Non-Human Intellegent Life on Earth?

[DanielXY]

Hm, for example in the first or second episode of Planet Earth they showed group hunting techniques of some african wild dogs...
Dunno but I guess most hunting or war tactics in human history werent that much more complicated...

Whats the definition of intellegence anyways? Do those dogs qualify for being as least as intellegent as the average human ******?

[Impaler[WrG]]

ummm... Elephants and Whales anyone??

Haven't there been studies showing morons are quickly outbreeding intelligent people?

I suspect that statistic comes from comparing average people to those of higher then average IQ. Just like every species thats reached equilibrium those individuals at the middle of the bell curve have the most reproductive success and those that are more then a standard deviation away are less successful. Its interesting to note that most individuals above or below 3 standard deviations in IQ are institutionalized and cant function well outside those special environments. The below 3 institution is called a mental hospital and the above 3 institution a University.

[Blake]

Originally posted by DanielXY
Hm, for example in the first or second episode of Planet Earth they showed group hunting techniques of some african wild dogs...
Dunno but I guess most hunting or war tactics in human history werent that much more complicated...

Whats the definition of intellegence anyways? Do those dogs qualify for being as least as intellegent as the average human ******?

Generally creativity, philosophy and rationality. To an extent, if the behavior of something can be reduced to an algorithm, it is not intelligent.

At a meta level, the more predictable something is, the less intelligent it is (by meta I mean, if you can predict it's going to make a decision based on a random number, it's still predictable).

Intelligence is the elusive and undefinable.

Most species obviously have trouble expressing creativity. For example if the dog has a brilliant idea of digging a pit and lining it with spikes and covering it with branches to trap a deer - well - it can't build the pit trap, and it has far more straightforward ways to kill a deer anyway. The limited scope that most beasts have to exercise creativity would tend to naturally limited the creativity they can muster.

Whales are interesting for their expressive songs. Like... if it could be proven that whale poetry, or whale philosophy exists, then Whales would have to be pretty intelligent. But why would a whale need to be intelligent? They swim around and eat stuff. Boredom maybe. I dunno.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Haven't there been studies showing morons are quickly outbreeding intelligent people?

How dare you say that about Indians?!

[Emetri]

"When in deep evolutionary doo-doo, Gungans hide out in da Sacred Place. Pleasa allow me to show you where it is."

Hmm.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Blake
Generally creativity, philosophy and rationality. To an extent, if the behavior of something can be reduced to an algorithm, it is not intelligent.

the Church-Turing thesis makes this an iffy definition

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by DaShi


How dare you say that about Indians?!

Yeah. We breed pretty fast, too

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Octopodi too.

Astonishingly intelligent for an invertebrate. I don't think any other invertebrate comes even remotely close. They are nonetheless not much brighter than a dog if even that clever.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Blake

Whales are interesting for their expressive songs. Like... if it could be proven that whale poetry, or whale philosophy exists, then Whales would have to be pretty intelligent. But why would a whale need to be intelligent? They swim around and eat stuff. Boredom maybe. I dunno.

perhaps intelligence could be a kind of sexual display trait in whales? Whales would find intelligent whales more attractive sexually?

In any case huge animals like whales probably don't have to pay near as high a relative cost for intelligence as smaller creatures. Less evolutionary pressure may be necessary for intelligence to evolve in such enormous critters.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Astonishingly intelligent for an invertebrate. I don't think any other invertebrate comes even remotely close. They are nonetheless not much brighter than a dog if even that clever.

I'm not sure that's true.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


I'm not sure that's true.

It's certainly true that they get perceived as such.

This book by Cousteau even tried to make the case that they are somewhat more intelligent than a dog.

Hardly the last word but cephalopod intelligence is a bit more controversial than most animals.

[Kuciwalker]

I meant that I think they may be much smarter than dogs.

[Krill]

Why is cephalod pod inteligence more controversial than any intelligence shown by any other type of animal?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Krill
Why is cephalod pod inteligence more controversial than any intelligence shown by any other type of animal?

Probably the similar to the reason that language ability in non human animals used to be so controversial.

Invertebrate intelligence seems to have many interested skeptics.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I meant that I think they may be much smarter than dogs.

I suppose it's possible but we don't have much to support that at this time. Did you have some specific information demonstrating probably much greater intelligence in mind?