[jzu48]

As Lynn Margulis reminded us we are not the main show. Our individual intelligence is highly over rated. The brain itself is kludge upon kludge accumulating over thousands of years, to solve problems that keep changing with time and environmental changes. Its quite a piece of crap actually if you tabulate all the accumulated junk. We arent as interesting as we think we are. Some of the tech and knowledge generated might be interesting. But compare it with to photosynthesis or butterfly metamorphosis or the fact that microbes can double their population in a few hours, all of which is happening without needing any human intelligence. So they may very well be watching but are more curious about a rose or a redwood tree than all the random and superficial activity the chimp brain produces.

[QuercusMax]

I'd be impressed if those microbes or butterflies visited the moon and came back to tell about it.

[kakacik]

Maybe visiting moon is overrated. We can't know, we have very narrow tube vision centered around our rather primitive lives.

Effectively immortal organisms may be more impressive. Or those surviving in anaerobis boiling water conditions. Or fixing radiation defects like its nothing. Or vacuum. Or...

[shevy-java]

> But compare it with to photosynthesis

Artifical solar capture systems exist. Synthetic biology also bridges that gap as well and the genetic basis is known and has been manipulated. Granted, coming up with more efficient photosynthesis is very hard, but I don't share your "we humans are stupid" opinion here at all whatsoever.

> or butterfly metamorphosis

Nothing fascinating here. It is just a genetic program. Viruses have similar programs too - yes, no metamorphosis, but take retroviruses and the syncytium. Mammals only reproduce thanks to retroviruses (not 100% correct, but look at this here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0707873105)

> or the fact that microbes can double their population in a few hours

Wow, we humans surely do not have cells that double. Oh wait ... nevermind. Humans consist of cells. Who would have thought...

Yes, microbes are much faster, but they don't have to coordinate as much as humans do in 3D, not even in a bacterial biofilm. And we have to double a lot more DNA than bacteria do, so of course they are faster.

> about a rose or a redwood tree than all the random and superficial activity the chimp brain produces

That comparison is weird. A rose is thinking as much as a chimp brain?

The human brain is special. Chimps are very clever too but humans have very solid abstract thinking. Animals have this too, to some extent (predator hunting prey, chimps have hunting strategies) but e. g. look at mathematics - animals don't waste their time coming up with higher order theorems.