• olutukko@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Well define intelligence. Animals show signs of feelings, even trees have been studied to warn other trees about dangers, and tomatoes yell when you cut them.

    There’s a lot more intelligence than just being able to be human. And we still don’t know if there are even hundreds of species that are more intelligent than us.

    And also the same principles of living work for every species even if we think they are dumb, and they keep getting born so why would it be limited to only something we see as even almost equal?

    This is just my own theory for the fact that somehow we started controlling this body in the first place, so likely it will happen again. I’m not believing in some major religion theories about good and bad and how you get better afterlife you be good

    • pancakes
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      9 months ago

      This argument reminds me of the distinction between wisdom and intelligence. Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting a tomato in a fruit salad.

      The same logic applies here. Sure, a tree can be seen as intelligent in some aspects but I’m sure if you asked 100 people to list the most intelligent organisms in the forest, few would say “the trees”. I personally would define intelligent beings as those that fit in the top end of an intelligence standard distribution curve.

        • pancakes
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          9 months ago

          Until a better method is discovered, it would probably be best to measure by # of neurons in the organism’s cerebral cortex.

          • 0ops@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t that put blue whales at the top? Don’t get me wrong they’re pretty smart