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- Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV!roberts
- From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
- Newsgroups: sci.space
- Subject: Re: Whales (SETI)
- Message-ID: <9207280355.AA25052@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov>
- Date: 28 Jul 92 03:55:00 GMT
- Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
- Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
- formerly National Bureau of Standards
- Lines: 64
-
-
- -From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
- -Subject: Re: Whales (SETI)
- -Date: 26 Jul 92 23:19:22 GMT
- -Organization: Trinity College, Dublin
-
- -By that argument, you could suggest that chairs are intelligent, but for
- -reasons we do not understand choose not to reveal that intelligence, and
- -instead let humans sit on them and push them around. I would suggest
- -that there is absolutely no reason to believe whales are intelligent,
- -and that furthermore they definitely do not do certain things that can
- -reasonably be regarded as showing intelligence, such as using it to
- -preserve their lives (when humans evolved intelligence, this was the
- -*first* thing we use it for), and that therefore it is reasonable to
- -conclude that whales are not intelligent, unless and until we find some
- -evidence that they are.
-
- (Everybody uses chairs as an example - I know folding lawn chairs are
- sometimes considered to be diabolically clever, but isn't that carrying
- it a little far? ;-)
-
- By this line of reasoning, people who score high on IQ tests but refuse to
- wear seat belts are not intelligent, as are those who fear airplanes and
- thus choose less statistically safe modes of travel. Similarly, passing on
- one's genetic heritage is an aspect of survival, so more intelligent people
- must in general be more successful at breeding than less intelligent people,
- and insects are more intelligent than either.
-
- By a slight extension, the ability to acquire wealth must be a measure of
- intelligence, so professional basketball players are more intelligent than
- mathematicians, and people born in India couldn't be too bright, otherwise
- it would be a wealthy nation. :-) :-)
-
- While I agree there's plenty of indication that there are a lot of stupid
- whales out there, I'm concerned about the extremely binary nature of your
- reasoning - 1=intelligent, 0=non-intelligent, and either all whales are
- intelligent or no whales are intelligent.
-
- You also neglect environmental, physiological, and cultural considerations.
- Human intelligence is *much* more closely bound to human biology than most
- people think. And much of what we consider intelligent behavior is the result
- of thousands of years of evolution of our culture. If whales have brains
- that are individually capable, but their culture has less ability to evolve
- (for instance, they don't appear able to read and write), then that could
- account for some of the seeming lack of intelligence.
-
- There have been countless papers written on the subject of what defines
- intelligence. I'm not sure the question has ever been satisfactorily
- answered. Animal intelligence is even more confusing - remember that even
- a mouse brain is more complex in many ways than the biggest artificial
- computer ever built.
-
- -(You make suggestions about aliens judging humans by a few religious
- -fanatics. It isn't just a few whales that have been killed by whaling
- -ships, it's thousands of whales, of many different species, in areas
- -separated by thousands of miles.)
-
- If it's numbers you want to go by, remember that the number of human religious
- fanatics has always been much greater than the number of whales killed by
- humans. :-)
-
- John Roberts
- roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
-
-