>>> Continued from previous message There are also social consequences that accompany the development of significant intelligence. An increasing reliance on a learned repertoire implies an increased period of dependency on the part of the young. The need for learning plus the problems of rearing learning-based offspring involve a very serious cost from an evolutionary perspective. Such organisms have few offspring and this means that, unlike lower organisms that reproduce in greater numbers, the survival of each of these offspring is important. This longer maturation period and the need for security creates a trend toward social living, as the infant and its mother are in need of the support of others (Laughlin and D'Aquili 1974). This model is not only true for humans but also apes, cetaceans, elephants, and most other mammals with appreciable intelligence. Further, as we shall see, the exigencies of social life can prove to be as strong a stimulus for the evolution of increased intelligence, as any other factor. This creates a positive feedback loop in which intelligence promotes social living which, once established, makes increased intelligence highly adaptive. Even among lower animals, greater intelligence means more flexibility in dealing with environmental conditions. For predators this implies a greater ability to locate and consume prey, while, for prey, greater intelligence increases the likelihood of avoiding such a fate (Byrne and Whiten 1988). As intelligence increases, other emergent properties appear which reflect the expanded complexity of the system, and which confer still greater advantages upon the possessor. At some point, increasing intelligence should lead to self-awareness (Itzkoff 1985, Jastrow 1981, Laughlin and D'Aquili 1974). An organism equipped with self- awareness can model not only the externals of the environment, but can now include itself as an element of attention. It has a self- concept separable from the environment and capable of conscious examination and reflection (Tunnell 1973). Concurrent with such a development is an increase in the organism's ability to construct an internal environment that can not only represent the external world, but also make possible the construction of symbols which are, by definition, arbitrarily related to their referents (Gazzaniga 1992, Laughlin and D'Aquili 1974, Laughlin, et al. 1990). The capacity for symbolism represents an enormous evolutionary advantage for any intelligent species. Prior to its appearance, communications are limited by environmental stimuli in what is termed a "closed" system (Hockett 1973). In such circumstances, an organism emits a signal that is automatically called forth by an external stimulus. There is no displacement in time or space, and such calls are generally mutually exclusive. The information carrying capacity of the system is thus limited to the number of calls hard-wired into the organism. With symbolism, organisms gain the ability to displace their messages and to combine them in ever more complex and novel assemblages. Further, they can assign meanings in complex ways influenced, but not dictated, by biology. This opens up the realm of culture, a learned set of patterns for behavior that are far more malleable than the biological substrate that made them possible. While symbolism involves greatly increased freedom from the constraints of the organism's biological limitations, this freedom is not absolute. For humans, the structure of our brain imposes limits both on the amount of information we can process at any given time (Miller 1956, Miller 1951), and on the kinds of information we can process (Ardila and Ostrosky-Solis 1989, Jerison 1990, Lenneberg 1967, Thompson and Green 1982). There is reason to believe that similar limitations and perceptual dispositions would attend any evolving sentience (Gazzaniga 1992, Sauer and MacNair 1983, Stokoe 1989, Wasserman 1989). Given such an expectation, it seems likely that sentients who have evolved from a predator background would differ markedly from sentients whose gustatory preference run to plants. PREDATOR INTELLIGENCE MODELS There are a variety of relations that obtain between predator and prey. Some predators, such as the anteater, specialize in a single prey; others, like the wolf, ingest a wide range of prey, but most probably fall in the mid-range (Evans and Schmidt 1990). All predators need strategies to locate, obtain and consume prey, but the nature of these strategies can range from the genetically programmed activities of spiders , to the complex hunting practices of the !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari Desert (Lee 1979, Lee 1984, Marshall 1976). In the latter case, intelligence not only makes it more likely that prey will be obtained, it also promotes an optimal distribution of calories and even saving against future need. In assessing whether or not predators are as likely as others to develop high intelligence, the answer is unequivocal PPP they are not less, but more likely than others to evolve a high intelligence. This somewhat surprising conclusion results from an examination of ethological research, as well as contemplation of the models purporting to describe factors that promote intelligence. Recall that intelligence is selected for when it enables an organism to exploit resources that would otherwise elude it. This argument holds for both predators and prey, but, for reasons I will discuss below, its selective pressure is greater for predators. Recall also, that complex environments select for intelligence by creating conditions where more intelligent competitors have an advantage in exploiting limited resources (Evans and Schmidt 1990, Robinson 1990). The simple fact of the matter is that predators have a more difficult set of problems to solve and these involve environmental conditions that are more complex for the predator than they are for the prey. Said another way, predators are more environmentally challenged than prey and this increases the selective advantage of increased intelligence. Prey need to locate resources which, in the case of herbivores are nicely stationary. Further, they need to survive the depredations of predators, but it is not necessary that all individuals need to endure, to insure the perpetuation of the prey species. Indeed, many prey adapt to the competition with predators by becoming more fecund rather than more elusive. In contrast, predators must actively solve their problems including locating prey. As Malthus would suggest, there are always more prey than predators, but such prey may prove difficult to find. To survive, predators must prove more capable than their prey. The complexity of a predator's environment not only includes those elements also encountered by prey, but also the behavior of the prey itself. It might be argued that the prey could benefit from being able to better model the behavior of predators but, given their higher birth rate and the costs of intelligence, the selective advantage of intelligence is actually less for prey than for predators. As may be imagined, the presumed world view of an intelligent predator would view other entities in an extremely utilitarian, probably gustatory, fashion. There would likely be constraints on exploitative behaviors, since no intelligent predator would wish to extirpate a source of calories, but there is no reason to anticipate much in the way of inter-sapient altruism. Indeed should Extraterrestrial visitors prove to be evolved from a consistent predator base, it seems likely that their interest in us would, at least from our perspective, be quite malevolent. Of course, it may be argued that the assumption of uniform hostility on the part of Extraterrestrials descended from predator stock is too simplistic since it does not incorporate the meliorating influence of adaptation to social life over a prolonged period of evolution. My image of predators also obfuscates the possible role of culture in reducing an us-them view of the universe. In fairness, then, we should examine a wider range of possibilities in which intelligence can be promoted by a variety of circumstances in addition to predation. 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