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0 pointsfamouswaffles1y ago0 comments

Dolphins, Orcas, whales and other intelligent cetaceans do not have Hands and live in an environment without access to a technological accelerator like fire.

The absence of both of these things is an incredible crippler for technological development. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are, you're never going to achieve much technologically without these.

I don't think brain size correlations is as straightforward as 'bigger = better' every time but we simply don't know how intelligent most of these species are. Land and Water are completely different beasts.

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HarHarVeryFunny1y ago· 2 in thread

Intelligence isn't measured by ability to create technology or use tools.

Intelligence is the ability to use experience to predict your environment and the outcomes of your own actions. It's a tool for survival.

famouswafflesOP1y ago

Okay and how have we determined we have more intelligence than those species with this measure ?

HarHarVeryFunny1y ago

Clearly we haven't, given that there is very little agreement as to what intelligence is. This is just my definition, although there's a lot behind why I define it this way.

However, I do think that a meaningful intelligence comparison between humans and dolphins, etc, would conclude that we are more intelligent, especially based on our reasoning/planning (= multi-step prediction) abilities, which allows us not only to predict our environment but also to modify it to our desires in very complex ways.

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