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it's not so much dependent on the individual as it is on the environment. in this sense the two things behave like an organism. i think the reason our brains got bigger is because our environment challenged us to get smarter. furthermore, some ppl think the emergence of high levels of intelligence in things like whales and elephants, creatures that might exhibit culture, or teaching and delayed gratification, is bad because you have multiple example's of intelligence but not technology.
climate change seems like one of the main engines driving evolution. with so many different species of homo, why did only one survive, the most intelligent one? because the weather got bad. it got to the point where it didn't matter how strong or resilient our species was. what mattered were other factors, like communication and other things. and even then we almost didn't make it. there's very little diversity in our genes. they say 70,000 ago our population was reduced to as few as 10,000 individuals and is referred to as the great bottleneck.
so a few million years ago someone is born with a few more mental tools than others such as Turkana boy. his brain was a little bigger, and it's structure a little different. the females would find him more attractive to mate with because he gives them a better chance for survival. but if the weather, or environment, or the universe didn't pressure us, we may have been just as content to get by on brawn instead of brains... so what happened to the whales and dolphins and elephants? how come they didn't invent a microwave oven, or build a 747? .. maybe they tried, and it wasn't important to their survival and evolution.
the universe made us, we are the universe. it's not conscious, but we are. we interact with it. the universe interacts with itself. like an organism it's self-contained. some of the things i find remarkable about nature, how multicellular life on earth is made of the same size cells. as a result, metabolism squares up the same for us. or how genetic mutations occur with the same frequency in everything. or how the laws of physics is symmetrical no matter what direction you look. it's almost like a trick. everything seems so big and different yet originates from only one thing.
you could say the universe can exist without us but we can't survive without it. that doesn't seem like an organism or symbiotic relationship. and if the emergence of technological intelligence depends on the evolutionary pressures put on us, what if the universe depends on technological intelligence? although i think Hawking covered that in his last book. but what if the creation of new universes depend on a technologically advanced civilization to do it? unless there is a big bounce or some other natural type of recycling, our universe probably isn't going to last forever.
and it occurred to me one day that if there is wind, then it is inevitable that life will fly. if there is water life will swim. if there are wavelengths of light, life will see. if there is an atmosphere and sound, life will hear it. but most importantly if there is matter and electromagnetism life will touch it. and since tool making requires touch, it is the most important of our senses and for intelligence. as an example, you can say once upon a time we used the moon as a tool. but we didn't look up and say, i need a bigger brain to figure out what it is, and then one day im going to fly in a spaceship and land on it. instead we used it to predict high and low tides to make it easier to pick up shellfish to eat.
i mentioned Troodon before, 60 something million years old as a possible candidate for intelligent life. and ppl would probably say, good luck with that, that thing doesn't look like it has a chance to evolve technology. i also think that intelligent life would have to be warm blooded. it would need to be high energy. yet that is exactly what Theropods did. they evolved into homeotherms. but Troodon doesn't look all that much different from Ida. a 47 million year old fossil. she's not the missing link. but she's a pretty lady. and she has fingertips!
i sometimes i wonder how other animals see us. do they know that we were apes? do they still think that we are. i think an ape or a primate looks so freakishly different from everything else. when everything else is running around on four legs, it just doesn't look like it belongs in the jungle. or for example, if you were a whale during WWII, say specifically during the battle of Britain. and you saw all those convoy of ships sank, what would it think?
probably someday the human race will possess doomsday weapons. Physicists Just Discovered Such an Explosive Type of Fusion They Almost Hid The Results
climate change seems like one of the main engines driving evolution. with so many different species of homo, why did only one survive, the most intelligent one? because the weather got bad. it got to the point where it didn't matter how strong or resilient our species was. what mattered were other factors, like communication and other things. and even then we almost didn't make it. there's very little diversity in our genes. they say 70,000 ago our population was reduced to as few as 10,000 individuals and is referred to as the great bottleneck.
so a few million years ago someone is born with a few more mental tools than others such as Turkana boy. his brain was a little bigger, and it's structure a little different. the females would find him more attractive to mate with because he gives them a better chance for survival. but if the weather, or environment, or the universe didn't pressure us, we may have been just as content to get by on brawn instead of brains... so what happened to the whales and dolphins and elephants? how come they didn't invent a microwave oven, or build a 747? .. maybe they tried, and it wasn't important to their survival and evolution.
the universe made us, we are the universe. it's not conscious, but we are. we interact with it. the universe interacts with itself. like an organism it's self-contained. some of the things i find remarkable about nature, how multicellular life on earth is made of the same size cells. as a result, metabolism squares up the same for us. or how genetic mutations occur with the same frequency in everything. or how the laws of physics is symmetrical no matter what direction you look. it's almost like a trick. everything seems so big and different yet originates from only one thing.
you could say the universe can exist without us but we can't survive without it. that doesn't seem like an organism or symbiotic relationship. and if the emergence of technological intelligence depends on the evolutionary pressures put on us, what if the universe depends on technological intelligence? although i think Hawking covered that in his last book. but what if the creation of new universes depend on a technologically advanced civilization to do it? unless there is a big bounce or some other natural type of recycling, our universe probably isn't going to last forever.
and it occurred to me one day that if there is wind, then it is inevitable that life will fly. if there is water life will swim. if there are wavelengths of light, life will see. if there is an atmosphere and sound, life will hear it. but most importantly if there is matter and electromagnetism life will touch it. and since tool making requires touch, it is the most important of our senses and for intelligence. as an example, you can say once upon a time we used the moon as a tool. but we didn't look up and say, i need a bigger brain to figure out what it is, and then one day im going to fly in a spaceship and land on it. instead we used it to predict high and low tides to make it easier to pick up shellfish to eat.
i mentioned Troodon before, 60 something million years old as a possible candidate for intelligent life. and ppl would probably say, good luck with that, that thing doesn't look like it has a chance to evolve technology. i also think that intelligent life would have to be warm blooded. it would need to be high energy. yet that is exactly what Theropods did. they evolved into homeotherms. but Troodon doesn't look all that much different from Ida. a 47 million year old fossil. she's not the missing link. but she's a pretty lady. and she has fingertips!
i sometimes i wonder how other animals see us. do they know that we were apes? do they still think that we are. i think an ape or a primate looks so freakishly different from everything else. when everything else is running around on four legs, it just doesn't look like it belongs in the jungle. or for example, if you were a whale during WWII, say specifically during the battle of Britain. and you saw all those convoy of ships sank, what would it think?
probably someday the human race will possess doomsday weapons. Physicists Just Discovered Such an Explosive Type of Fusion They Almost Hid The Results
The discovery of this highly energetic form of fusion between quarks comes with limits that make it an unlikely candidate for any kind of fuel source of the future. But it also means we won't see it become the next generation of nuclear weapon.
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