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Who is to say radioactivity will not create mutation of the chitin in a roach, and allow for thicker and stronger exo-skeleton. Or that an insect population will not overcome the diffusion of oxygen barrier. The point is, we cannot know what evolution will do with increased mutation, and time.

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I believe this principle to be false. You will find many examples of two species that compete over the same niche and each survives for millions of years. What is to stop humans and evolved apes from cohabiting in cities? What's to prevent apes from evolving human-level intelligence if we allow them to have the resources and let natural selection to do its magic?

 

Examples please. We would have to break the competition exclusion principle by over ruling it with our intelligence, attributing resources equally and using extreme interspecific altruism. Not things humans are very good at, we barely have intraspecific altruism down.

 

What makes that principle have a particle of truth is the word identical. Of course two individuals of the same species or of two different species cannot occupy the same spot nor can they eat the exact same crumb of food.

 

Exactly, I wouldn't want to eat what my cat had for breakfast..... I don't think it was vice versa though.

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Yes, potential interaction. Participation in an ecosystem involves actual interaction.

 

(Also let's not forget that there is no niche requirement for intelligence, so this discussion is based on a flawed assumption to begin with.)

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I guess. But I think humans fear new things, so they would just kill off any new intelligent species. I think it would threaten our egos, especially if they had bigger penises. I can just see the religious people now calling it "work of the devil"

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If a species more intelligent than the current race of homo homo sapiens ever evolve... then would we be to them, what apes are to us ?? I can't imagine such a scenario... they might find us weird, designate a special area solely for humans (like a human zoo or something), do various tests on, have us as their guinea pigs etc.. the possibilities are endless. Come to think of it, it would make a good movie with keanu reeves in it!!

 

-mak10

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You are probably sitting in front of a primate form of our evolutionary replacement.

 

aguy2

I doubt that. I think the primate form of our evolutionary "replacement" is probably a primate (or a dolphin). We havn't created any real form of artificial intelligence with computers yet primates and dolphins already display an amazing amount of intelligence. We have no idea how to create a thinking machine yet we have the perfect model of an orgainic intelligence with the human brain. It is my guess that we will know how to genetically alter a chimpanzee into a sentient being long before we discover how to do it with a machine.

 

Examples please. We would have to break the competition exclusion principle by over ruling it with our intelligence' date=' attributing resources equally and using extreme interspecific altruism. Not things humans are very good at, we barely have intraspecific altruism down. [/quote']

 

How about dogs and cats? They share pretty much the same niche and they also serve as examples of animals that share man's environment where man is more than happy about it. As long as an organism isn't competing too much with man or taking up too much of the resources and at the same time providing a purpose man will not want have any reason to want to destroy that organism. It's not entirely too farfetched to imagine a situation where another sentient species could share an environment with man.

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It's not entirely too farfetched to imagine a situation where another sentient species could share an environment with man.

 

I can't help feeling that we would be occupying the same ecological niche. It would be pretty tricky to avoid direct competition with another species that also specialised in intelligence. Unless it was aquatic then we could have problems.

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Depends on the situation. Perhaps we would have progressed to a level of society that controlled its population and properly managed its resources and maybe the other species could do the same. I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility; certainly there is not a natural law that really prohibits this.

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There is no "intelligence niche".

 

I didn't state that there is one.

 

Rather, that another species specialising in intelligence would be likely to be occupying the same ecological niche. As intelligence is our main defining evolutionairy characteristic if another species also specialised in intelligence our ecological activities would be likely to overlap.

 

When that happens, mother nature becomes cruel.

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I doubt that. I think the primate form of our evolutionary "replacement" is probably a primate (or a dolphin). We havn't created any real form of artificial intelligence with computers yet primates and dolphins already display an amazing amount of intelligence. We have no idea how to create a thinking machine yet we have the perfect model of an orgainic intelligence with the human brain. It is my guess that we will know how to genetically alter a chimpanzee into a sentient being long before we discover how to do it with a machine.

 

 

 

How about dogs and cats? They share pretty much the same niche and they also serve as examples of animals that share man's environment where man is more than happy about it. As long as an organism isn't competing too much with man or taking up too much of the resources and at the same time providing a purpose man will not want have any reason to want to destroy that organism. It's not entirely too farfetched to imagine a situation where another sentient species could share an environment with man.

 

Lucid Dreamer I owe you an apolgy. I was looking over old posts wondering why I was getting such few lucid responses, I looked at the the post you responded to and discovered that I typed the word 'primate' instead of 'primitive'. I was trying to imply that your pc and the net it is connected to represented a primative form of the next stage of the process.

 

aguy2

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Perhaps by the time another species evolves comparable "intellegence" to humans, humans will have evolved to the point that they embrace any like mind as one of their own. Can anyone imagine the world very similar to today's, except that different races of people are replaced by different species of intellegent beings?

 

Do you really think that the human race would destroy other sentient beings?

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Just because an animal has intelligence doesn't mean it will clash with our niche. Our niche is presently domesticated animals and plants. Its like suggesting that no more than one species can possess flight otherwise it will occupy the other's niche.

 

If an intelligent race (think elves and pixies or something) were smaller in number and more adept of hand they could catch animals inside forests and stuff, provided there are still some left by the time we're done.

 

Back on topic I think that insects may survive the initial radiation blast and do well, but would not dominate due to a lack of food and colder conditions (nuclear winter)- cockroaches are ectotherms after all. I think it would be more likely that a small mammal would survive and evolve. Perhaps a rat like last time.

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