
Even much of the landscape has changed significantly since their era.

 

[TheUnknown]

Dinosaurs were not intelligent, their brains were much to small, they had no working hands in the way we do, what could they do? they had large teeth and claws for a reason, they evolved or were made to kill and destruct, not to make things with their fingers. Do you really think elephants and dolphins are smarter or as smart as humans, or even come anywhere near? do you realize how smart we are? do you think an elephant or a dolphin can sit there and be conscience of it's conscience? if you meant friendly to the Earth's environment then yeah, but what did their intellegence have to do with it. but that is a very nice question indeed... in fact some ufologist have even speculated that the UFO's we see are from another dimension of our Earth that are time traveling and finding that we have evolved here.

 

[DocToxyn]

We make a lot out of our technological "advances", what if it were better for the planet, and web of life if reptilians had remained the predominant life form, and we didn't evolve? They were cold blooded and would have had to stay where the climate suited them, and would have possibly been easier on the planetary system of life than we are. Intellect can be different than we define it. What if Whales and Dolphins are the supreme life form, possibly Elephants, even now? I imagine the Whales and Dolphins to be very special creatures, seemingly telepathic, ecstatic, Earth friendly. With the exception of our interference, sonar, and poisoning of the oceans, maybe their lives are innately better than ours. They certainly have little ability to do harm, but seemingly live lives of long pleasant associations, lots of travel, close knit societies. Same with the Elephants; they have communication skills that are miraculous, and families and bonds that are very strong.

Much of the same could be said about humans for the vast majority of time that we have resided on this planet and indeed abotu some human populations today. It's only relatively recently, industrial era and all, that most of us got a little (or a lot) too greedy and used our intellect to bend nature and the Earth to our will and potentially to our downfall.

 

[Gold Barz]

Dinosaurs were not intelligent, their brains were much to small, they had no working hands in the way we do, what could they do? they had large teeth and claws for a reason, they evolved or were made to kill and destruct, not to make things with their fingers. Do you really think elephants and dolphins are smarter or as smart as humans, or even come anywhere near? do you realize how smart we are? do you think an elephant or a dolphin can sit there and be conscience of it's conscience? if you meant friendly to the Earth's environment then yeah, but what did their intellegence have to do with it. but that is a very nice question indeed... in fact some ufologist have even speculated that the UFO's we see are from another dimension of our Earth that are time traveling and finding that we have evolved here.

Well some dino experts suggest that as the dino species were thinning out very near their extinction, the dino's that did survive were way more intelligent than their ancestors so maybe if some survived the extinction event this would have triggered an intelligence boost as it did to us and there would be dino's walking around with cellphones and stuff. Or maybe if the extinction event didnt happen till later on when some dino's were actually more intelligent than the dino's that actually died out these smart dino's would reduce the damage (as our ancestors did) there wouldn't be humans walking around right now, but dino's. What I am trying to say is that maybe dino's were closer to the path to intelligence than we thought, they were becoming more and more intelligent.

 

[Huckleberry]

I'm not convinced that an opposoble thumb is the largest obstacle to intelligence. It certainly helps to have the capacity to make tools, but it is not necessary to have thumbs to observe. I think the major obstacle to developing intelligence is empathy. If humans never formed a social network then we never would have developed language. We rely on each other and share information. If Einstein had to come up with his theories without the benefit of his predecessors then what would he have discovered? I don't know how to fix a car, but I can go to a mechanic and he can use his knowledge (and opposible thumbs) to fix it. Without this network we would be unable to cooperate. No one person can claim to contain the intelligence of the entire human race, but through our social network all of this information can be conveyed.

If only the same could be said for wisdom. Perhaps that will be the next step in human evolution if we make it that far without offing ourselves.

Huck

 

[Selfless]

I think the biggest obstacle to intelligence is our ability to gather information through our five senses and convey what little information gathered to other members of the species. We attempt to explain our reality with only light waves and sound waves or vibrations. We send these vibrations to our little processor and it creates a picture of our reality based on past stimuli. Little 1 and 0, what it is or what it isn't.

Then with equally poor performance, try to convey what was precieved as truth with limited information from one to another through symbols or labels. We call it, knowledge and communication; and we have advanced our species doing it. However, I wonder, if we developed this method as part of an evoluntionary economy.

Maybe our earliest ancestors had other means of precieving and communicating their world. The only problem is that these methods did not help them survive being eaten. Self preservation is the key to passing genetic code. You don't live long enough to mate and you don't have offsprings.

This brings up another key factor in developing a higher intelligence. Gestation of embryo and maturation to breeding age. The longer these take the more intelligent the species has to be to survive.

Getting back to my point. We base our intelligence on limited information and convey our knowledge on poor methods of discourse. When we can gather all forms of vibration intergrate and convey them to each other without discourse, then we will truly be omniscient. Some people today call this being God.

I think technology will naturally lead us to this destination. Whether, this will be good or bad is another post. Maybe, science and technology is our new evolutionary adaptation of opposable thumbs.

Dino's didn't survive because their world died. They didn't have a choice and we may not either some day.

 

[Huckleberry]

I think the biggest obstacle to intelligence is our ability to gather information through our five senses and convey what little information gathered to other members of the species.

I basically agree with this, but it doesn't seem complete to me. Machines can record and convey a wider variety of information than our senses can tell us and we can learn and adapt from that information. We can adapt, but the machine, even with its superior senses, does not. We do not call machines intelligent although they can have senses. I have no doubt that observation is vital for understanding (seems kind of redundant dunnit?). I just believe that there is more to it than that.

It takes curiosity and ingenuity and a sense of self. I have a rather Jungian philosophy that as a person or a species increases its potential to be irrational (emotion and intuitiveness) then they experience an increase in their potential to be rational (logic and umm, aesthetics I think). For any system to last it must be sustainable. If we do not have genuine empathy for each other then we will eventually destroy each other and therefore ourselves. We seem to be working hard to do just that (Nationalism is such a bastard). Being an emotionally complex species allows us to see deeper meaning in what we observe, thus allowing us to become closer to the truth.

What was the question?
Huck

 

[Selfless]

Can we separate "I" or "self" from the physical restraints of our body and survive, through our technology? The only way to do this currently, death of the body, has only been recorded once as being successful. Jesus of Nazereth gave up the self to become christ, as a method of reaching God or omniscient being.

Maybe, in some rudimentary way this was pointing to the possibility of man becoming more than the limitations of his current conditions. I have read another post about space travel and Mach whatever. People are so ethnocentric; they talk about biodiversity of our own planet, yet expect aliens to operate on our level or like us. To travel through space and time, matter gets in the way. It would be more effecient to travel as non-matter, vibration or energy on a wave, than as matter in a craft. I bet aliens are surfer dudes who catch the cosmic waves of the universe.

The internet is the reason aliens would be interested in us. This technology has enabled us to travel quickly and communicate within our own sphere of limitational discourse. If, we are able to intergrate all information into one search engine and connect our brain waves to it; without need of sight or touch, then we would be getting closer to the ability to travel through space and time.

This is where I get crazy, bear with me. I have come to the conclusion that the Christian religion and other religions is based on time travelers documenting their successful attempt going back into time.

Think about it; how would you convey the mission was successful, if you could not get back to the time you came from. You would have to create a log or story that would get passed along generation to generation until it reach your generation. It's easy to predict your future, when the predictions of your stories come true, you prove your mission. The big issue is the Grandfather Therory could alter your future. To get around this problem; use of metaphors to explain the future would be required to protect the time cycle from warping. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear, would understand the metaphors meaning. How would a person of little technological experience describe a person who materialized and de-materialized in front of them? Maybe, as a "Holy Spirit or Ghost"; could this explain a lot about Bible-Codes, other anamolies happening in the Bible and through human history?

Back to our technology, the biggest problem with freedom from conditions is the psychosis it would cause for people conditioned from birth to seperation. Nothing could be hidden and no illusion would exist, no walls of seperation. The only way to avoid this madness would be to embrace oneness through unconditional love, sound familiar? Broken down, you become positive energy. The Devil is the self or flesh and God is the lack of self or spirit.

I think religion was set in motion to prepare us for the next step in evolution of our species. Maybe, divine intervention is real in the sense that human beings are going to reach a pinnacle which changes mankind. Our future children realizing they were losing humanity decide to create a record by creating a time cycle to perpetuate humanity.

What was the answer?