[Razengan]

Who says they didn't?

What would "intelligence" look like WHILE it was evolving?

A slightly more unsettling thought: How would newly-emerging intelligence FEEL like, internally?

Also, how would humans fare if born and raised in the wild, without any language or tools taught to them?

[throwaway173738]

I can extrapolate based on my toddler that a modern human dumped in the wild would invent language. He has made several phonemes that aren’t in the language we speak at home. And he’s clever enough that even though he’s never seen us stand on furniture, he still climbs drawers and chairs if there’s something he wants that’s out of reach. I think that tool use and language are borne of some innate drive that’s accelerated by culture.

[Razengan]

> He has made several phonemes that aren’t in the language we speak at home.

No I mean absolutely zero contact with or help from modern (say since the last 10,000 years) human civilization.

I mean literally giving birth in a forest and then raising the baby there without ever speaking a word around it or showing it any tools etc.

(this assumes that it will survive to 1-2 years old without any fatal sickness etc. but let's say that the mother/parents will get just enough "outside" help to make sure it does, but the baby itself is not to come in contact with any tech or language)

[hmm37]

I'm pretty sure there were children where the parents basically locked them in cages or chained them to a post in the basement, where they had almost no social contact, etc. And in these cases they were considered effectively mentally disabled by the time they were rescued.

[throwaway173738]

That’s different. He’s not saying to totally isolate the child, but that the child is born to modern humans without any language or culture or knowledge but who live in a wilderness. So not a place of deprivation but a place of danger and exploration. I would argue that kids are wired to explore, and that the parents would do their best to protect the child. It’s kind of a useless thought experiment because our lineages stretch back unbroken to the beginning of life, and that includes culture and transmitted knowledge.

[shermantanktop]

Given that the future human is different than you are today, they could ask you the same questions. How does it FEEL for you to communicate worldwide with an HN post, but not yet have the ability to (insert advanced capability here).

Every one of our evolutionary ancestors was the best human yet, just like we are.

[Razengan]

> Given that the future human is different than you are today, they could ask you the same questions. How does it FEEL for you to communicate worldwide..

No no no, I don't mean going from already intelligent/sentient/sapient to MORE intelligent….

I mean, going from the levels of intelligence/awareness we see in insects → fish → chickens and cattle → monkeys/apes → what we consider "actual" intelligence as seen in humans.

Evolution of anything is obviously not some simple boolean switch: It's not like one day you're a full fish and the next day you give birth to an amphibian with legs.

But how would the gradual evolution of intelligence look and feel like?

Going from what we consider animals to be, to having awareness and introspective thoughts and future planning?

Is it like, do you have just 1 thought per day at first,

or can only count up to 3 for a few thousand years,

only plan for up to 1 day ahead, and remember that plan for only a few hours…

And when do all the clearly self-destructive things kick in, that we Modern Humans™ do that obviously harm individuals and the species? :)

[shermantanktop]

I guess I see it as a continuum. My cats are clearly not as smart as a human, but they remember and they have independent thoughts. Presumably they wouldn’t feel inadequate compared to a human, since they get everything they could possibly want and we do the work. But it’s highly unlikely that they are smart enough to have that self-reflective thought.

Humans have the gift of understanding, but our lives are filled with things we either don’t really understand or that we have an illusion of understanding. Of course, we wonder “why does evil exist?” whereas cats wonder “when is dinnertime?”