Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:37 am
Greta wrote: ↑Tue Nov 27, 2018 10:04 amIf humans go extinct and rats or mole rats survive, then they are already highly intelligent creatures, immensely more so than the shrewlike mammal that started the mammal line, and it only took 60m years to go from them to modernity.
That depends on whether any adaptation adjustments are required for their future survival. If not then there's no point in becoming more intelligent than they already are. It would be a waste and could even be inimical to the species.
Greta wrote: ↑Tue Nov 27, 2018 10:04 amIntelligence is expensive energetically but powerful if the resources are available.
Yes, intelligence is a major expense to the organism and the reason why it won't happen if a species is already adapted to and comfortable with the resources at hand. In such cases the demands of intelligence on the organism would be both superfluous and possibly toxic.
If conditions become more harsh and remain that way until the Sun heats beyond tolerances then intelligence probably won't re-emerge. Other traits will be more helpful. However, I think it more likely that climate will stabilise again. Note that when dominant social species lack much competition from other species, they will still compete internally and evolve new characteristics.
Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:37 amAll of the evidence suggests a direction - from 3b years ago to now. Ignore that evidence and all manner of theorising is possible but that is by far the most important evidence available - all else is window dressing by comparison.
The evidence for that cannot be ignored because the fossil record states it. What remains highly questionable is your assertion
...it is almost certain that another intelligent species would take our place if we died out, not just possible.
that being precisely the least certain of all.
"Almost certain" was over enthusiastic, yes. "Likely" is about right IMO. I wish you'd honed in on that in the first place and we could have cleared it up in no time.
Once innovations occur in nature they repeat due to interactions and environmental shaping. Trilobites were the first animals with good vision and they dominated the Earth. When they became extinct other organisms' vision developed further, stemming from ancestors that had eaten, competed with or fled from trilobites. Dinosaurs were dominant due to size, strength, weaponry and strong defences. Humans have taken that a step further with technology and they have abstract intelligence and expanded temporal awareness and memory.
Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:37 amThe only way to settle this difference ultimately is to wait many millions of years to see if the trend of the last 3b years will finally be bucked and there will just be an endless cycle of dumb animals. as you think most likely.
Ignorant, demeaning comments like this makes me see RED all over. Reading some your responses makes me think I may have done Nick an injustice. The way you word it implies a semi-religious view that intelligence is the Omega point of nature otherwise there will just be an endless cycle of dumb animals and what’s the point of that!
Why would anyone think that creatures well-adapted to their environment, still existing, often preceding humans on the planet, but without the ability to do calculus are dumb animals? You have almost no understanding of what “intelligence” denotes in the history of evolution, when it’s required, when not or even becomes dangerous to the species!
Let’s see how long we last compared to them. After all being “dumb animals” they don’t possess the distinction of being stupid enough to screw up the planet while knowing that they’re doing it.
A splendid tantrum, spiced with a couple of tasty ad homs and topped with supersized strawpersons, misrepresentations and misconceptions. I liked the way you added a swipe at Nick in there, but making it seem like a pat on the head.
I said we'd have to wait to be sure. Do you deny that is true?
Do you deny that you posited it unlikely that intelligence will re-emerge?
If not intelligent, how is "dumb" inappropriate as a shorthand? What term would you prefer - "abstractly intelligently challenged"? Are you really playing politically correct at me about "dumb animals" when I am perhaps their biggest defender on this forum?
Is the weight of my hundreds of pro environment and pro animal quotes (just this year) entirely negated by a single shorthand comment? is that really the depth at which you want to operate here?
Whatever, aside from what looks like a meltdown (that is hopefully a glitch), I seriously doubt that intelligence in nature will peak with humans, nor that our kind of intelligence is the ultimate form of intelligence to emerge. I think there's a good chance it will be supplanted, bettered. It's probably a phase like everything else that's happened so far.
Dubious wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:37 amGreta wrote: ↑Tue Nov 27, 2018 10:04 amWhile I see massive culling of numbers ahead, I don't think it likely that humans will become extinct any time soon anyway.
Heat being much more difficult to defeat than cold massive population declines are almost inevitable and perhaps sooner than expected by geopolitical upheavals in its wake...meaning a vast exodus of peoples from their heat incinerated lands toward areas which are, at least temporarily, more habitable. That could cause an Armageddon before the real one arrives.
Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head, intelligence having had such a short career!
The shape of things suggests that climate change and resource depletion will hugely reduce the human population in this and the next century. I suspect that the predictions of 11 billion by the turn of the century are a dream/nightmare. Logically, transitional times will be strange and troublesome for existing inhabitants.