Peterkin

If it feels good, why not? They have, six or seven times in the course of a century, during which all the world's informed experts and amateurs understood the danger, understood its causes, understood what remedial measures needed to be taken, and all the world's political and religious leaders had informed advice. They talked about it.... and... opted for short-term personal advantage. I suppose we could try to put a new spin on why it happened, the way they did after each of the wars, a different narrative in each participating nation, but the dogs and robots won't be interested. Thing about intelligence is: It's so much better at creating messes than at preventing them.

You do. You do! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/09/far-right-europe-rise-electionshttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/09/far-right-europe-rise-elections The poster fathead: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/viktor-orban-american-conservatism-admiration/671205/

You would think. And yet, previously, you stated: Lots of warning, lots of clever-boots, lots of available technology - no decisive action. The huge down-side of competitive, rather than collaborative intelligence is that it overwhelmingly favours short-term individual and familial advantage over long-term group and species survival. That's why the ants will inherit the earth. Plus, they're meek. Thanks for that interesting read!

Pray on that!! Why not? Comparative studies are pretty thin on the ground. The only thing we're sure of is that the Really Big Winner of the Intelligence Wars is wiping out itself along with all other life because it got too smart too fast.

Sure, but this presupposes competition. Algae don't need to be very smart to be essential to all other life. Exactly. Competition poses problems. Problem: How to get my food? Solutions: speed, power, stamina, stealth, cunning. The last is the most cost-effective: he wins. Mostly, not always. The other traits are very useful and may be more applicable in some instances. OTOH, when the niches are full and the only competition in which you have the chance of an advantage is against your own kind, that can be self-defeating, self-destructive. Under those conditions, your better bet - and most certainly the better bet of your offspring - is in co-operation. That's where intelligence takes central importance. It enables you to communicate, share information, pool resources, co-ordinate effort and pass your experience forward to the next generation. The trick of intelligence is in deciding which to do when.

Nice teeshirt motto. The pope exists. Jesus may have existed. God/gods, very unlikely - any of 'em. People have both ideas and agendas, all the while they have needs and desires.

I'm not sure I understand it. We [humans] surely have been looking at intelligence the wrong way, i.e. from an anthropocentric perspective, which starts with the assumption that we're the smartest thing in the universe, except maybe our gods, and sometimes we outsmart even them. Lately, though, we've become a little more objective and open-minded, so that we measure the intelligence of other species not just by how well do on human tests compared to humans, but to how well they solve problems in their own environment. Intelligence isn't necessary to survival at all, except in the solving of problems like: How do I find my usual food? Okay, if my usual food is unavailable, what else can I eat? This smells like food, but it's too hard to bite. How do I open it? How can I get to my spawning place? Okay, if this route is blocked, how do I get around the obstacle? If my nesting tree has been replaced by building can I nest in that? Is it safe? Where to build?

All hardship does that, as does all major change. But extinctions create a lot of unoccupied territory and ecological niches, where species that had previously been prey or adjuncts to more dominant predators have a chance to develop their potential. Just think of the scope for rats and cockroaches when we're out of the way!

okay.... Philosophically speaking, morals/wisdom should be considered on its merits: what does it benefit society and individual, at what cost? Not because it's believed to come from a god who wouldn't hesitate to immolate you for all eternity.

How is that related to the moral teaching of anybody? All the peasants were told about how popes get to be popes is that Jesus appointed Peter as his representative on Earth, who gets to anoint kings and lay down canon law. They only know it through religion, which is to be taken entirely on faith, never examined, never questioned, never criticized. Organized religion sleeps with politics. Politics borrows from philosophy. Individual ethics are influenced by all of these things.

No. You conflated religion with philosophy and ethics. Abraham was in the Holy Bible, not in Washington; it was specifically the Holy Land those peasants ran off to liberate from the heathen; it was a pope who sent them there.

It matters, because Socrates doesn't tell anybody to take his only child up on a mountain and slit his throat - and then say, "Just kidding! Here, take some other guy's prize ram to kill instead." The Buddha doesn't send thousands of inadequately armed and provisioned peasants on a crusade against another, similar god's thousands of fools to massacre one another over possession of a patch 'holy' desert. Philosophically speaking, morals/wisdom should be considered on its merits: what does it benefit society and individual, at what cost? Not because it's believed to come from a god who wouldn't hesitate to immolate you for all eternity. Very good question! How do you discover the answer? Socrates thought he was smarter than everybody else. Most philosophers think they are. Maybe some of them are, maybe not. Either way, they're not necessarily better suited to work out the best course for another another person than the person herself. The function of a judge is to interpret the law. The function of a jury is to weigh the evidence as presented by two advocates who also know the law. The jury is not burdened with 'finding' justice; their job is to decide whether a fellow citizen - one of their own peers - deserves to be punished for something he's accused of.

Good, but not foolproof detective work; just as well I can't be convicted on this evidence. I read about the phoebe - not sure I've ever seen one on the wing - in a Barbara Kingsolver novel, which has been translated into 20 languages. I read it in English, thought it a pretty name and didn't associate it with tyrants in any way; it seems an unassuming little insectivore. I do know the eastern kingbird, which also doesn't seem to me particularly regal.

One of several. Why do you assume Canadian? (I don't know any tyrant flycathers well enough to drink with) Do Brits not spell their own language properly anymore? I'd far prefer to think: "Your turn!"

Maybe I have no sense obvious humour. But, anyway, Skol! Oh, I wasn't planning to go there! Regarding the cuckoos, all I meant was that, compared to crows, they're pretty dumb, but yet they have this apparently devious behaviour that allows them to 'outsmart' crows. I find that pretty amazing, and wonder whether they know what they're doing and why, or following a long-established instinct. On a more esoteric philosophical level, I might wonder whether some cuckoos wish they could have a family of their own and might consider adopting orphaned phoebes or something. Just following the illogic of the thread.... and, uh, If it's not a personal question, what happens at midnight?

It's impossible to tell how much, or what they're thinking. There is some very fine specialization of physical abilities and instincts, but how conscious is the activity? Nature tries everything and keeps everything that works. Clearly, distributing eggs in the nests of as many other birds as possible maximizes the survival potential of offspring for the cuckoo, but it doesn't propel the species into the social relationships and the need to communicate that made the corvids so clever and adaptable. There is always some trade-off. Yes, and abstract thought required to identify, interpret and manipulate symbols. But this is quite a few steps past the egg-laying orders. Not everyone needs the help of alcohol to wonder about things.

Be more interesting if it were two sexes of the same species.

Not only that: Amazing, the risk and trouble some species must take to avoid the joys and pains of parenting. Fish can just swim away and never give it a thought. And yet we can barely cope with the conceptual difference between egg and chicken and are utterly stymied by the sociological question of rooster/hen/other.

I would further say that everyone is, or should be, their own philosopher. To some degree, all adolescents are, when they are working out their attitude to the world in which they are being prepared to live their adulthood. Not all do it in the same way; not all are original, organized or articulate; not all question received wisdom with the same intensity or acuity. But all do, at some time in their young life, question and challenge. At that moment, informed guidance would make a difference - might make the whole world different.

Whyever not? Apparently, this is not true: It's quite an interesting article, actually, if you can bear to wade through the accompanying advertisements. Not punny at all. But then,a cuckoo in a crow family would raise some serious issues with evolution, were the offspring allowed to marry in. I suppose they twig by puberty.

Where is even a crow going to find nuance in chicken v egg ? He'll just eat both.

But at least they'd all be more egg-aware than humans are.

Not snipping, just picking. A mirror - yes, sort of. To the human mind and its workings. It's really just the external version of introspection - that is, the philosopher projects his own "reflections" onto his nation or his entire species (even when he has no clue to other cultures or mind-sets or world-views.) It's a presumptuous, arrogant kind of thinking engaged in by people who consider themselves wiser than other people. To everyone equally - well, yes: scientist, peasant or priest, you are all grist to the philosopher, who simply ignores your individuality, your attainments, your varied experiences and convictions, and sweeps you in with generic mankind. 'Should' in philosophy doesn't apply to scrutiny of persons; only of traits, actions, beliefs and systems of organization. About her particular science, yes. About everything else - who knows? The philosopher mostly doesn't care. Huh? What, precisely, constitutes a leader? Who are counted as 'sheeple'? In what way is the one "better" than the others? In which philosophical school of thought is this concept elaborated?

Maybe so. But then, there is the cultural question, too. What do frogs know of ribbits or chickins? If they were having a debate, wouldn't it be more likely "guppy-guppy-guppy" vs "roe-roe-roe"?

Nope. You didn't mention Hooo-grrmmm-grm, cheep-cheep-cheep, Um-ba um-ba, or any of the other sounds frogs make. They're a wonderfully vocal and varied folk. It would be interesting to watch what Gareth Malone could make of a population of a Canadian pond. (And, of course, we should probably take into consideration the significance of a particular listener hearing English in the sounds heard from frogs, whose native tongue is clearly not English. But that would come under Psychology.)