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The duties of evolution
Shinto
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Scientists observe chimps making weapons to kill prey
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/57438.html
This got me thinking.
The evolution of other sentient species on this planet is fairly inevitable on a long enough time line. Do we owe members of species that seem to be on the road to intelligence special protection? Are they morally more valuable than other animals? What is our duty, if any, to these species of animals?
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/57438.html
Chimpanzees living in the West African savanna have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the hand-crafted tools to hunt small mammals -- the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans.
The multistep spear-making practice, documented by researchers in Senegal who spent years gaining the chimpanzees' trust, adds credence to the idea that human forebears fashioned similar tools millions of years ago.
The landmark observation also supports the long-debated proposition that females -- the main makers and users of spears among the Senegalese chimps -- tend to be the innovators and creative problem solvers in primate culture.
Using their hands and teeth, the chimpanzees were repeatedly seen tearing the side branches off long straight sticks, peeling back the bark and sharpening one end, the researchers report in Thursday's online issue of the journal Current Biology. Then, grasping the weapon in a "power grip," they jabbed into tree-branch hollows where bush babies -- small monkeylike mammals -- sleep during the day.
This got me thinking.
The evolution of other sentient species on this planet is fairly inevitable on a long enough time line. Do we owe members of species that seem to be on the road to intelligence special protection? Are they morally more valuable than other animals? What is our duty, if any, to these species of animals?
Shinto on
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I'd expect that from you
you've got critters with SIX thumbs runnin' loose in your AO.
that aside my glaring optimism hopes that mankind has managed to reach the point where another truely sentient species would be allowed to develope unmolested. I recall a documentary I saw years ago where certain monkeys on Japanese island were being "taught" by researchers to hang out in the water under the assmption that mankind may have become bipedal as a result of similar circumstances.
I don't really see higher intellegance as a necessary end product (if there is such a thing) of evolution excepting where it is the key advantage in a given environment.
I apologize for any spelling errors and my not responding after this post as I am very drunk and am going to pass out now thank you.
It's more difficult with othr eveolutionary tracts that are less obviously following the same path as humans. Talking about the "road to intelligence" as opposed to obvious demonstrations of intelligent behaviour is too vague to be meaningful though.
Yeah, I have.
I actually meant to end the OP with Brin Brin LOL, but I got distracted.
I love David Brin.
Then we can live among the stars and only come back to occasionally anally probe them.
Wait.
Steam ID: Good Life
I think it is when members of the two groups can't produce offspring that can in turn produce offspring.
EDIT: but I thought we were already lending a greater deal of importance to more advanced, endangered species. One of the main arguments for protecting the whales and dolphins was often that they were actually quite intelligent. There aren't any legal applications of the idea that a species which is endangered and able to kill each other with spears merits greater protection, but I think it's in people's minds and governs how we respond.
Hell, there are groups out there who want the hunting of African apes and gorillas labeled a genocide. But those people are probably crazies.
See, I never got this. Why is it unnatural when humans have a hand in something? We're part of nature. Is it unnatural for ants to farm fungus and herd aphids? Should we not have domesticated the wolf?
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
aka The Prime Directive
We don't owe them special protection, per se, but I would suggest that the more we can identify an intelligence as being similar to our own, such that they can both feel and comprehend joy and sorrow, as well as understand how these are related to pain and loss, the more ethical consideration we should extend them.
In that respect, I would argue that they are indeed more valuable than other animals, insofar as their value becomes similar to humans.
Duty-wise, I am not certain.
We've already had a pretty good range of answers, but I think something worth mentioning is the sheer rarity of intelligence. No matter what type of universe we live in, and what distribution of life there might be in it, intelligence has to be one of, if not THE, rarest phenomina in existence, and for that reason alone we should work to nurture and protect it where ever it might exist. The time and biological effort required for intelligence to arise, and the uncertainty in its eventuality, should make us want to foster it even beyond the moral and ethical issues the idea of ignoring or snuffing it out raises.
I think you are making claims that are out of our realm of knowing, we still have a very vague idea how many earthlike planets, where life (simular to that of ours) is sustainable, intellligent life is most likely not COMMON by our means, but it needs not at all be as rare as you say. I would say we still know to little to say that with any certainty.
And yeah, Kudos to Shinto, good topics indeed...
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
We are supposed to fuck a lot and kill them.
I'm all for protecting wildlife, and not killing them needlessly, but offering special protection to a particular branch, just so that some day the can take our jobs, isn't really a great idea.
also by interfering with them in nature, we would be stunting their natural evolutionary process. We would be decreasing the pressure applied by natural selection, if we were to help them. Not actively, directly or indirectly, killing them, that's probably good. Steping in and protecting them from their environment, even if it is changing, I'd kinda have a slight problem with.
Like... that thingy' from star trek. Unless I can have my own monkey butler, than all bets are off.
While we definitely don't know anything concrete, just given what we know about biology and evolution, intelligence requires a high order of development, and is of dubious use in terms of survival. Regardless of how rare planets that can support life are, it will still be only a fraction (of some unknown size) of those that supports more than single celled life, and again a fraction of those that supports complex life, a fraction of which will evolve intelligence.
Regardless of what any of the actual values are along the way, it seems safe to assume that intelligence will be at the very least relatively rare.
In the history of the world, in the 500 million or so years of multicellular life, there has only arisen one species with the capability of self-reflection. The odds of our type of intelligence arising are so staggeringly rare as to be a non-issue. We won't have to deal with it happening again in the forseeable future.
Evolution does not have "paths". We arrived at our big-brained selves through a fluke process of certain changing environments combined with our fortunate mutations. The fact that chimpanzees fashion limited tools only indicates that they are very close to us, evolutionarily. It doesn't mean they're starting down any path. It's a violent misunderstanding of natural selection to say that other animals are heading down our road. There are no roads to head down. Evolution occurs through adaptation to environment and pressures.
Alright, you got me. Let's go with "language and self-reflection." There. That sounds nicer.
The point is, we define intelligence, not surprisingly, as those traits that we have that other species don't. You're free to define intelligence another way, but you could have every single species on earth posessing staggering intelligence if you redefine it.
language doesn't always need to be learned, so that is a pretty shitty measuring stick.
Introspection isn't testable, and though we would expect certain artifacts to occur when the two both existing, and that we would be able to test for those, their is really no way to know for a fact that such things would be created.
Worms can learn. They're not intelligent. Obvoiusly, the definition cannot be that simple. You can argue that they have a type of intelligence, but they don't even have a central nervous system, so how does that help us?
It tells two things.
1 intelligence does not require a central nervous system, and
2 that there is more to intelligence than just a binary state. That it is something theoretically measurable. We may have more of it than other critters, but we are, to the best of our knowlage, the only critters that have it to such a high degree. It tells us that the existence of intelligence does not imply sapience.
Intelligence, sapience, whatever you want to call it; God, why did we just run in circles like that?
Here, how does this work? "The thing or degree of smartness that we have more of than any other species on this planet is so staggeringly rare that it is a nonissue to consider it arising again in the foreseeable future."
Are you always this pedantic?
Call it whatever you want. Can we move on?
you can if you want, but you still have not addressed the testability issue of your original rather glib and meaningless statement. You're standard for intelligence is faulty, as it can not be tested. Because of that, you initial assertion that we are the only specie with that level of intelligence is unfounded.
As to your other statement, about evolution lacking paths... well it is not entirely true. If you look at how evolution has worked, and at different species, you will notice that the same solutions to problems arise indepently of each other. Think about it along the lines of physical motion of particles, while it is not necessarily posible to exactly predict the motion of one, it is by considering the motion of ones in the past to predict the probability of the motions of ones in the future.
By looking at the general lack of uniqueness, genetic similarity, and apparently shared common ancestry, the idea that they are capable of the same or similar genetic mutations is not so outlandish. When you look at the fact that their tool making skills helps them to gain an advantage over those who do not use tool, there would seems to be something pushing them in the same direction.
Because they are actually making tools, rather than using stuff that is laying around, it is posible that this would lead to increased evolutionary pressure for foresight now that it exists in at least a limited fashion.
Because chips are territorial and aggressive, development could take a pretty rapid turn, if the pointy stick are used for something more than just gathering food.
Hey, and that is a kinda neat idea right there. I take back my statement about not intervening and suggest that we capture some of these chimps, and teach them to kill other chimps using weapons, and release them into the wild. That should do wonders to kick their evolutionary process in the ass, and help get them up to speed in a hurry.
That's how I think of evolution as well. The thing is, if we all are going to continue to evolve to a single point, does it matter if another species that will do the same exists? Morally it's wrong to not protect them, but what if we need their space and resources to continue our own evolution? I think it really should be a matter of survival of the fittest.
While that works in theory, define "need". We don't really NEED to eat monkey brains, or burn the rain forest, or catch dolphins with our tuna. Those are all luxuries we take advantage of at the cost of endangering species that could prove infinitely valuable in the future.
It is pretty strange to talk about duties towards other species, or even just within our own species. From an utilitarian perspective, we should certainly try to protect the species that are capable of feeling joy and sorrow, and much of the protection that is awarded to humans today should probably be extended to the apes and cetaceans. There has been famous experiments that seem to prove that apes and dolphins are capable of self-awareness, where a dot is placed on the forehead and when put in front of a mirror, the test subject touches its own forehead, thereby showing self-awareness. I would say that this is enough to prove that apes are indeed high enough on the self-awareness scale to be treated as something more than just an animal. Anything else would be species-racism.
But to get back to the topic of this thread, even from a purily selfish perspective, I think we should protect species that are on the road to self-awareness. IF they one day were to become truly our equals, the would provide invaluable perspectives on what it means to be alive and aware of the universe. The world-view of another inteliigent species would be something fantastic to explore and experience. Should we actively try to make other species more intelligent? My gut-feeling is sure, why not? There are no moral obligations other than what we make for ourselves, and if it can be done without causing suffering, then let's go for it.