April 1st, 2010

I don't think we humans are the smartest beings on the Earth at all.

I think we run a close second to whales and dolphins (e.g., I've read that dolphins are much faster "talkers" than humans—they slow their speech down to human levels just to be polite), and we just barely edge out some other bipedal primates.

We've got opposable thumbs, and can motivate ourselves on land, so we have an advantage over the fishies, but we also have a stronger-than-normal inclination to adapt our environment to suit our rather specific needs instead of just living with the misery of the environment the way it is (and not knowing any better).

I argue that we are not superior to any beings on Earth ... and the fact we are the most dangerous and destructive (not to mention populous) of big non-insect creatures is proof we aren't that smart.

Or, to quote Douglas Adams,

"... on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."

Anyhow, as I said, we don't adapt ourselves (much), we change our environment to suit us. That isn't intelligence ... actually, that might be the stupidest thing we've ever done as a race. Considering how long we've been around, and how quickly our intelligence has got us into hot water, intelligence might very well be a self-destructive streak.

The only thing saving dolphins (assuming they are as unwise as humans) is the aforementioned lack of ability to change their environment. Lack of opposable thumbs (or even limbs for that matter), etc.

Come to think of it, maybe that self-destructive streak that comes from intelligence is the reason we've never been able to detect radio signals or other evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence. They've all killed themselves off through that unintended suicide that comes with unwise intelligence (that's not a new idea at all; just ask any science fiction afficianado).

Next comes the argument, "Brian, you doofus, don't forget about wisdom! It's wisdom that saves us from ourselves!"

There's a problem I've always had with the "intelligence" vs. "wisdom" argument. I do, of course, believe that wisdom is the ephemeral "stuff" we use to prevent ourselves from using our "intelligence" to do all those nasty things that we see in the news, but my problem is this: We all agree that, flawed though they are, there are methods for measuring most intelligences. There is nonesuch for measuring wisdom, unless we fall back on some sort of religious measuring stick ... and that opens a miasma of problems (e.g., which religion should we use?)

I've built my own brand of wisdom, accumulated over the years, that I apply to all my thinking (it's non-religious, by the way, but didn't have to be). So far I've got through my life without murder, larceny, assault, etc. To me that's wisdom. To others, their accumulated wisdom would tell them I am a fool (or worse) for not capitalizing when I could be gaining advantage over others—I'm missing all the good opportunities.

(Heck, when driving, I tend to stay in the slow lane—even on my motorcycle—and let the speed demons get ahead of me where I can see them. Wise in my books, but others treat traffic as fellow salmon, and the roads as streams: gotta fight your way to the top at all times.)

Survival does not depend on intelligence (CF: cancer, fungi, spiders, and worms). I wonder if it's truly possible to have wisdom—whatever that is—independent of intelligence. After all, how does one hold wise thoughts if one doesn't have the containing framework of intelligence first?

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