Simon Conway Morris on animal intelligence (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 15, 2017, 18:54 (2658 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTE: “Were the mental abilities of the cavewoman or caveman really as advanced as today’s humans? How much ability for abstraction and appreciation of complex numbers did they have?”

dhw: At some point, humans developed an enhanced degree of consciousness (the jump). We can only speculate on what might have triggered it, but once the first questions had been asked, the process would have become unstoppable: a continuous evolution of questions and answers, discoveries and applications of discoveries, extending to all areas of life.

No question once a useful consciousness, in comparison to being basically conscious. developed, the brain's plasticity allowed a vast platform of experience to develop, concepts to appear with reasoning.

QUOTE: " Are we really so special? If so, what it is it, exactly, that makes us special?”

dhw: What makes us so special is an enhanced awareness which other organisms do not have. In my view, all our differences spring from that one source.

It is not just awareness, but the ability to think about observations and use reason to develop solutions to life's problems.

QUOTE: "This lies at the core of the Fermi Paradox (or better called the Great Silence)—the puzzle of why we haven’t seen any spacefaring aliens. How often is the intelligence gap bridged on other planets?

dhw: Pure and pointless speculation. There is no puzzle – simply a collection of open questions. Is there life on other planets? If so, might it have evolved or remained at, say, bacterial level? If it has evolved, into what forms might it have evolved? The current answer to all three questions is that we do not know. Anything is possible, including nothing.

I view it as a time problem and a distance problem. The nearest star is just 4 light years away but most stars are so much further away. When did they start signaling, if at all? We started radio broadcasts about 100 years ago. Time enough for aliens to pick up our signals? Only with close stars.

David’s comment: The brain became bigger and more complex. That is true. How about recognizing that God did it on this planet and nowhere else?

dhw: I don’t know if the complexification of the brain triggered the enhanced awareness or resulted from it.

Whether God exists or not, there is no reason why ours should be the only planet with life, but until we find another one, we can only speculate.

Not a chicken and egg problem. To me we are given a big brain and learn to use it. In our ancestor fossils, brains jump from one size to another with no itty-bitty steps.