Thread: Is there a specific cause for the huge intellectual jump where humans came into existence during evolution?

Yes... the intellectual jump of the evolving mind suddenly becomes such high-intellect.

we are the first animals to make it into space.
we are the first animals to terraform the natural habitat so tremendously.
we are the first animals to invent complex machines to do work for us.
we are the first animals to farm on other animals for food.
we are the first animals to domesticate animals.
we are the first animals to plant, nurture and grow plants for food.
we are the first animals to create a term "currency"
we are the first animals to be at the top of the food chain due to extreme high-intellect.
we are the first animals to be able to use tools to communicate mass distances.
we are the first animals to .... tons of other things i prefer to save time and not say.
no other animals have intellect as close as us.

is there a cause why no other animals have intellectual levels anywhere near us?
why we are far-high-intellectual-level that the second-highest-intellectual-level animals? (probably chimpanzees, but they are far inferior in the terms of intellect, to us.)

whats the cause of our extremely superior intellect?


and also.. why did einstien say "two things are infinite. the universe. and the stupidity of the human mind."?

I don't know about the first bit (I suspect no one does, although I am sure there is no shortage of ideas).

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

and also.. why did einstien say "two things are infinite. the universe. and the stupidity of the human mind."?

Because he was a very funny guy.

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Yes... the intellectual jump of the evolving mind suddenly becomes such high-intellect.

Is that meant as an answer to your own question?
If so, please source this claim.

we are the first animals to make it into space.

So what?
See later note.

we are the first animals to terraform the natural habitat so tremendously.

Please look up the meaning of the word "terraform". We have not done this, nor do we need to.

we are the first animals to invent complex machines to do work for us.

So what?
See later note.

we are the first animals to farm on other animals for food.

Ants!

we are the first animals to domesticate animals.

Ants!

we are the first animals to plant, nurture and grow plants for food.

So what?
See later note.

we are the first animals to create a term "currency"

So what?
See later note.

we are the first animals to be at the top of the food chain due to extreme high-intellect.

So what?
See later note (2).

we are the first animals to be able to use tools to communicate mass distances.

So what?
See later note.

we are the first animals to .... tons of other things i prefer to save time and not say.
no other animals have intellect as close as us.

So what?
See later note.

Notes:
1) Being FIRST does NOT support your contention that there is a "specific cause" for an intellectual jump. Nor does it support the adjective "huge".
2) Being the only ones to create a term is moot. Since we're the only ones that A) use the concept (AFAIK) and the only ones to have a sufficiently complex language (again, AFAIK).
Is it a quantitive jump or a qualitative one? Is it a "jump" at all or was it gradual?
In short NOT ONE of your points actually supports, or provides evidence for, your "claim".

and also.. why did einstien say "two things are infinite. the universe. and the stupidity of the human mind."?

Er,...
You're doing a pretty good of illustrating his point by actually asking that question.

The way our brains are folded into our skulls means we have much more brain surface area than other animals with similar sized skulls, this generaly means we are more intelligent, this is advange number one, because of this major advantage we are more able to learn and learn quicker, we also have good memories meaning we can learn and then retain skills. We have opposable thumbs which means it is easy for us to grasp things, meaning we were able to use and adapt tools, these skills in combination have given us a real advantage over most other species, however the real break through is that of communication. Communication has allowed to work together very well in groups, and record knowlege that has been learned, from this we have also been able to specialise meaning that certain individuals had more time available to develop new skills, because they didn't have to worry about defence or gathering of food. So to recap, large brains, opposable thumbs and communication is what seperates us from the other animals and has gotten us here to where we are today.

Humans are so smart they are destroying their environment with overpopulation, pollution and greed. Yes, humans are the "superior" intellect aren't they when they are destroying other species off by the millions due to humans not understanding about preserving their own environment. I'd say the humans need to learn a great deal more from other animals as to how those animals survive and use them to help humans not destroy those other animals only to find out that the species became extinct because of humans inability understand.

Originally Posted by cosmictraveler

Humans are so smart they are destroying their environment with overpopulation, pollution and greed. Yes, humans are the "superior" intellect aren't they when they are destroying other species off by the millions due to humans not understanding about preserving their own environment. I'd say the humans need to learn a great deal more from other animals as to how those animals survive and use them to help humans not destroy those other animals only to find out that the species became extinct because of humans inability understand.

jeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzz dadio you are such a bummer
maybe
you should stroll over to the green parrot and have a brew
or
order a vodka stone sour
.......................
lemme know if they still have Dwight Kalb's poster/painting

Rephrase: As humanity evolved into existence, why did the intellectual level suddenly become (i know its gradually, but its very sudden in the evolution timeline) so superior?

We are the first animals to be at the top of the food chain, because of using our superior intellect.
We are the first animals to study and get get matter into space, because of using our superior intellect.

NOTE to Dywyddyr:

, because of using our superior intellect.

i missed out this part of the sentance in the OP

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Rephrase: As humanity evolved into existence, why did the intellectual level suddenly become so superior?

I would reason that homo sapien sapien species (overly?) indulge in imagination and seek to put their imagination into action. A more complete and accurate portrayal of the our history is to put our accomplishments side by side with our atrocities. Perhaps you may want to compile a list of human atrocities (disregarding race, nation, and ideologies) and evaluate our performance with whatever criteria the evaluation is to be made from.

One point I would like to offer is that not every individual in our species uses whatever intellect we may possess to effect, some (or a larger portion of our species) are merely imitating in a manner that can be described as "monkey see, monkey do", the knowledge they acquire aren't original, but are learnt and applied from the accomplishments of others and those before them.

Originally Posted by scoobydoo1

I would reason that homo sapien sapien species (overly?) indulge in imagination and seek to put their imagination into action.

so... i understand it as:
The more a creature indulges to put imagination into action = The more superior the intellect of the creature?
I think: The more creature has imagination = The more superior the intellect of the creature.
imagination = intellect.

Do you think monkeys have a high enough intellect anywhere near to homo sapiens? i dont.
Yes they use tools to get what they want. but.... a rock. thats probably the best tool they have.

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Do you think monkeys have a high enough intellect anywhere near to homo sapiens? i dont.
Yes they use tools to get what they want. but.... a rock. thats probably the best tool they have.

When you say monkey, I think you mean Ape.

And I guess you didn't see the video of the chimp using a Frog on his tool...

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Originally Posted by scoobydoo1

I would reason that homo sapien sapien species (overly?) indulge in imagination and seek to put their imagination into action.

so... i understand it as:
The more a creature indulges to put imagination into action = The more superior the intellect of the creature?

The process of learning and reasoning through trial and error which methods work and which doesn't when putting thought into action is one of the signs of intelligence. At least that is how much I am putting down into words here.

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

I think: The more creature has imagination = The more superior the intellect of the creature.
imagination = intellect.

I'm not sure I would agree that merely having an active imagination would necessarily mean being intelligent. There are disputes on what one would consider intelligence and how does one quantify it. I would suggest some reading on the subject of intelligence as a way to start your education on the topic, and once you have an adequate foundational understanding on the topic, you can begin (if you so choose to) by asking more precise questions on the nature of intelligence and not merely accomplishments by different species.

Intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Do you think monkeys have a high enough intellect anywhere near to homo sapiens? i dont.

That would depend on the setting. If I were to throw you into the jungle to live with "monkeys" with nothing other than what you are currently wearing, would you survive as well as they will? Is that a good way to measure intelligence?

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Yes they use tools to get what they want. but.... a rock. thats probably the best tool they have.

And is a rock adequate enough to kill us by smashing our skills skulls in if they so wish to utilize it? Give it some thought.

Originally Posted by scoobydoo1

I would reason that homo sapien sapien species (overly?) indulge in imagination and seek to put their imagination into action.

I dont really think the intellectual superiority is on much of how much we seek to put our imagination to action.
i think imagination = intellectual superiority.

other animals have far inferior imagination capabilities than humans.
the reason why the results of them seeking to put their imagination into action is little, is because their imagination is far inferior to us.

Originally Posted by Neverfly

And I guess you didn't see the video of the chimp using a Frog on his tool...

thats still nowhere near what man has achieved.

you dont find other animals imagining much of stuff compared on the imagination of humans.

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

i think imagination = intellectual superiority.

Nope.
Intellect - the ability to understand and to think in an intelligent way
Imagination is not the same as intellect.
Plenty of people have imagination (theorist on this forum for example ¹), but that doesn't mean that they understand anything or are intelligent.

other animals have far inferior imagination capabilities than humans.
the reason why the results of them seeking to put their imagination into action is little, is because their imagination is far inferior to us.

That's a supposition.
Granted it may well be true, but we can't show, let alone "prove" it, but it's a supposition nonetheless.


1 For instance he imagines he's intelligent enough to understand. He imagines his posts have some intellectual validity. The truth is far different.

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Granted it may well be true, but we can't show, let alone "prove" it, but it's a supposition nonetheless.

]

yeah.. how do we ever prove(or know) how and what animals think.
impossible?

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Intellect - the ability to understand and to think in an intelligent way

http://www.thescienceforum.com/trash-can/34436-english-dictionary-cyclical-nonsensical-bullshit.html
what i mean:

Intellect: the ability to understand and to think in an intelligent way.

using root words to describe words.

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

I dont really think the intellectual superiority is on much of how much we seek to put our imagination to action.
i think imagination = intellectual superiority.

Now here's a start, simply typing the word "imagination = intellectual superiority" doesn't necessarily make it true.

If I were asked to explain my sentence of "I would reason that homo sapien sapien species (overly?) indulge in imagination and seek to put their imagination into action.", I would have to give my reasons for saying it, from what perspective I'm coming from; of which I would be more than glad to offer my thoughts as to why, and must be prepared to accept that I may be mistaken in my assessment when seeking others input should the reasons they give be valid ones.

Now, let's begin an exercise to put your words through a mock test.

"Imagination = intellectual superiority" is the key phrase here. I would like for you go a little further into elaborating what imagination & intelligence are to display your grasp on the subject.


*If anyone wishes for me to elaborate post #8 for clarification, please let me know.

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

Intellect - the ability to understand and to think in an intelligent way

http://www.thescienceforum.com/trash-can/34436-english-dictionary-cyclical-nonsensical-bullshit.html
what i mean:

Intellect: the ability to understand and to think in an intelligent way.

using root words to describe words.

I have already pointed out, with a specific example, the difference between intellect and imagination.
Are you now giving me an example of someone unable to think in an intelligent way?

Yes, you pointed that intellect and imagination are different, and i accept it.

then what is intelligence?
the dictionary's meaning uses the root word "intellect" to describe "intelligence".
then how do we know what intelligence is, since this meaning in the dictionary is cyclical?

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Yes, you pointed that intellect and imagination are different, and i accept it.

Then let me point out that "intellect" and "intelligence" are ALSO different words, with different meanings.
Thus:

this meaning in the dictionary is cyclical?

is incorrect.

Intelligence - The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. The faculty of thought and reason.

Therefore: Intellect - the ability to understand and to acquire and apply knowledge.

Why did homosapiens suddenly (in the evolutionary timeline) become so intellegent?
Why did homosapiens suddenly (in the evolutionary timeline) gain so much ability to understand and to acquire and apply knowledge?

Far past any other animal that ever existed?

you ever been to a mensa gathering?

Originally Posted by sculptor

you ever been to a mensa gathering?

I've met some rather stupid individuals who are in mensa....I also believed that they outlawed the word "um" during their meetings.

please, people go back to the original post...
its still not answered yet.

what causes the increase of the huge intellectual superiority as humans evolved into existence?

ryanawe123
You seem to be seeking a simple definitive answer.
Such a thing does not exist within the combined knowledge or wisdom of man.
There are precious few "answers", but if we're curious enough we may continually find better questions.

we can always speculate by extrapolation from known data
and, over the course of our ramblings, many diciplines have responded with many speculations

some say it was eating fish---(neanderthalensis seems not to have eaten fish) yet not all fish eaters are us
some say it was eating meat --- yet tigers don't use computers
some say it was tool use---yet all tool users are not us--
some say it was bipedalism ---yet not all bipedals are us
etc.
etc.

I could speculate that we evolved o fill a vacant niche in our shared co-evolutionary biom
and further
that with each successive wave of evolution, fungi, insects, amphibians,reptiles, mammals, the oxygen(O) breathers were incapable of keeping up with the CO2 breathers in balancing the atmosphere, so we evolved to fulfill a destiny of filling a necessary niche in this biom
to wit: We have become the lords of fire because that is what our planet needed, and by so doing, we increased our consumption of O and production of CO2, exponentially.
alternately phrased
Gaia bred and bore us to become the lords of fire and increased our intelligence so that we could learn how to balance our biom in relative stasis and then have the power to do so.

(at this point, most people roll their eyes considering that , it is indeed likely that sanity has left the building)

Before us, O levels were much higher, and the atmospheric balance of O / CO2 was acomplished with wild fires.
Swinging wildly in the process.

I do not believe in random chance as a viable evolutionary tool nor explanation.

As we evolve, so too does the biom.
So today's "definitive" answer may become moot as the biom's needs change.

What then, is left?

It would be good if there is a special cause If you find share with me

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

please, people go back to the original post...
its still not answered yet.

what causes the increase of the huge intellectual superiority as humans evolved into existence?

I'm glad you reframed the question to drop the "suddenly;" it wasn't really all that sudden.
Also glad others pointed out the many other animals that knocked back that list of achievements.

In any case the answer is being intelligent gave our ancestors a survival advantage in what is likely the increasingly arid and changing environment surrounding the Great Rift Valley. With that increasing intelligence came some useful inventions (e.g., hunting, cooperation fire) that allowed our diet to change and feed our enormous calorie hungry brains in a positive feedback loop. The process hasn't stopped yet, though we've constructed very different environmental conditions.

chose a timeframe
and you choose a climate change
an asteroid struck siberia 3.6 million years ago, (may not have been an isolated event)
panama came out of the sea(date of full closure remains in dispute)
the northern ice age began 2.8-3.1 million years ago

Ice tends to lock up a lot of earth's moisture, lowering sea levels, and generally drying out the lower to mid latitudes.

The rift valley has the distinction of being in motion, so new finds are being exposed-----and just because that is where we are finding remains doesn't prove that that is the cradle of our ancestors(if indeed the finds represent our ancestors)

so that too is conjecture based on some real thin evidence

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

please, people go back to the original post...
its still not answered yet.

what causes the increase of the huge intellectual superiority as humans evolved into existence?

The question doesn't make sense to me. Out of all the species on earth, one had to be the most intelligent, just like one had to be the biggest, one had to run the fastest, one had to have the longest neck, and so forth. What are you really asking?

Originally Posted by Harold14370

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

please, people go back to the original post...
its still not answered yet.

what causes the increase of the huge intellectual superiority as humans evolved into existence?

The question doesn't make sense to me. Out of all the species on earth, one had to be the most intelligent, just like one had to be the biggest, one had to run the fastest, one had to have the longest neck, and so forth. What are you really asking?

May be after 10000000 years if life survives on earth, people would call human beings of 2012 yet not fully developed and less intelligent

Or look at us fascinated by what appears to our higher intelligence handicapped by our inability to live entirely as vegetarians without nutritional supplements. We really don't know what direct evolution will take us. If had to guess though, I'd predict we'll soon take the reins of our genetics and adapt ourselves to a wide range of abilities to survive different environments--from living longer, greater IQ, to living on a low-G planetoids.

I'm still waiting for this intelligence jump to actually occur.

Originally Posted by sculptor

I could speculate that we evolved o fill a vacant niche in our shared co-evolutionary biom
and further
that with each successive wave of evolution, fungi, insects, amphibians,reptiles, mammals, the oxygen(O) breathers were incapable of keeping up with the CO2 breathers in balancing the atmosphere, so we evolved to fulfill a destiny of filling a necessary niche in this biom
to wit: We have become the lords of fire because that is what our planet needed, and by so doing, we increased our consumption of O and production of CO2, exponentially.
alternately phrased
Gaia bred and bore us to become the lords of fire and increased our intelligence so that we could learn how to balance our biom in relative stasis and then have the power to do so.

what do you mean?

ryanawe#s

life evolves in diversity and complexity
plants first then fungi and animals

the plants waste product is Oxygen which is a dangerous gas
too much of it causes wildfires to rage(recently discussed-as/re the age of dinasaurs)
first the excess O was consumed by iron in the oceans, then on land in places like western australia
then by fungi, then by amphibians, then reptiles and birds

none of these O consumers were able to outpace the O producers, who(terrestrial plants anyway) by and large thrive best with an atmospheric concentration of 600ppm of CO2
so there remained open an ecological niche into which mammals evolved
but even with all the animals consuming O and producing CO2 naturally, there still remained a gap between optomum O and CO2 balance for the plants, so the nich remained not completely filled.

Our use of fire began to fill that ecological niche. A process that continues today.

We now find ourselves looking closely at our envolvement in that niche and process.
Please see the face studies.(free air CO2 enrichment).
The plants seem to still "want" more CO2

Different people who are looking at this see different optimums for the ratio of various atmospheric gasses, with different prognosticated outcomes.
Some days, it seems that the varied diciplines are so far away from consensus that it might take a generation or 2 to get there.
............
back to evolution
I suspect that all life on this planet evolved/evolves to optomize an ecological niche creaated by the (interplay of the) various components of our complex shared co-evolutionary biom, and the earth that supports it.

We are just another niche player, with a modicum of introspection.

Originally Posted by sculptor

We are just another niche player, with a modicum of introspection.

whats this? and how does the post answer the OP? o.o!

there are almost as many theories pertaining to our evolutionary leap as there are theorists.

I get the feeling you're looking for one single answer
I have offered 2 of the likely scenarios, the first being rapid climate change which, over the past 5 million years is noted for the onset of this northen hemispheric ice age.
The second is that everything on this planet is a niche player. The O exhalers (plants, et.al.) colonized the land first, then animal life followed.
When the plants evolved to consume CO2 as a food source, they evolved into a world with much higher CO2 concentrations(20 times the quartenary average). As they replaced most of this CO2 with O, they created an ecological nich that neede to be filled in order to assure their survival. So, animals evolved to consume the plants, and their O and replace some of that with CO2. We are the culmination(so far) of millions of generations of animals who have been evolving to fill that ecological niche.
Within that broader ecological niche we find many smaller specialty niches available. Perhaps, it is that modicum of introspection that allowed us to fill available niches as they presented themselves (oft times via rapid climate change).
You could look back from your current ecological position and see many changes that were necessary, and which built onto earlier changes. Had any of these not happened, than we would most likely not be who we evolved to become.
Take bipedalism. This allowed us to carry things including tools and babies so we were able to wander about following abundances within the microclimate systems nearbye........I would guess that shortly after we began carrying things about(estimated from 3 to 6 million years ago), we developed something to carry those things in--(lets call them nets or bags)--all of which would most likely not survive in the archaeological record. Before long, these nets would have been modified to serve as traps for fish and small mammals and birds----then wandering the shore lines(midden piles of shellfish shells run up from eastern africa all the way to western australia) with each new tool our broader understanding of the configurations of sets and subsets evolved, favoring evolution that helped us understand more, and somewhere along that evolutionary line we found ourselves able to utilize the abstract to move workable ideas from one set to another........
There is no one answer. It is all a series of steps that allowed us to occupy many different ecological niches which led to complexity of concept that favored the developemental path we took.

alternately phrased
If the trip from here to L.A. were 100,000 steps, and just one of those steps were not taken, would I ever get to L.A.?

and, we ain't even adressed volcanism which was much more active just 60 million years ago.
..............................
but, then again, there may have been a chemical or radiation trigger about the potential of which, i know nothing.

So all these plausible answers you proposed are mere unsubstantial guesses?

the intellectual jump of the evolving mind suddenly becomes such high-intellect.

As individuals we're not that much cleverer than many other animals when we're born. The big difference between us and them is our social and parental behaviours which ensure that group knowledge is passed on rather than each individual child having to work things out for themselves.

For comparison, look at the exceptional intelligence of the octopus. They can solve fantastically tricky problems - open a jar by using a tool and do something else fancy to get to the food inside the container - but they do it solely by brainpower. They don't have enough memory to remember what they did yesterday. Then look at chimp mothers and infants. The infants do learn from their mothers, but only by imitation. A human parent would select appropriate sticks or straws for an infant to try pulling out termites for themselves, then gradually introduce the skills of selecting the best tools. For chimp infants though, mothers happily let them take turns fishing for termites but they do nothing to demonstrate the elements of the skills involved, let alone help the infant learn faster by guiding their hand or helping select or form tools.

Humans take great pains to teach infants right from the start. And we never stop teaching them - everything from food tastes to names of colours all the way through to calculus. There are may be a few who might have discovered percentages by themselves, but it took centuries for us to even get on top of the notions of zero or double entry bookkeeping or multiplication, so it's not very likely. Forget physics. It simply couldn't be done by someone not educated to some level.

So our apparent intellectual achievements are actually an outcome of our superior social skills. They ensure that valuable things that are learned by some are available to all who follow. Who are then free to learn more new things to teach to those who follow, who then .....

duplicated

Is there a specific cause for the huge intellectual jump where humans came into existence during evolution?

The question posed is asking for a cause of the intellectual jump and infering there actually was a "jump', lets all please take the time to look at the evolutionary knowledge found in East Africa by Mr and Mrs leaky, there was an intermediate link as there is in all evolutionary trees, in this case Australopithecus afarensis, the preceedant to the homosapien. If i was to take the question seriously i would say the following:

1. Intelligence is very subjective (without going into the linguistic arugument), we are by our nature limited by our brains and conformist in our nature, replicating and procreating according to our genetics, with great respect to the nurture debate, slowly evoloving but this is intelligent relative to what exactly? we have no comparative to state this as a "huge" intellectual jump.

2. We have evidence to show this was not a jump from at all, from chimpanzee to human or any equal postulate. There was a definite intermediate but on a lower population scale. See population growth over the past 2.3 million years and see how "Humans" migrated from africa as homosapiens and "dominate" other environments.
"From Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rhodesiensis or Homo antecessor and migrated out of the continent (AFRICA) some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, replacing local populations of Homo erectus, Homo denisova, Homo floresiensis and Homo neanderthalensis". We cant know but we can infere with high probability the preceeding ancestors showed many of the same traits of "intellegence" as we do, i.e. i would argue most importantly a more comprehensive language.

3. This slow evolution of "intellgent" function allowed us to dominate other species, becoming superior in planning, strategic hunting, developing immunological strength and gathering (including food storage). As evolution would have it our ancestors unable to compete (through competion or disease) died out, leaving only homosapiens, of which we have evidence for (see lucy our best fossil evidence of our earliest ancestor). Note: Interspecies competion played a huge role, please read on this as i dont need to explain here.

4. Here we are and through language and the dominance established early on we assume ourselves to be intellegent, some studies suggest in the early stages it could have gone so differently. But if we were to look at the differences between many other species this was no huge jump in ability, there was an precursor and there was need for development even if the population was much smaller then. If we were to meet our homospaien ancestors back then their IQ may have well been quite similar but their technological advancements were obviously far below, we have had time to use our minds in research and discovery and im glad to say still are, but we did not just appear from a pool of un-intelligence thats for sure.

Giving my biological and evolution agrgument i would also like to add the following in regard to some of the comments:

1. Those that infer Humans are the most intellectual are arrogant in their remarks, we have no evidence to refute other species (99.8% of which that have lived on earth are now extinct) did not have the same or higher intelligence, not to mention life on other planets which is "infinity" likely.
2. Again the definition of intelligence, it might look as if something is acting intellectually but it is really not, i beg anyone interested in this topic to really read and think through John Searles, chinese room experiment, this fantastic piece of research really challenges the mind and what we think of as intellegent.

Bothers, sisters, friends and comrades, i welcome any arguments or agreements and support this ability to debate fully.

Ryan

Is there a specific cause for the huge intellectual jump where humans came into existence during evolution?

The question posed is asking for a cause of the intellectual jump and infering there actually was a "jump', lets all please take the time to look at the evolutionary knowledge found in East Africa by Mr and Mrs leaky, there was an intermediate link as there is in all evolutionary trees, in this case Australopithecus afarensis, the preceedant to the homosapien. If i was to take the question seriously i would say the following:

1. Intelligence is very subjective (without going into the linguistic arugument), we are by our nature limited by our brains and conformist in our nature, replicating and procreating according to our genetics, with great respect to the nurture debate, slowly evoloving but this is intelligent relative to what exactly? we have no comparative to state this as a "huge" intellectual jump.

2. We have evidence to show this was not a jump from at all, from chimpanzee to human or any equal postulate. There was a definite intermediate but on a lower population scale. See population growth over the past 2.3 million years and see how "Humans" migrated from africa as homosapiens and "dominate" other environments.
"From Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rhodesiensis or Homo antecessor and migrated out of the continent (AFRICA) some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, replacing local populations of Homo erectus, Homo denisova, Homo floresiensis and Homo neanderthalensis". We cant know but we can infere with high probability the preceeding ancestors showed many of the same traits of "intellegence" as we do, i.e. i would argue most importantly a more comprehensive language.

3. This slow evolution of "intellgent" function allowed us to dominate other species, becoming superior in planning, strategic hunting, developing immunological strength and gathering (including food storage). As evolution would have it our ancestors unable to compete (through competion or disease) died out, leaving only homosapiens, of which we have evidence for (see lucy our best fossil evidence of our earliest ancestor). Note: Interspecies competion played a huge role, please read on this as i dont need to explain here.

4. Here we are and through language and the dominance established early on we assume ourselves to be intellegent, some studies suggest in the early stages it could have gone so differently. But if we were to look at the differences between many other species this was no huge jump in ability, there was an precursor and there was need for development even if the population was much smaller then. If we were to meet our homospaien ancestors back then their IQ may have well been quite similar but their technological advancements were obviously far below, we have had time to use our minds in research and discovery and im glad to say still are, but we did not just appear from a pool of un-intelligence thats for sure.

Giving my biological and evolution agrgument i would also like to add the following in regard to some of the comments:

1. Those that infer Humans are the most intellectual are arrogant in their remarks, we have no evidence to refute other species (99.8% of which that have lived on earth are now extinct) did not have the same or higher intelligence, not to mention life on other planets which is "infinity" likely.
2. Again the definition of intelligence, it might look as if something is acting intellectually but it is really not, i beg anyone interested in this topic to really read and think through John Searles, chinese room experiment, this fantastic piece of research really challenges the mind and what we think of as intellegent.

Bothers, sisters, friends and comrades, i welcome any arguments or agreements and support this ability to debate fully.

Ryan

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

So all these plausible answers you proposed are mere unsubstantial guesses?

guesses, fer sure
-all archaeology evolves through guess work
the "unsubstantial" part of your querie, however presents a different perspective, which I reject.

Bear in mind that if indeed the australopithicines were the direct ancestors of homo, that the transition from australopithicus to homo to us took place during this ice age------until we see coordinated evidence of the varied developemental "leaps" and the onset and retreat of the glacial cycles, we will be left with guesswork as to causality. I have been leaning toward dynamic climate change as a key ecological trigger(s) to our developement-------as the glaciers forced all life to move toward the equator, while lowering sea levels, the survivors were forced into different habitats, including shorelines that were repeatedly inundated by the rising seas as the glaciers melted.
It seems likely that our predecessors were occasionally allowed to bread over a broad range of the extant species, then forced into refuge pockets where populations were smaller, and the rate of mutation larger. Then, as the glaciers receeded, and sea levels rose, these small (mutant) populations reunited sharing genes including relatively recent mutations. during the first 1/2 of this ice age, those cycles happened roughly every 41,000 years (about 39 times), then the cycle shifted as the climate got colder to roughly a 110,000 year cycle just about at the time postulated for the emergence of "HOMO"

we know a lot, enough to substantiate a good many of the guesses ----but, what we do not know still far outpaces what we do know.........
so we fill in the blank spaces with educated guesses.

Yes, an important imput, i will rephrase guess as an hypothesis which is all anyone can really offer, and im sure you'll agree the mutation of which you speak is fundamentally evolution. They are one in the same.

Ryan

What will tomorrow hold for humanity? Will the superior intellect overcome the superior armed or will the very wise overcome the very stupid? If you look at the way society is "evolving" today it would seem that those with the most populace will overcome those who are the smartest for it seems that people less educated cannot understand how to manage their own resources or their environment. Earth is being polluted by the greedy uneducated masses which use up supplies faster than they can be produced and want even more. I just do not see the people with high degrees of education and wisdom being able to hold back the onslaught of greed and ignorance that is happening more and more every day.

cosmic

aren't we just a ray of sunshine today?

..................
3 words
positive mental attitude

......
try it on like a new set of cloths, who knows, it just might fit. And you may grow to like it?

......................
or
join with langan and the eugenics guys-----------
.............
is the right to breed a basic and essential human right?

May 1st, 2013, 03:16 PM

cosmic

aren't we just a ray of sunshine today?

..................
3 words
positive mental attitude

......
try it on like a new set of cloths, who knows, it just might fit. And you may grow to like it?

......................
or
join with langan and the eugenics guys-----------
.............
is the right to breed a basic and essential human right?

I bring this to your attention because the lack of education in the world today is getting worse for the majority of the population while the well to do can get the best education money can buy. With that in mind we should be trying to enhance education for everyone not give education to only those who can afford it. I do hope that you'll understand me better now that I make myself clearer to you.

Cosmic:

Universal free education for as long as any student wants to stay a student is indeed an admirable goal.
Add in room and board, books and supplies, tuition and fees, and make it truely "free" and the disparity of wealth for education might well be abolished.
Which is a great part of why i dislike pay-walls for scientific papers.

..............
that being said:
A great part of my early "education" was indeed cultural indoctrination.

So, then we gotta ask, whose culture?
radical islamists offer "free education" , oft times, it seems as a means of cultural indoctrination.

Why would the wealthy and powerful wish to freely educate the unwashed masses?

Why would the wealthy and powerful wish to freely educate the unwashed masses?

Where's your "ray of sunshine" as you asked me about for this statement seems to say that there's no hope for the masses, or am I reading you wrong?

The masses will consume everything, including those in the upper reaches of wealth and privilege.

The masses will consume everything, including those in the upper reaches of wealth and privilege.

I'm not sure I follow your argument.

Looking at the world as a whole, it's the "well to do", the "educated" countries (or the richer portions within larger countries) which have the biggest, worst impacts on their own and others' environments. The wealthiest, of course, have the additional "advantage" of being able to keep the damage they do at a distance or even to literally export it, but it's a lot, lot worse than the damage done by the poor.

The wealthiest, of course, have the additional "advantage" of being able to keep the damage they do at a distance or even to literally export it, but it's a lot, lot worse than the damage done by the poor.

The uneducated are taken advantage of by the educated by hook or crook as they say. Poorer countries have little to export so they are in dire straights most of their lives because they don't have family planning, education or any types of governmental controls to ensure a well run society that respects nature and promotes birth control. With more people living in poor countries they keep over populating which only brings about more problems to their already overburdened society.

If you look at the wealthy people living anywhere and even in poorer countries they are many times above the fray and don't get hurt as the poor do but alas that's changing because in many poorer countries the poor are uniting and trying to overthrow the rich that make them poor to begin with. That is why I say that even the wealthy will feel the problems one day for they can't hide away forever.

Isolated tribes of humans in the Amazon are humans, with human intelligence, yet they have not developed most of what you state.

Put a human newborn in a chimp family in the jungle, that human will not invent the wheel or have any of the skills or tools the cavemen had.

We do have an edge in intelligence, but forget that theres a Gigantic effect of accumulated knowledge over thousands and thousands of years. This accumulation of knowledge has slowly grown over thousands of years and recently exploded in the past few hundred years (and then, not even for all humans, depending of their society's access and implementation of the accumulated civilization knowledge). We should not attribute the space station and other achievements of civilization solely on our intelligence (amazonian tribes a few decades ago had no idea the earth was a sphere, certainly didnt send rockets into space, had no clues about microorganism, etc), as mentioned humans thrown in the woods today without benefiting from the accumulated knowledge would live like cave men and not even that because they would start from scratch and could be thousands of years away from the wheel (without exterior contact).

Originally Posted by cosmictraveler

I bring this to your attention because the lack of education in the world today is getting worse for the majority of the population while the well to do can get the best education money can buy. With that in mind we should be trying to enhance education for everyone not give education to only those who can afford it. I do hope that you'll understand me better now that I make myself clearer to you.

Where are you getting this. Education in both the developed and advanced nations are up by a considerable amount.

Educational attainment in the world, 1950

Where are you getting this. Education in both the developed and advanced nations are up by a considerable amount.

Then why is it that many poor countries don't have clean potable drinking water available to them? Why is it that many poorer countries are overcrowded and use up their resources which leads to deforestation and poverty that follows?

The uneducated are taken advantage of by the educated by hook or crook as they say. Poorer countries have little to export so they are in dire straights most of their lives because they don't have family planning, education or any types of governmental controls to ensure a well run society that respects nature and promotes birth control. With more people living in poor countries they keep over populating which only brings about more problems to their already overburdened society.

Much of this is generally not true either. I very much get the impression your views on the world, like many, are decades obsolete and now much removed from the realities of how the world actually is. I recommend watching this vid of the actual data.
Hans Rosling: Stats that reshape your worldview | Video on TED.com

Education and 3rd World countries:

thats like being pushed out of an airplane with a sheet of paper showing how to make a parachute, its only good if you are able to organize the fabric-rope-etc. On top of that, we have inherited from an archaic feudal social system based on hierarchy, money(conflicts of interest) and secrecy/control of information. There is no technical reason why children starve, its the way we as human civilization are "organized" and function. The US was against producing medication at cost for africa, another of the ubiquitous conflicts-of-interest aberration of the monetary system (an important outdated part of our archaic civilization/social organization model).

Oh, well I have proof that many poorer countries aren't better off because they are getting some education because that education isn't helping them from themselves for they still ruin their own environments and cause more problems because of overpopulation and uncontrolled growth. I'll give you an example, look at Cuba, it is highly educated and yet it needed assistance from many other countries to just keep its people fed, it can't produce enough to eat for its own citizens. Sure, Cubans have got college degrees with nowhere to use them. Then Cubans want to escape from their country for various reasons like finding work or being oppressed.

they still ruin their own environments and cause more problems because of overpopulation and uncontrolled growth.

And Europe, America, Australia don't?

It's only recently that fish have been able to survive in the Thames, the last time the Cuyahoga in the USA caught fire was a mere 44 years ago and I don't know how long it's been since the Colorado last reached the ocean, and here we've only recently cut back the scale of dredging the mouth of Australia's Murray River - though we'll have to put the other machine back into operation when the next drought comes.

The main difference between the developed and developing world is a few decades of being more wealthy. This will really show up when they get more wealthy and try to imitate us and find a poorer nation to send their ships and electronic and other dangerous waste to for disposal. There won't be too many places left by then.

Originally Posted by adelady

the intellectual jump of the evolving mind suddenly becomes such high-intellect.

As individuals we're not that much cleverer than many other animals when we're born. The big difference between us and them is our social and parental behaviours which ensure that group knowledge is passed on rather than each individual child having to work things out for themselves.

Well, if we nurture a monkey and teach him to calculate and write, try to teach him to think logically, use expert tools, and advanced subjects.... i dont think it would work that way.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by cosmictraveler

I bring this to your attention because the lack of education in the world today is getting worse for the majority of the population while the well to do can get the best education money can buy. With that in mind we should be trying to enhance education for everyone not give education to only those who can afford it. I do hope that you'll understand me better now that I make myself clearer to you.

Where are you getting this. Education in both the developed and advanced nations are up by a considerable amount.

Educational attainment in the world, 1950

Why are the answers coming up to answer the question "Is there a specific cause for the wide educational level gap between countries", instead of "what causes the increase of the huge intellectual superiority as humans evolved into existence?"?

Even if we put an individual who is born from an undeveloped country through advanced schooling, i reckon he will still be able to think with the same understanding as someone born in an advanced developed country.

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

Why are the answers coming up to answer the question "Is there a specific cause for the wide educational level gap between countries", instead of "[COLOR=#333333]what causes the increase of the huge intellectual superiority as humans evolved into existence?"?

Because the original question has already been answered and people are moving on...

Well, if we nurture a monkey and teach him to calculate and write, try to teach him to think logically, use expert tools, and advanced subjects.... i dont think it would work that way.

But monkeys aren't human. They do learn pretty well by imitation, but they have no speech for conveying ideas. Certainly not for anything like critical thinking - especially not for testing and critiquing others' thinking.

I'm pretty sure that our forebears who dreamed up their super complicated maths system in Babylon - based on 60 (and 360), think clocks and navigation as the remnants of that system - would have liked our more simplified and logical system and worked with it effectively. But they didn't know about it because there wasn't anyone to teach them.

Originally Posted by adelady

they have no speech for conveying ideas.

human babies dont have speech for conveying ideas too.
monkey babies are same.

human babies can learn how to have speech.
monkey babies __ _ __ _ _____ _____ __ _____________?

Originally Posted by ryanawe123

human babies can learn how to have speech.
monkey babies __ _ __ _ _____ _____ __ _____________?

Can not.

So the ability of this kind of communication is an example of a complex piece of information (not volume of info) monkyes are unable to comprehend, right?

I once read that a major behavioral difference between chimps and humans is cooperation to acheive a goal.
We do it, they don't-------------but, that ain't all black and white, as chimps have been seen to cooperate during intergroup warfare.

It seems that the complexity of our language reflects the abstract nature of our conscious mind.
Which then allows for layering of message to and then within metamessage?

a complex piece of information (not volume of info) monkyes are unable to comprehend, right?

Not really. Monkeys, apes and several other animals are quite capable of learning complex series of actions. The big problem comes with working out a complex line of reasoning or logic. For all we know some animals could do this to some extent, but they have no suitable language to explain their thinking.

More importantly, they don't have good capacities to teach such things. And that's what we do with language.

So why cant: an infant monkey growing up with me teaching him how to communicate and reason, work?

Cant this be used to show how that its a type of complex information that their minds are unable to process?