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TheFakeSunRa
Bitch Splitter
Registered: 03/01/05
Posts: 16,449
Loc: Dirdy SOUF
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Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now?
#9079803 - 10/15/08 04:25 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Assuming that human intelligence is really superior which I strongly believe is questionable, in billions of years could ants or crocodiles or whatever be sending computers into outer space and all that?
-------------------- [quote]Asante said: You constantly make posts thatr fling middle school insults at people you don't like mixed in with maladjusted psychopathic comments about wanting to beat up the other poster with a crowbar. You know how shit you are, you just don't give a fuck for precisely that reason. I disendorse you.[/quote]
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zouden
Neuroscientist
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Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 5 months
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: TheFakeSunRa]
#9079891 - 10/15/08 05:40 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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No. Ants are enormously successful at what they do. There's no reason for them to grow bigger brains considering how much they cost, energy-wise.
Considering that crocodiles are virtually unchanged from how they were when the dinosaurs were around, you can see that animals don't evolve at the same rate, and they don't become more intelligent if they don't have to.
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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wisp
Registered: 04/13/08
Posts: 5,304
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
#9079895 - 10/15/08 05:43 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Having said that, the possiliby remains that they may have to evolve greater intelligence in the future. We cannot predict the future, only make informed inferences, but still cannot rule out the possibility that they could indeed evolve greater intelligence than ours presently. Not likely, but possible.
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zouden
Neuroscientist
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: wisp]
#9079917 - 10/15/08 06:04 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Yeah, it's not like humans were blessed by some higher being. But for ants to evolve intelligence capable of spaceflight would require a world significantly different to the one we currently have. No mammals, for one.
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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wisp
Registered: 04/13/08
Posts: 5,304
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
#9079927 - 10/15/08 06:14 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Well, in billions of years, that world is more than likely to radically different to the one today. Most likely, ants would be around too, but it's still a possibility.
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zouden
Neuroscientist
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: wisp]
#9079954 - 10/15/08 06:30 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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If ants were still around in a billion years it'd probably be because they're tiny, hard-working little buggers, and not mucking around with nuclear weapons or otherwise ruining the environment
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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wisp
Registered: 04/13/08
Posts: 5,304
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
#9079993 - 10/15/08 06:59 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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You have a very good point there.
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: TheFakeSunRa]
#9080053 - 10/15/08 07:34 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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An ant could never evolve to be large enough to have a significant brain...and hence never have human-like intelligence. No other insect could, for that matter...it would have to overcome some fairly major structural defects first (they aren't defects right now, with insects as small as they are, but they would become defects if the insect got much larger). Likewise a crocodile could never have human-like intelligence - there are structural reasons as well as environmental ones (zouden pointed it out - they have no reason to select for intelligence).
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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wisp
Registered: 04/13/08
Posts: 5,304
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: trendal]
#9080092 - 10/15/08 07:56 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Did we not evolve from a single cell? Cells can only get so big before their "structural defects" prevent them from becoming any larger, yet they evolved around that.
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trendal
J♠
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Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: wisp]
#9080096 - 10/15/08 08:00 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Did we not evolve from a single cell?
Yes...and as a result, are we still single-celled?
My point was that an "ant" wouldn't be anything like an ant if it were to evolve higher intelligence. There are too many other parts of it that would have to evolve first, in order to support a large brain.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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DieCommie
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: TheFakeSunRa]
#9080219 - 10/15/08 08:53 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Of course they could.
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: TheFakeSunRa]
#9081288 - 10/15/08 12:49 PM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Even if a single ant didn't evolve an individual intelligence as great or greater than ours, the possibility remains that collective colony intelligence could surpass ours. Ant colonies are already very good at solving problems and reacting to stimuli. This is fertile ground for research still and it will probably even turn out that colonies are even smarter than we think they are now.
Ants are best looked at as single elements of a larger, dispersed nervous system rather than autonomous little brains.
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zouden
Neuroscientist
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: wisp]
#9082001 - 10/15/08 03:11 PM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
tripsis said: Did we not evolve from a single cell? Cells can only get so big before their "structural defects" prevent them from becoming any larger, yet they evolved around that.
What trendal is saying is that there's a limit on the size of an insect - the exoskeleton system works well for small things, but on a larger scale you need bones and blood. It becomes too inefficient otherwise. Basically, ants would be one of the last things to evolve intelligence. That's why I said you'd need a world without mammals, because mammals are way ahead in that regard. So are birds for that matter.
As for collective intelligence... perhaps. I'm not convinced it works very well. Maybe if the ants could all telepathically communicate with one-another?
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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wisp
Registered: 04/13/08
Posts: 5,304
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
#9085104 - 10/16/08 02:40 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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I know what trendal was saying and my point was that cells have a limit on their size too. Yet, cells evolved around that. True, they evolved around that by joining forces with other cells but the principle remains - that ants could evolve around there physical constraints. Of course, they would no longer be ants as we know them now, but that's not the point.
Ants do have intelligence, but perhaps not in a sense we can relate to.
Check this out. Not evidence of higher intelligence, but interesting nonetheless:
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Minstrel
Man of Science
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 1,974
Loc: Hogtown
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: wisp]
#9087936 - 10/16/08 06:20 PM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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I just happened to notice:
Quote:
Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now?
Like?
You mean, like, whatever?
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ImperialCactus
Stranger
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: wisp]
#9092804 - 10/17/08 05:08 PM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Based on everything i've observed regarding the human race over the past 21 years, I'd have to say that there already are ants that are smarter than some humans.
Not a completely serious comment but sometimes i do wonder about that...
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: TheFakeSunRa]
#9092903 - 10/17/08 05:40 PM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Assuming that human intelligence is really superior which I strongly believe is questionable, in billions of years could ants or crocodiles or whatever be sending computers into outer space and all that?
Only if the Flying Spaghetti Monster designed them that way or decides to touch them with one of his great noodly appendages.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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LeftyBurnz
Mr. I Eat Butthole
Registered: 06/21/05
Posts: 24,570
Loc: FL
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: Seuss]
#9092930 - 10/17/08 05:48 PM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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--------------------
Edited by LeftyBurnz (10/17/08 05:54 PM)
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Hematite
Newbee
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Loc: Wisconsin
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: DieCommie]
#9099277 - 10/19/08 09:59 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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DieCommie wrote: "Of course they could."
The obvious and only answer.
Edited by Hematite (10/19/08 10:00 AM)
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 1 month, 19 days
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: Hematite]
#9099338 - 10/19/08 10:15 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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> The obvious and only answer.
Those of us that support Intelligent Design and The Flying Spaghetti Monster would disagree. His noodly appendage is the only answer.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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