[javajosh]

>Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height.

My friend, I think you are implying intention where there is none. It's true that the effect of beaver dam-building is advantageous, but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part. It's a curious case of effort without decision. One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but a beaver will try to build one anyway. It's just what he does.

Do humans eat to keep from starving? Do we have sex to have babies? Do we love our babies so that they don't die? I don't think so. We do these things because it's built into us to do them, just like the beaver.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part.

How do you know that?

>One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but a beaver will try to build one anyway. It's just what he does.

A beaver is not an NPC in a video game. It has actual intelligence. Maybe not much, but more than can be modeled in such a trivial way. And humans for our part are quite often found behaving irrationally and against our better interests.

>Do humans eat to keep from starving?

We eat because we're hungry, we farm to keep from starving. Why did we launch a man to visit the moon? Is the fact that the beavers haven't sent their own delegation to the moon evidence of their inferiority? Maybe they just prefer non-interventionist foreign policy.

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons. (23.1)

[c22]

> One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but a beaver will try to build one anyway.

The real question is if the beaver realizes this. I can think of situations where humans have done things that I believe it would have been better for them not to do based on my own information which may be different from theirs.

[pm90]

Sex seems a lot more simple than building a dam though. I mean, how does the Beaver even know this kind of stuff? Is it in its genetic material, or is it taught by its parents?

Either way, fascinating stuff.

[tomstuart]

Just to answer your question: it's in its genetic material. It really is fascinating; it can even make evolutionary sense to think of the dam as an extension of the beaver's physical body, in as much a beaver's dams are "built by" its genes just like the cells of its body are. Google "extended phenotype" if you'd like more detail.

[Raphmedia]

I put a ball in your hands. How do you get the idea to throw it? Who is giving it to you? Your logic work that way, through countless genetic iterations.

Now, the fun part, is that dogs, through similar genetic iterations, have evolved to love catching said ball and bringing it back to us.

Life is fun.

[senthil_rajasek]

The way I like to think about it is ... Birds build nests, Bees build hives and Beavers build dams.