| Author |
|
Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17729
|
| Posted: 13 May 2025 at 2:14am | IP Logged | 1
|
post reply
|
|
John Byrne wrote:
| There’s no incentive to prove animal intelligence. No Nobel prize waiting for anyone who does. |
|
|
I’ve often wondered how humankind would react if we learned that vegetation was sentient.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11359
|
| Posted: 13 May 2025 at 6:37am | IP Logged | 2
|
post reply
|
|
Crow's dropping stones into glasses of water to raise the
water level to reach food shows intelligence. Even my dog
shows it. We had a striped doormat with stripes of various
shades of brown in our utilty room.He often "hid" stick
treats aligned with the matching shade of brown on the mat,
making it very hard to spot.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7558
|
| Posted: 13 May 2025 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | 3
|
post reply
|
|
I've never doubted that many animals display intelligence as we define it--the ability to solve problems and even use tools, crows being a fine example--but as noted, if we grant that animals have intelligence... that opens up a big Pandora's box.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134329
|
| Posted: 13 May 2025 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | 4
|
post reply
|
|
Think about how long it took white Europeans to accept black Africans as truly human.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12904
|
| Posted: 13 May 2025 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | 5
|
post reply
|
|
In an earlier post, I'd mentioned my niece visited. Relevant to accepting even other people, I can add that she's a lesbian married to a non-binary woman. In my lifetime America's gone from first legalizing "interracial" marriage to, well, quite a bit more. More to do, but still, feels good.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134329
|
| Posted: 14 May 2025 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | 6
|
post reply
|
|
I’ve mentioned before how I see it as a victory every time there’s a mixed race or same sex couple in a TV commercial. That’s the kind of almost subliminal programming that knocks down walls.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
ron bailey
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 October 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 1226
|
| Posted: 16 May 2025 at 2:38am | IP Logged | 7
|
post reply
|
|
It's starting to feel a little icky congratulating ourselves for what other cultures (granted, not all) either never had a problem with or didn't contest as vigorously as we have here.And to be fair, or maybe just accurate to past Europeans, they felt that way about lots of people around the world, not just black Africans. And mostly it was just a convenient way to get favored access to stuff they wanted where those people were in the way.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12904
|
| Posted: 16 May 2025 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | 8
|
post reply
|
|
Who are we to say that "we're intelligent?"
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Evan S. Kurtz
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 July 2022
Location: Canada
Posts: 83
|
| Posted: 17 May 2025 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | 9
|
post reply
|
|
I think it's certainly a blindspot in our species that we assume advanced alien life is like us.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134329
|
| Posted: 17 May 2025 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | 10
|
post reply
|
|
Given the billions of years of evolutionary tweaks that created life as we now know it on Earth, the likelihood that extraterrestrial life would resemble us beyond the most basic building blocks is (ahem) astronomically remote. Consider all the forms life has taken here (trees, grass, gorillas, bees, octopuses, us) all starting from a single common ancestor, and imagine how unlikely it is that all those steps would be repeated elsewhere. And remember, it is an all or nothing scenario. Change even one moment, and life as we know it isn’t here.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Evan S. Kurtz
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 July 2022
Location: Canada
Posts: 83
|
| Posted: 17 May 2025 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | 11
|
post reply
|
|
I feel it's reasonable to conclude that life advances however it can in any place where an effort is sustainable. The cool thing about billions of years of evolution is that different conditions just make for different answers, rather than no answers. Anything that is possible is possible given enough time.
But as a teacher, I do enjoy pointing out to my students that the conditions that made us possible are so remotely unlikely that it makes our existence even more special. We're not here without a moon, which itself appears to be an unusual companion for a planet Earth's size and distance from the sun. We have a larger-than-expected inner core, which itself is responsible for the magnetic field surrounding our planet that protects us from the most harmful solar/cosmic radiation. The recipe for the evolution of life is complex. In a universe that is effectively infinite in scope, it's reasonable to me to conclude that we're not alone.
Edited to add two words
Edited by Evan S. Kurtz on 17 May 2025 at 5:03pm
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |