Human Intelligence - Exceptional?

Jim, appreciate the in depth response.

I'm guessing there's "nothing there" with my line of thinking. Purely from a cursory, layman's perspective I've always been struck at the remarkable impact human intelligence has had on life as we know it. There doesn't seem to be another trait from any other known life form that has done so much to differentiate a species. I've wondered if science had contemplated this and if it said anything about the prevailing view that all attributes of all know life forms came about through natural selection.

good explanation of the difference between human / animal   or goto 13mins in.

Jim, appreciate the in depth response.

I'm guessing there's "nothing there" with my line of thinking.  Purely from a cursory, layman's perspective I've always been struck at the remarkable impact human intelligence has had on life as we know it.  There doesn't seem to be another trait from any other known life form that has done so much to differentiate a species.  I've wondered if science had contemplated this and if it said anything about the prevailing view that all attributes of all know life forms came about through natural selection.

My suspicion is that a lot of the sense that we are exceptional, comes from the fact that we have developed language, and can thus pass ideas between ourselves and down through the ages. Imagine yourself dumped in a rain forest with no 'tools' and you will probably admit that you would be far less able to cope that the other creatures in the forest - even with all the knowledge you have already obtained from linguistic communication. I think it is incredibly hard to compare intelligence between species - even if it is possible to define it.

Defining intelligence is obviously almost impossible. Every program that comes with the label "AI" is supposed to be intelligent, but what the hell does that mean, and how does it differ from other programs without that label? Ask that question of an AI proponent, and that is the moment their hands will start to waive frantically!

Evolution is in a similar parlous state. I mean how can science judge whether our level of intelligence could have arisen in the time available (even that is rather uncertain). Most biologists say 'yes' because they don't want to damage their careers, but how the hell can they actually know?

One of the problems, is that conventionally evolution was/is supposed to take place by blind mutations in DNA. Most of these produce changes in a protein sequence, which ends up in some change in the resultant organism. The trouble is, that it seems inconceivable that significant new mental ability can be constructed with one or two mutations of this sort - a whole new architecture would be required. Also natural selection requires that each step in building that architecture must have a selective advantage.

As it happens, there is a new book coming out tomorrow by a conventional biologist who seems to have become weary of conventional biological/evolutionary explanations of the mind:

https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Desire-Mo...0062651560

My general feeling is that the whole of life can only be explained by a non-physical controlling mind(s). Without some sort of guiding process, I suspect even a single cell would fall to bits in seconds. The sheer number of chemically reactive species (i.e. chemically distinct entities) that exist inside every cell, would combine together to produce a useless sludge - roughly what happens when the cell dies.

Thus I don't think we should see the question as to whether we are distinct from animals as being the same as the question as to whether materialism is a viable explanation of reality. I think a lot of people think that way because they are influenced by Christianity - which certainly asserts that.

David