What Is Needed To Make An Intelligent Species?

[Gold Barz]

Suppose on one planet all the ingredients necessary for life is available, as we know it will evolve but what are the chances of it evolving into an intelligent species (like us), do you just give it time and let time do its thing or do you need some other special ingredient?

 

[DaveC426913]

Oh please, don't be shy - ask the really big questions!
;-)

I think once you get past
1] Is there a God?
and
2] Why are we here?
then your question
3] How did we get to be what we are?
is pretty much number 3 on the list of profoundly sought answers by Mankind.


Personally, I believe that intelligence is an exceedingly long shot of survival traits.

 

[Chronos]

I don't think that's the direction Gold is going, Dave. I also disagree with your conclusion that intelligience is an 'exceedingly long shot'. Intelligience would seem to be the natural consequence of any evolutionary sequence. It has huge survival value. Feel free to decry its inadequacies, but is still efficient.

 

[A_I_]

u believe we are intelligent.
i guess our intelligence tends to 0 when comparing to our very little knowledge with respect to space and time.
i guess by then, we won't be able to know its ingredients
thus we don't know what it needs more.
In fact can you define intelligence?
i guess for a human being, i prefer to say "logic" instead of "intelligence"
and i also believe that our Universe is "intelligent" but i can't explain why.

 

[ramollari]

The answer is the "Genetic Algorithm" of nature! It is beginning to be used by humans to solve problems that require considerable intelligence. With reproduction & crossing over, mutations, fitness & natural selection, we came to be what we are. Without the intelligence we would be less likely to find solutions to life problems, and hence survive.
In another planet with the conditions of earth, intelligent life would surely emerge, although in a somewhat different form, depending on the fitness requirements and the history of events in that planet.

[QUOTE = A_I_]
i guess for a human being, i prefer to say "logic" instead of "intelligence"
[/QUOTE]

If humans are not intelligent then who is?

 

[Phobos]

Gold Barz - Based on the theory of evolution, intelligence is not a necessary outcome, but as Chronos pointed out, intelligence has value for helping an organism survive (therefore, evolutionary mechanisms may favor the development of intelligence). Given that (1) intelligence is not a required outcome, (2) it is not clear how human intelligence developed, and (3) we have nothing else to compare our history to (no known alien species), I would say that there's no way to calculate the odds with any good certainty.

A I - I'd say that intelligence and knowledge are different things. For example, intelligence would be the ability to learn and knowledge would be what you learned. We may not know a big fraction of what is in the universe, but we have the ability to learn about it. Stone Age humans were just as intelligent as people today...they just had less scientific/institutional knowledge to work with.

 

[saltydog]

Suppose on one planet all the ingredients necessary for life is available, as we know it will evolve but what are the chances of it evolving into an intelligent species (like us), do you just give it time and let time do its thing or do you need some other special ingredient?

I think you need luck. Now, that's the same thing as waiting a long time of course. You know, play the lottery long enough and you'll have a good chance of winning in the course of many thousands of years. My view is that life is massively contingent: you could have all the ingredients and not luck, and I suspect no intelligent life will emerge. I think that's why it took so long to do it here. Need to persists long enough to increase the odds of the chance working in it's favor. We're lucky here I think. No more than two intelligent life forms in the Milky Way at anyone time. Drake is way off but I wouldn't want to argue the point with him.

 

[Gold Barz]

So out of all the "alien life" out there, if they do exist, how many do you think would be intelligent? (a ballpark figure)

i agree with Chronos, survival makes creatures smarter

edit: this is completely baseless but I think there would be more than two intelligent species in the Milky Way at anyone time

 

[Mean-Hippy]

Well, we do have somewhat of a reference frame here on Earth. Only one branch of the evolutionary tree has give rise to a creature with a significant capacity for reason ( which is how I will call it ). One in how many? I believe this would be somewhat similar to the proportion of life harbouring worlds where "reason" has emerged. Some factors specific to Earths evolutionary history may come and tweak this number a little but not significantly. Intelligence is just one strategy and it took a while before it paid-up for us.

Our real strength as a specie is our adaptability, which does stem from our intelligence : there are no ecosystem on Earth we cannot inhabit
(well... maybe oceanic abyss but you get the point, we are even making our first steps at living in space.)
But intelligence only gave us a definite edge in adaptability fairly recently when we domesticated fire. Before that, intelligence had a fairly neutral value has far as evolutionary traits go. We were in fact not a particularly successful branch of evolution in comparison to many others and palaeontologists believe that we dwindled on the edge of extinction a few times. So intelligence, in its early phase, has a lot of potential as a survival strategy but it took the greatest part of our history to really be any good. Before that, its chimp-with-a-stick V.S. sabertooth...

I see two milestones in our evolutionary history. One in our past, fire, pretty much assures us that humans will endure has long has the Earth does. Of course we will certainly have ups and down but even catastrophic ecological degradation, at this point, will not manage to wipe out our specie. Billions may die, but not all. It would be nice however if we smartened up before that happens . The only thing with the potential to eradicate humans at this point his a cosmological event: an asteroid collision or a neighbouring gamma ray emission *. This brings me to my second, future, milestone: space colonisation. If human manage to be able to survive independently of the Earths resources, well I believe we as a specie will live " forever ". Intelligence definitely has the greatest potential of all strategies but evolution does not select for far distant future potential, it selects for survival now...


* Oh and maybe the wrath of ASIMO

 

[Gold Barz]

How about my question though?

 

[A_I_]

"If humans are not intelligent then who is?"

i'm not saying that human aren't intelligent, but their intelligence is minimum;
evidence - until now we only use like 10% of our intelligence, maybe we will find a way to use the 100%; can anyone imagine how it would be?

-i agree with phobos about his third point of view
- "I'd say that intelligence and knowledge are different things"
I don't think it is right because ur example shows how much they are related,
they are complementary having what u learned which is "knowledge" it is in deed the work of ur intelligence; without intelligence there's no advanced knowledge.
I say advanced because there are two types of knowledge:
1- obervational knowledge (the fact of seeing and observing quite simple phenomena and ability to determine the cause)
2-experimental knowledge (which needs a certain degree of intelligence, it's about analysing, and resolving complex phenomena).

I say the first form is quite in our hands;
the second one we are still a bit far


- "Stone Age humans were just as intelligent as people today...they just had less scientific/institutional knowledge to work with."

although they had less scientific/institutional knowledge to work with
i don't think they were as intelligent as people today
argument - "genetic algorithm" (ramollari)

and i also say that relativity also takes turn in intelligence.
They saw theirselves intelligent
We see them less intelligent
we are intelligent
Next generations are more intelligent
they will see us less intelligent

I say it all started with simple logic statements - when verified - became knowledge;
this knowledge reflected intelligence.
This little knowledge they knew helped for the amplification of their intelligence;
therefore amplification of our knowledge;
and it continues.

 

[scilover89]

Being inteligent is a great advantage for surviving. But actually, what is the determine factor to be inteligent?

 

[A_I_]

i guess being able to quick analysis is the most thing which shows how intelligent u r!

 

[saltydog]

So out of all the "alien life" out there, if they do exist, how many do you think would be intelligent? (a ballpark figure)

i agree with Chronos, survival makes creatures smarter

edit: this is completely baseless but I think there would be more than two intelligent species in the Milky Way at anyone time

This is how I see it: Life is massively contingent and there are plenty of stars in the Milky Way. These two cancel leaving unity. I added one because I'm optimistic.

 

[ohwilleke]

Intelligent species and intelligent species like us, are two different things.

A great many species on Earth would probably be counted as intelligent is discovered on another planet instead of Earth. Certainly, just about any vertebrate or social insect would qualify. What if we discovered the equivalent of worms or jelly fish, however?

 

[saltydog]

Intelligent species and intelligent species like us, are two different things.

A great many species on Earth would probably be counted as intelligent is discovered on another planet instead of Earth. Certainly, just about any vertebrate or social insect would qualify. What if we discovered the equivalent of worms or jelly fish, however?

Not sure if you're referring to me but anyway I'd like to qualify my statement: I mean intelligent like us: technologically advanced: No more than two at anyone time in the Milky Way in my humble opinion. And while I'm at it, that Petter Jennings report last night about UFOs: Someone stated something about harnessing a million suns to create a wormhole. A million? Come on, I don't think there is a single entity in the whole universe that can do that. That's just me though.

 

[Gold Barz]

So if life is present, evoultion takes its course, would intelligence be unlikely or likely?

 

[selfAdjoint]

So if life is present, evoultion takes its course, would intelligence be unlikely or likely?

Well out of the millions of species on earth, only one that we know of has really crossed the line to intelligence. Therefor it would look like P(intelligence;life) ~ 10^-6.

 

[turbo]

So if life is present, evoultion takes its course, would intelligence be unlikely or likely?

In an evironment that is complex and ever-changing, the creatures that can adapt most readily and "roll with the punches" will be most likely to survive. Some types of adaptation, such as morphological differentiation (animals evolving into larger or smaller sizes, developing better resistance to heat and cold, being able to break up and chew harder nuts, etc, etc) take a VERY long time to happen. Other adaptations, like herd animals shifting their home ranges and migration patterns as the climate changes, happen on shorter time-scales.

Intelligence and the ability to communicate knowledge permit extremely rapid types of adaptation, such as behavioral changes. Thus, humans can enhance their chances of having adequate food by growing crops, they can survive in colder climates by building fires and fashioning insulating clothing, they can eat a wider range of foods by making physical and chemical changes in them (grinding, cooking, etc), and most of all, they can pass this information along to their children. Given this, we see that intelligence has a very high survival value to some organisms because it helps maximize their adaptability to the most demanding and most rapidly-changing environments.

I believe that if complex organisms exist someplace beyond Earth, we should expect that natural selection will drive a progression toward intelligence. The most robust creatures (think of whales and elephants and bears, for instance) will probably not benefit as greatly from intelligence as punier creatures like ourselves, but they will benefit to some extent, and we should expect them to become more intelligent as well, just not as quickly as humans did. Animals with limited speed, strength, etc, (like humans) will benefit tremendously from the adaptability conferred by intelligence and communication, so we should not be surprised to find intelligence out there.

 

[Gold Barz]

Yeah I read that somewhere before that creatures with less physical abilities (speed, size, strength, etc) would evolve more...some of the animals that have defense mechanisms will never evolve into intelligent beings because they don't need intelligence to survive...our defense mechanism is our intelligence

 

[Garth]

Well out of the millions of species on earth, only one that we know of has really crossed the line to intelligence. Therefor it would look like P(intelligence;life) ~ 10^-6.

But you have to multiply the probability of any life form developing intelligence by the number of different lifeforms on any planet, i.e.

P(intelligence on a particular planet) = NxP(intelligence;life) ~ 1 for Earth.

Garth

 

[Gold Barz]

So Garth, what is your personal opinion, is intelligence likely or unlikely in this universe?

 

[Garth]

That depends on N and P(intelligence;life), and N depends on a lot of unknowns.

Personally if we are the only ones then "it would seem an awful waste of space."

Garth

 

[selfAdjoint]

But you have to multiply the probability of any life form developing intelligence by the number of different lifeforms on any planet, i.e.

P(intelligence on a particular planet) = NxP(intelligence;life) ~ 1 for Earth.

Garth

I can't accept that, even as a Bayesian prior. Gould has pointed out that even a small difference in the timing of the various species extinction events in the history of Earth's biology could have prevented human evolution by locking biology into some dead-end for a few billion years. I am usually no fan of Gould's reasoning, but this seems like a solid conclusion to me.

Even after ~ 2X10⁹ years, as recently as half a million years ago, there was no intelligent life that we know of on this planet.

 

[Gold Barz]

Seems like a pessimistic conclusion, it could have gone either way on those events

 

[turbo]

I can't accept that, even as a Bayesian prior. Gould has pointed out that even a small difference in the timing of the various species extinction events in the history of Earth's biology could have prevented human evolution by locking biology into some dead-end for a few billion years. I am usually no fan of Gould's reasoning, but this seems like a solid conclusion to me.

Even after ~ 2X10⁹ years, as recently as half a million years ago, there was no intelligent life that we know of on this planet.

If we hold our own intelligence up as the yardstick by which all other creatures will be judged as "intelligent" or brute animals, we have lost sight of how intelligence develops in a continuum. It is very likely that in those species for which increased brain-power = more survivablility, the currently-living examples have higher levels of cognitive function than their distant ancestors. So where do we draw the delineation for "intelligence"? Is it in a distant ancestor of our own 250,000 years ago? 500,000 years ago, or earlier or later?

How about cross-species measures of intelligence? In 1819, the whaling ship Essex had put out whaleboats to attack a pod of sperm whales in the South Pacific. A large bull attacked and damaged one whaleboat, skippered by first mate Owen Chase, then broke off from the pod and attacked the Essex, deliberately ramming it twice in the bow, at about the same spot. The first hit badly damaged the hull, and the second hit stove in the hull, sinking the ship. You can Google on the aftermath of that sinking, if you have the stomach for it - the story is very gruesome (barely hinted at in Mountain's song "Nantucket Sleighride"). There was another sperm whale - a great albino bull named Mocha Dick (named for the area where he was often seen near the Mocha Island) that had a fearsome (decades-long) reputation for attacking whale boats, whaling ships and other naval vessels. Of course, these attacks could have been a conditioned response, since when he was finally killed, he was found to have been harpooned at least 20 times. This particular whale was later the star of Melville's "Moby Dick". Were these whales exhibiting intelligence? What would make the big bull leave his pod, where his cows and calves were being injured by men in small whale boats, and go sink the whaling ship Essex? By all accounts, that is exactly what the bull did, exhibiting a strategy that would seem beyond a "dumb animal".

How much capacity for reason and cognition does a creature need to exhibit before we will acknowledge its intelligence? Tough question...

 

[Gold Barz]

But it did happen, intelligence DID emerge on this planet, why are we assuming that it is not likely to happen again if it already happened in one life-bearing planet, why do people like to think we are special or something?

 

[saltydog]

But it did happen, intelligence DID emerge on this planet, why are we assuming that it is not likely to happen again if it already happened in one life-bearing planet, why do people like to think we are special or something?

Well, two per galaxy is still a bunch in my view. Also, life like most of nature is highly non-linear. You're familiar with the "butterfly effect" right? Just a small change in initial conditions can lead to drastically different outcomes. You know, just that random encounter on a sidewalk can lead to a wife, marriage, children, career, on an on. And you didn't even want that donnut anyway! See what I mean.

Really, if more people felt that life is rare in the Milky Way, wouldn't that cause us to value it so much more as opposed to our squandering of it all about with this and that. A separate thread indeed!

 

[Gold Barz]

You are so pessimistic, why do you assume that it will go the opposite, lead to a dead end?, it could lead to a faster way to evolution or just a slower way...like I said it evolved on this planet...yeah it took a long time but it happened, if something different happened it would change its course but whos to say it won't doesn't have the same "goal" so to speak

 

[Gold Barz]

Even if it is a billion-to-one odds, there are billions of stars in the galaxy so that would be one hundred civilizations at any given time and then times that by the galaxies and that would be in the millions range at anyone time...its still rare though but there are so many stars that there are still MANY of them

 

[saltydog]

You are so pessimistic, why do you assume that it will go the opposite, lead to a dead end?, it could lead to a faster way to evolution or just a slower way...like I said it evolved on this planet...yeah it took a long time but it happened, if something different happened it would change its course but whos to say it won't doesn't have the same "goal" so to speak

Actually no. I'm pretty optimistic about things. That's a good point you make though. Perhaps it could go faster. I yield. And also I'm the first to acknowledge that I cannot really comprehend a 100 billion star-system. I really think there's tons of life in the Milky Way but it takes so much persistence and luck to become "advanced".

I don't think life has any "goal" in mind. It's just brutal hard-core Darwinism: whatever contributes to the survivability or reproducibility of the individual contributes to the gene pool. Due to chance and non-linearity, we could be the only Homo sapiens in the universe.

 

[Gold Barz]

I am just saying that I don't think intelligence is as rare as people make it out to be, natural selection favours intelligence...instead of "the strong survive" how about "the smart survive".

What do you mean you can't comprehend a 100 billion star galaxy? It really doesn't matter because that's a fact.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I am just saying that I don't think intelligence is as rare as people make it out to be, natural selection favours intelligence...instead of "the strong survive" how about "the smart survive".

What do you mean you can't comprehend a 100 billion star galaxy? It really doesn't matter because that's a fact.

Smart at what? We are the ONLY land species out of umpteen thousands or maybe millions that have evolved since life crawled ashore to develop what we think of as intelligence. If human-style intelligence is evolutionarily favored, why didn't the therodonts or some other bipedal form develop it? Why don't we have ruins of eosimian cities? Modern thinking on the evolutionary role of intelligence tends to look at interactions within the primate band; social rather than enviromental struggle. So maybe the answer to the question in the title of this thread is bipedalism + complex social interactions.

 

[Gold Barz]

Ya ever think about us preventing other life forms from evolving into an intelligent species...? just like the dino's prevented us

plus how do you know that there is only one particular way to evolve into an intelligent life form?

 

[Gold Barz]

P(intelligence on a particular planet) = NxP(intelligence;life) ~ 1 for Earth.

Thats right...like I said even if the odds are a billion-to-one or 5 billion-to-one on any given planet, there still would be 50-100 human-like intelligence in the Milky Way alone...dont forget sattelites

 

[turbo]

So maybe the answer to the question in the title of this thread is bipedalism + complex social interactions.

Yes - don't forget opposable thumbs, too. The ability to manipulate one's environment gives the development of intelligence great survival value.

For instance, ferrets don't have opposable thumbs, and they are not bipedal, although they can stand erect, and their front paws are very dextrous. Any pet lover who has lived with ferrets, cats, and dogs over the years can tell you that ferrets are tremendously adept at manipulating their environments and are a LOT more intelligent than you would expect. If you want to have a pet ferret, be prepared to install latches and locks on drawers, cabinets, etc.

I like cats, but they are absolute dummies compared to ferrets only 1/10th their size. Example: Ferrets love to steal small things and hide them. If I am sitting quietly and my ferret does not notice me when he is hiding an object, but then notices me sitting there on his way back from hiding the object, he immediately stops, runs back and retrieves the object, and hides it someplace that I cannot see from where I am sitting. How does he figure out that I must have been there when he hid the object? He did not notice me there when he was hiding the object, but saw me later, considered that I might have seen me hide his prize, then retrieved it and re-hid it in a place that I could not see from where I was. This is pretty complex behavior for an animal that weight 2 pounds soaking wet. You would not expect this kind of ability in a Guinea pig, for instance. Now, given their natural prey (animals the size of rabbits, prairie dogs, etc) ferrets cannot evolve to be much larger than they are, because they wouldn't be able to nimbly negotiate the burrows of their prey, so they may be at or near the upper limit of their brain-mass. They do VERY well with the gray matter that they have, though. I would argue that gram-for-gram (of brain), these little guys are really smart.

 

[guevaramartyr]

I think that a problem many people have in conceiving of life on other worlds is failure to consider the myriad forms it could take. Carbon isn't necessary for biological structures, its just the path life on Earth takes. Any reasonably stable element whose outer shell is only half filled can bond with itself to construct biological structures. Given this, the underlying problems within the Drake equation become more obvious.

1) The equation assumes life can only form on a certain kind of planet with a certain kind of star. If Carbon is not a required part of biology, life could arise on any planet, or even without any planet at all (asteroid belt, deep space, inside stars, etc.)
2) The equation assumes intelligenent civilizations must possesses radio. I don't even need to talk about the flaw in this one.
3) The final part of the equation talks about civilizations that are within radio range of Earth. If we are discussing the total number of intelligent species in the galaxy, this has no relevance. Bearing this in mind, please stop using the Drake equation as justification for a low-species argument.

Getting past all that, it is my belief that intelligence gives species a distinct advantage under certain conditions. In a stagnant environment, such as that found in a race existing in deep space, intelligence might well be harmful. However, anywhere there is competition or a rapidly changing environment, intelligence will be a help to a certain point. Once that limit has been reached, new strains will be necessary to enhance intelligence. For although people don't like to admit it, we are evolving. The human race has grown substantially larger since our ancestors only 4,000 years ago. Without a force to make us change, however, we will degenerate, losing mental as well as physical faculties as the need for them disappears. This is why an Eden is undesirable. Stagnation causes entropy, pure and simple.

 

[Chronos]

Evolution on Earth has been very much hit and miss. What we do however observe, is it appears most surviving gene pools [at least in the Chordata phylum] are a lot more adaptive [brighter] than their ancestors. Adaptive behavior requires information processing capability. And it is difficult to process information without acquisition, storage and retrieval systems [e.g., senses and a brain]. The Earth's harsh ecological history, has pushed adaptive response capability [i.e., intelligence] to the top of the gene pool. Perhaps evolution would slow to a snails pace in a stable environment, but not in tough neighborhoods like this one.

 

[Chronos]

I think that a problem many people have in conceiving of life on other worlds is failure to consider the myriad forms it could take. Carbon isn't necessary for biological structures, its just the path life on Earth takes. Any reasonably stable element whose outer shell is only half filled can bond with itself to construct biological structures. Given this, the underlying problems within the Drake equation become more obvious.

1) The equation assumes life can only form on a certain kind of planet with a certain kind of star. If Carbon is not a required part of biology, life could arise on any planet, or even without any planet at all (asteroid belt, deep space, inside stars, etc.)
2) The equation assumes intelligenent civilizations must possesses radio. I don't even need to talk about the flaw in this one.
3) The final part of the equation talks about civilizations that are within radio range of Earth. If we are discussing the total number of intelligent species in the galaxy, this has no relevance. Bearing this in mind, please stop using the Drake equation as justification for a low-species argument.

Getting past all that, it is my belief that intelligence gives species a distinct advantage under certain conditions. In a stagnant environment, such as that found in a race existing in deep space, intelligence might well be harmful. However, anywhere there is competition or a rapidly changing environment, intelligence will be a help to a certain point. Once that limit has been reached, new strains will be necessary to enhance intelligence. For although people don't like to admit it, we are evolving. The human race has grown substantially larger since our ancestors only 4,000 years ago. Without a force to make us change, however, we will degenerate, losing mental as well as physical faculties as the need for them disappears. This is why an Eden is undesirable. Stagnation causes entropy, pure and simple.

You beat me to some of the major points [I compose slowly]. A couple of fine points. Carbon is surely the predominant elemental basis for life. It's versatility in forming complex molecules is unsurpassed. Also, the basic materials and metabolic cycles energetic enough are more robustly available. Non carbon based life forms are possible, but improbable.

Stable environments would slow, but not halt evolution - as you noted. Sexual reproduction adds a lot of evolutionary pressure. Finding mates that are fertile, keep you fed, and adorned in furs and jewels, is a not a trivial matter .

 

[ramollari]

I think the examples given by turbo-1 show approximations of intelligence (human-like behavior) in animals. But are they intelligent, because the point is: what is intelligence in the first place? It depends very much on interpretation whether we take humans as model, or some more objective definition? There is no agreed answer to this, so the answer whether it will be possible to find intelligent forms in other planets is really, really controversial.
If we take a human-oriented view, which is taken more for granted, animals are hardly intelligent. We call them 'intelligent' when they act like us! But they lack natural language processing capabilities, complex high-level social interactions, reasoning, planning, and other required essential elements of intelligence. But other animal species will eventually have to acquire such capabilities with evolution in order to survive. It's a matter of time.
We can take another view of intelligence, though. It is based on complexity (usually of brain) and maybe, ability for logical reasoning (such as computers). Vertebrates are gradually evolving more and more complex brains, which will necessarily mean higher and higher level of intelligence. It could also differ from human intelligence.

If Carbon is not a required part of biology, life could arise on any planet, or even without any planet at all (asteroid belt, deep space, inside stars, etc.)

I tend to agree with Chronos that carbon is a required element in order that complex life forms can appear. There is no other element that forms as complex (organic) compounds as carbon does.
But carbon as an element could exist on other planets as well.

Evolution on Earth has been very much hit and miss. What we do however observe, is it appears most surviving gene pools [at least in the Chordata phylum] are a lot more adaptive [brighter] than their ancestors. Adaptive behavior requires information processing capability.

I agree! Evolution will favor the 'intelligent' part of the gene pool.

And it is difficult to process information without acquisition, storage and retrieval systems [e.g., senses and a brain]. The Earth's harsh ecological history, has pushed adaptive response capability [i.e., intelligence] to the top of the gene pool. Perhaps evolution would slow to a snails pace in a stable environment, but not in tough neighborhoods like this one.

So the harsh conditions is actually the presence of many species, or too much competition within a species. That is a natural outcome of life evolution.

 

[ramollari]

If human-style intelligence is evolutionarily favored, why didn't the therodonts or some other bipedal form develop it? Why don't we have ruins of eosimian cities? .

Because the genetic process that is ongoing is 'not good at it'. Evolution is not the perfect process to bring the most adaptable life form. Because evolution is based on randomness, or 'brute force', it will be hard to achieve utmost complexity and intelligence. It only needs time. Just before a few millions years ago the Earth wasn't populated by any 'intelligent' species, but now it 'suddenly' came up with the human solution.

 

[Janus]

I am just saying that I don't think intelligence is as rare as people make it out to be, natural selection favours intelligence...instead of "the strong survive" how about "the smart survive".

The problem with this is that intelligence has yet to show a long term track record as a trait for survival.

 

[ramollari]

The problem with this is that intelligence has yet to show a long term track record as a trait for survival.

A. Isn't human history long-term enough to prove the survival advantage of the human species?

B. Can't we deduce the survival advantage of the human species?

 

[DaveC426913]

The problem with this is that intelligence has yet to show a long term track record as a trait for survival.

Amen Janus. Intelligence is only one very recent experiment that nature is trying, and there's certainly no indication it's successful yet.

Isn't human history long-term enough to prove the survival advantage of the human species?

No way! Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for hundreds of millions of years. Hundreds of millions. Many kinds of bacteria have been on Earth, essentially changed for billions of years.

Imagine if we found a whole branch of creatures that we could (implausibly) find the first development of it, and the last signs of it befiore it died out, and that its whole history was only a few hundred thousand years.

That's a blip. That would be considered an extremely unsuccessful experiment.

 

[saltydog]

What do you mean you can't comprehend a 100 billion star galaxy? It really doesn't matter because that's a fact.

Well Gold, just for the record, I mean conceiving of an expanse of a galaxy. I mean, yea they look nice from far away but really, that doesn't do justice to it I think. I mean, 100 billion suns, planets, geology of them all, various life forms they might contain, dynamics of stellar evolution, star birth, destruction, on an on inside of a galaxy and in a space likewise incomprehensible (100,000 or so light years). When I think of it, the distance of even one measly light year is pretty hard to comprehend. And to think a galaxy is so gigantic that they look small to us. Must be really, really far away, but then that distance, what 2 million to Andromeda, is also hard to comprehend.

 

[selfAdjoint]

BTW, you have about 100 Billion neurons in your brain. Contemplate that!

 

[Gold Barz]

The problem with this is that intelligence has yet to show a long term track record as a trait for survival.

I don't know about that but one thing I am sure about intelligence is that it was a greater potential or a "higher roof", when we get to the level where we can "dodge" mass extinction events thanks to intelligence, we will be unstoppable...i am guessing a lot of super advanced alien civilizations has reached this level and probably some that have went beyond it, we are far from this level but if we reach it...we will make an impact in the universe

And I also agree that it would probably also depend on the environment, in more complex environment...intelligence would probably emerge, in "boring" environments...intelligence is not needed so intelligence does not show

 

[Chronos]

There are different ways to view evolutionary success. The cockroach would certainly be a contender in terms of longevity. But no other species has ever dominated this planet as have humans. We are not at the mercy of the environment [for the most part]. We bend the very forces of nature to serve our needs, not acquiesce or perish. Humans do, have or can survive almost anywhere on - or off - this planet. We could potentially even flee this planet, if push came to shove. And we have already started taking over the controls and directing our own biological destiny. It is even conceivable we could move beyond the strictly biological into a hybrid artificial, or even completely artificial life form. Our eventual descendents might enjoy life spans of cosmological proportions. All things considered, do we not deserve at least a nomination for best species in the evolutionary oscars?

 

[turbo]

There are different ways to view evolutionary success. The cockroach would certainly be a contender in terms of longevity. But no other species has ever dominated this planet as have humans. We are not at the mercy of the environment [for the most part]. We bend the very forces of nature to serve our needs, not acquiesce or perish. Humans do, have or can survive almost anywhere on - or off - this planet. We could potentially even flee this planet, if push came to shove. And we have already started taking over the controls and directing our own biological destiny. It is even conceivable we could move beyond the strictly biological into a hybrid artificial, or even completely artificial life form. Our eventual descendents might enjoy life spans of cosmological proportions. All things considered, do we not deserve at least a nomination for best species in the evolutionary oscars?

Absolutely right. We humans have shown a remarkable ability to manipulate our environment. Unfortunately, we have not demonstrated a commensurate ability to recognize and rein in the very destructive things that we sometimes do. Our domination over this planet is unquestionable. We have the absolute power to ruin it - my concern is that we may not have the collective intelligence and ethical motivation to AVOID ruining it.

Please look up the Union of Concerned Scientists and consider giving them your support. It might be very important. (Understatement Police are hauling me off, so I cannot continue.)

 

[Mean-Hippy]

I must agree as well. As I said, the early evolutionary advantages of intelligence are arguable but at the level we have now achieved, where we may realistically contemplate eternity . . . unquestionable.

Someone was talking about radio signals earlier... I am quite confident that they represent at least a necessary step in the development of any technological civilization. The possible variation of biological forms is just about infinite but the technology of these civilization would, I think in many areas, be very similar to ours. After all they all use the same physics and would generally obey the rules of greater simplicity of design. I'll go as far as saying that, in an alien civilization where communication is based on sound, a radio posts look and functional design would be strikingly similar to the same objects here. What do you think ?

Also about radio waves... I am not worried about the fact that we haven't detected any yet from other world. We ourselves have only been emitting radio signals for a hundred years... so nobody farther away than a hundred light years could have detected us. Imagine a civilization orbiting a star
"101 mly" away and, like us, desperately listening to the immensity of space for a signal. Only next year will they be rewarded by a few uncertain blips... but 25 once (ok...if) a signal is detected at SETI, it will just keep pouring in and pouring in. Its not so much a matter of "Is there anybody out there" but more about how far they are . . .


Concerning the original question I tend to think that but 1 in many millions of living worlds will actually have intelligence. Most of them ( 90 % ? ) will have nothing else than viral/bacterial level life. They are simple and fiercely efficient at replicating DNA so why bother with anything else. I must say though that I believe that such world will not prove to be so rare. If you look at Earth, life got a hold very early and in conditions that were less than ideal to life as we know it today. When you get down to it, "life" is just independent self replication. By definition, once self-replication has kicked in, it will stay. Plus when you think about it, the basics process that created these first self-replicating molecules are not all that complicated so on a chemically active world, given time, the odds are fairly good. If the recent hopes of finding life underneath the surface of Mars prove to be fruitful, I say that would be a very good sign.