Intelligent LIfe

[maxlords]

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

[oli_lar]

Mars might have had a brief spell. There's some indication there might be living microbes there.

what determines the size of animals, humans etc. here on earth? gravity, size of the planet or something else?

* Gravity etc

Also add in to that the time a species is around. A species tends to get bigger and bigger. The only reason why there aren't huge giants around is because there are regular extinction events (be it on a small scale that forces smaller members of a species to have an advantage, as in island dwarfism, or ones that completely wipe the species out). Dinosaurs are a good example of this - Triassic dinosaurs were tiny, but as they were the dominant form of life for so long they grew to immense sizes by the cretaceous.

Which leads on to something else mentioned in this thread, why intelligent life hasn't evolved before. As birds/dinosaurs and mammals are both warm blooded, it is difficult to say why such intelligence like ours didn't occur in the former group. Birds as a separate form of life are one of the most recent to evolve. Even dinosaurs, their descendants, were pre-dated by mammals. Modern mammals were around before the dinosaurs as mice, voles etc and have a long line stretching back as the mammal-like reptiles. It is probably the sudden abrupt end of the dinosaurs and the survival of a small proportion of their ilk, those that had already evolved flying that ended it, as flying creatures just don't have the luxury to evolve large brains.

So what created the bacteria? Are you saying we come from bacteria? Can a big explosion really create life? I have seen my share of things blowing up, but I have yet to see any animals popping out from them.

Its like the question if a tornado hits a scrap yard can it throw together a plane. Its not likely, but if the pieces are there it is possible. Not that I'm saying an explosion threw out bacteria: it created clouds of dust, which coalesced under gravity to forms suns, planets etc and thus conditions where organic materials can accumulate:

'Life' is essentially a collection of molecules. At its base, the very essence of life, is carbon, which has many different configurations itself (graphite, diamond etc) but many more combined with the other parts of life: hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. The amino acids, proteins that form from them do so too: so a huge amount of complexity can arise. Life is a chemical reaction that slots chemicals together in different ways. Where life really differs from 'non-living' chemical reactions is that there is an element of chance: mutations. If it were not for the small chance that something could go wrong the structures would stay the same, they wouldn't evolve and survive changing circumstances. I can't be bothered explaining how DNA works, but these chemical 'formulas' are stored in DNA, itself a amino acid. Anyway, proteins form the physical characteristics of a cell, that hold these collections of acids together.

What you are saying sounds like religion. And well, not to be rude, but religion comes from ignorance - I mean it in the literal form rather than an insult . Easy remedy, just read some wikipedia.

It has already been proven that insects can have a group consciousness far above that of humans(altho humans appear to be evolving a bit in that respect)

Its not the same thing though, it reacts to situations in the same way that their ancestors successfully reacted to, and survived. It needs situations it faces to say the same, otherwise that hive will be wiped out and another one that had a chance mutation and successfully reacted will take its place. A hive can't whip out a pipe, have a few puffs, draw up some blue prints and then construct a weapon to deal with it. Even if they have higher processing power (which I'd dispute) they don't have the hard drive to store information on, they simply read from ROM, ie their hard coded genes. Sorry if that comparison doesn't make sense In other words they can't perform abstract thought, for which a long term memory is needed. In other situations like a flock of birds evading a predator it is similar one bird reacts to another, which reacts to another all in a very similar way.

I do find it interesting that there is somewhat a consensus in this thread that machines will be/are the pinnacle of evolution. There isn't much distinction between computers and organic brains bar the components - both run on electricity - it is perfectly acceptable that biological matter can be utilised to make probes etc, it is just a matter of research. Its probably likely humans haven't done this as many seem to be somewhat squeamish at the thought of genetic engineering.



As to the question itself - its highly likely there will be life out there. Intelligent life less so, but still highly likely. It hasn't been mentioned but there is also the rare earth theory, but with the sheer amount of suns in the milky way, let alone the rest of the universe, it is almost certain. Whether or not they (or we - look at how close we came to nuclear war, if Vasili Arkhipov had not opposed as he did we all might not be here now) will have been able to advance to such a level to come in to contact with us is another question: there are no examples to judge from, neither do we know if it is technologically possible yet.

[CMoon]

It has already been proven that insects can have a group consciousness far above that of humans(altho humans appear to be evolving a bit in that respect)

I assume your talking ants & bees here, but I would be very hesistant to equate that kind of 'intelligence' to ours. I still prefer terms like 'consciousness' and prefer better the notion of symbolic and abstract thought, something that the sum of every ant and bee in earth is not capable of, but a human child can do.

Your other points are well taken though. Especially given that biology on other worlds might take on a vastly different form, there's nothing to say that intelligent life couldn't function on a vastly smaller scale. Indeed, compared to the efficiency of the working of a single cell, the neural networks of an animal seem highly inefficient. Animals themselves seem highly inefficient when it comes down to it. I imagine biologists will get to a point they can start re-designing life with efficiency in mind. Even the central dogma of DNA to protein is rather crude. Redesigned I'm sure the potential of life at a very small scale would be staggering!

[CMoon]

Also add in to that the time a species is around. A species tends to get bigger and bigger.

I don't think this is a real trend. Rather, there is a sort of max cap on size. There are advantages that come with being REALLY LARGE, but also serious disadvantages. Large animals are at a much higher risk of going extinct, period, and are always the first to go whenever there is environmental instability.

It's also hard to see consistency in this trend, given that while the largest animal that has ever lived is still extant, the largest land animal was a dinosaur. My point being, I think the issue of size is a dynamic one, not an overall trend toward bigger. Especially given that evolution rarely has trends like that unless they correlate with a consistant and directional trend in the environment, or have been brought on by a significant evolutionary innovation (IE warm bloodedness, flight, etc.)

Modern mammals were around before the dinosaurs as mice, voles etc and have a long line stretching back as the mammal-like reptiles.

I don't mean to be nit-picking at your arguments, but I'm highly dubious about modern mammals originating before dinosaurs. A quick wikipedia search indicates the first mammal fossils showing up about 200 mya, a rough 60 million years into the age of dinosaurs; and let's add that these would NOT have been placental mammals (such as mice, voles, etc.)

More Wikipedia shows placentals appearing as early as 125 mya. Of course, maybe there are older fossils I don't know about, but this matches up with the what I learned in school.

Other than that, yeah, I'm fascinated about the lack of consciousness evolving. It's certainly had its chance. One study you can see in the Nova film 'Dogs Decoded' suggests that the roots of symbolic thought are present in dogs, which suggests (at least to me) that they are probably present in virtually all mammals (or at least in everything descended from our shared common ancestor). It makes me think that in the general selective pressures on animals, symbolic/abstract thought isn't something being selected for, but instead, we got as a sort of package deal. I tend to belive we got it as a necessary component of our evolution as a social group--our increasing need for complex communication driving the need for enhanced symbolic/abstract though processes. For instance, a primate might keep mental tally of what he has been given by an ally, versus what he's given an ally (included grooming, support against foes, etc.) These are abstract perks, and just wrapping your head around how a potential ally might help you in the future requires something staggeringly more sophisticated than your average mammal has.

The question of the evolution of intelligence in a way goes back to another question regarding the evolution of animal societies, because I think without social groups, you don't get the kind of intelligence we have.

[BryanM]

The power of AI is profound. Natural selection is meandering, unreliable, slow, and a miracle it works at all.

Intelligent design now, that takes you places. Some people have it wrong - they think intelligent design comes from God, which in a way it will. But first, intelligent design will create gods.

At least from our point of view. And then it'll be boring and mundane. Having a computer make you new episodes of Firefly from scratch will be as passe as the miracles cell phones perform that don't make anyone bat an eye.

[oli_lar]

Also add in to that the time a species is around. A species tends to get bigger and bigger.

I don't think this is a real trend. Rather, there is a sort of max cap on size. There are advantages that come with being REALLY LARGE, but also serious disadvantages. Large animals are at a much higher risk of going extinct, period, and are always the first to go whenever there is environmental instability.

It's also hard to see consistency in this trend, given that while the largest animal that has ever lived is still extant, the largest land animal was a dinosaur. My point being, I think the issue of size is a dynamic one, not an overall trend toward bigger. Especially given that evolution rarely has trends like that unless they correlate with a consistant and directional trend in the environment, or have been brought on by a significant evolutionary innovation (IE warm bloodedness, flight, etc.)

You do have to add in the fact, however recent, and thus evolutionary insignificant, humans probably had a large factor in the extinction of non African (and to an extent, Asian) megafauna in environments the megafauna hadn't evolved with humans. Many went extinct before the emergence/spread across the globe of modern human of course though - ie largest land mammal ever, Paraceratherium. Current examples of large animals (and generally mammals) are restricted to Africa. Until the arrival of humans there were Megalania - 7m long monitor lizards roaming Australia. I could also point out the terror birds of South America and similar large avains in other (isolated) areas, though they may be inconsistent examples.

The sea and blue whale is somewhat external to this, being a relatively recent habitat (if you could call it that) of humans. There were plenty of large marine reptiles previously - not approaching the mass of the blue whale, but length-wise not a mile off.

I get what you are saying - such factors are part and parcel - but I think the arms race between larger prey and predator animals is where this trait comes into effect. Obviously where size becomes a negative trait it is eliminated, but in a situation where that doesn't become a decisive factor, ie the environment is stable enough to not have an impact, predator and prey evolution and arms race takes the centre stage. One successful trait is being bigger than everything else.

Modern mammals were around before the dinosaurs as mice, voles etc and have a long line stretching back as the mammal-like reptiles.

I don't mean to be nit-picking at your arguments, but I'm highly dubious about modern mammals originating before dinosaurs. A quick wikipedia search indicates the first mammal fossils showing up about 200 mya, a rough 60 million years into the age of dinosaurs; and let's add that these would NOT have been placental mammals (such as mice, voles, etc.)

More Wikipedia shows placentals appearing as early as 125 mya. Of course, maybe there are older fossils I don't know about, but this matches up with the what I learned in school.

Other than that, yeah, I'm fascinated about the lack of consciousness evolving. It's certainly had its chance. One study you can see in the Nova film 'Dogs Decoded' suggests that the roots of symbolic thought are present in dogs, which suggests (at least to me) that they are probably present in virtually all mammals (or at least in everything descended from our shared common ancestor). It makes me think that in the general selective pressures on animals, symbolic/abstract thought isn't something being selected for, but instead, we got as a sort of package deal. I tend to belive we got it as a necessary component of our evolution as a social group--our increasing need for complex communication driving the need for enhanced symbolic/abstract though processes. For instance, a primate might keep mental tally of what he has been given by an ally, versus what he's given an ally (included grooming, support against foes, etc.) These are abstract perks, and just wrapping your head around how a potential ally might help you in the future requires something staggeringly more sophisticated than your average mammal has.

The question of the evolution of intelligence in a way goes back to another question regarding the evolution of animal societies, because I think without social groups, you don't get the kind of intelligence we have.[/quote]


You are totally right about placental mammals - I wasn't referring to mice/voles as they are today, but rather as the form early mammal/mammal like reptiles took as to occupy that subterranean insectivorous niche. I shouldn't have said 'modern' really as that implies placental, I was more going for the definition of how the general form of mammals post Dinosaur started out ie small insectivores.

I agree with you on the evolution of consciousness, though I'd add in the unique trait of being able to record these 'tallies' though writing - this is what really kick started modern culture at least (ironically enough through religion) in cooperation with farming, that was what enabled certain members of societies to not take part in the production/gathering of food and concentrate efforts in other pursuits (ie technology). It has only been very recently there has been mostly universal literacy, and this is what has encouraged the huge bounds in technology we have seen in the last few hundred years.

Another thing would be cooking - it is a relatively recent theory, but given that cooking food can increase the nutritional of food value generally several times, or make surviving on something previously inhospitable to the human stomach, it suggests that once humanoids started cooking the effort involved in food gathering was decreased thus there was more 'down time' (thus arts and tool making could flourish) and new regions were accessible. Both of which would increase the success of the species and the pool from which positive traits could be acquired.

But yeah, most of the intelligent examples of animals today (and in the past) are social (predatory) animals. Dolphins, wolves, raptor dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs etc. Hunting seems to be the distinction - herbivores never seem to be intelligent, but carnivores and omnivores (as we and chimps are) rule the roost in such regards.

Sorry if anything I've said seems disjointed and rambling, I've had a few drinks

[CMoon]

The power of AI is profound. Natural selection is meandering, unreliable, slow, and a miracle it works at all.

Intelligent design now, that takes you places. Some people have it wrong - they think intelligent design comes from God, which in a way it will. But first, intelligent design will create gods.

At least from our point of view. And then it'll be boring and mundane. Having a computer make you new episodes of Firefly from scratch will be as passe as the miracles cell phones perform that don't make anyone bat an eye.

Haha, I think you mean Intelligent Design in a different way than some folks in other circles are using it. With Craig Venter having designed his own microbe (with the copywrite and webpage encoded in the DNA), I suspect the kind of Intelligent Design you are taking about is only going to be science fiction for a little bit longer.

[beyonder]

Yeah I believe aliens are "out there." Quitte hard for me to not be convinced when looking at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field...

http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/imag ... ll_jpg.jpg

[CMoon]

I agree with you on the evolution of consciousness, though I'd add in the unique trait of being able to record these 'tallies' though writing - this is what really kick started modern culture at least (ironically enough through religion) in cooperation with farming, that was what enabled certain members of societies to not take part in the production/gathering of food and concentrate efforts in other pursuits (ie technology). It has only been very recently there has been mostly universal literacy, and this is what has encouraged the huge bounds in technology we have seen in the last few hundred years.

It's an interesting question because humans have really only had writing for about 6 thousand years, but we see the evidence of human culture (if you count bead making and cave painting, and burial rituals) back to over 40 thousand years ago. Is the dawn of writing what aloud the Egyptians and Romans to become so much more than anything was before--or does post writing history seem so much more significant because we have writing about it? That and their works are more recent and have survived (to some extent)? What's most remarkable to me is why it took so long for human writing to emerge? I suspect it writing did not just emerge in cooperation with agricultural but entirely because of it, and not because of a particular need, but rather because humans finally had the time to actually establish it. Writing (again, an extension of symbolic thought) seems nearly enevitable, but the idea it took some 30 thousand years at least for anyone to get anything formalized is rather humbling.

[burgerkingdiamond]

What you are saying sounds like religion. And well, not to be rude, but religion comes from ignorance - I mean it in the literal form rather than an insult . Easy remedy, just read some wikipedia.

this ^

Basically anything we would try to say about what life is out there would be just speculation. Who knows how it would evolve or what form it could take. But based on the incomprehensible size of the Universe it is almost a certainty that there has to be something out there. I think that only somebody deluded by religion could convince themselves Earth is the only planet supporting life (or they just don't know enough about science to realize how small we really are).

Unfortunately, the massive size of the Universe means that we'll most likely never be able to detect this other life, and most definitely never come into contact with it.

[neorichieb1971]

The chances of life being only a few planets from here is feasible. Since finding out that life exists at the bottom of our oceans without sun light and excruciating pressures, its feasible that life exists on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter which have the same terrains.

[oli_lar]

The chances of life being only a few planets from here is feasible. Since finding out that life exists at the bottom of our oceans without sun light and excruciating pressures, its feasible that life exists on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter which have the same terrains.

It could certainly exist - tardigrades are able to survive nearly anything - the question is whether it could evolve there.

Unfortunately, the massive size of the Universe means that we'll most likely never be able to detect this other life, and most definitely never come into contact with it.

Its difficult to say, given how far we have come with the right approach to technology (ie after religion stopped persecuting those that said anything contrary to the bible etc) it may indeed be possible. Any distance may become negligible. I'd certainly like to think so anyway. Who knows, we might find a mass relay too

It's an interesting question because humans have really only had writing for about 6 thousand years, but we see the evidence of human culture (if you count bead making and cave painting, and burial rituals) back to over 40 thousand years ago. Is the dawn of writing what aloud the Egyptians and Romans to become so much more than anything was before--or does post writing history seem so much more significant because we have writing about it? That and their works are more recent and have survived (to some extent)? What's most remarkable to me is why it took so long for human writing to emerge? I suspect it writing did not just emerge in cooperation with agricultural but entirely because of it, and not because of a particular need, but rather because humans finally had the time to actually establish it. Writing (again, an extension of symbolic thought) seems nearly enevitable, but the idea it took some 30 thousand years at least for anyone to get anything formalized is rather humbling.

Writing may be a by product of both. I struggle to remember the source, but remember something saying the earliest Egyptian writing and measurements dealt with the need to tabulate agriculture and trade, so it may be a combination of time and need. I guess it is also due to it being one of the biggest empires to that date, a lot of organisation was needed.

[CMoon]

the question is whether it could evolve there.

And this really is the question. We are discovering many planets that may have conditions suitable for life, but the specific conditions under which life could originate appear to be restricted to a much smaller range than suspected when the Urey-Miller experiments were done. Many have said life could not originate on earth as it exists now, but that is not 100% certain. Exactly what conditions would be required are still a bit of a question mark, and of course there is always the issue of what other forms alternate metabolisms and replication methods are chemically possible. What exactly the right sort of planet for life to start on would look like is hard to say, but it may be much less like earth than you would think.

[Dale]

Their is some crazy smart up in this thread. You guys I'm guessing pull down some good money with whatever it is you do. I understand all of it atleast.

[burgerkingdiamond]

Ok. This is related but slightly off Topic. Richard Dawkins gives a great lecture on evolution. It's pretty simplistic yet still fascinating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHoxZF3Z ... re=related

[CMoon]

Their is some crazy smart up in this thread. You guys I'm guessing pull down some good money with whatever it is you do. I understand all of it atleast.

*sighs* I teach 12 year olds.

[neorichieb1971]

The hardest part of evolution is getting a "being" to evolve beyond eating, breeding and dying. The reason we feel alone in the universe is because we are the only ones that feel curious.

The only reason we got curious is because we are supreme beings that nobody else screws with.

Because nobody screws with us we have had 800 years of the English language to fall back on to learn from others mistakes.

Then lets say an alien species has a science division, you need the right commodities on that particular planet to make contact. In this instance, an alien planet might have a compound that can light up the universe like a beacon. On our planet, no such thing exists.

[kernow]

Their is some crazy smart up in this thread. You guys I'm guessing pull down some good money with whatever it is you do. I understand all of it atleast.

*sighs* I teach 12 year olds.

I assume your talking ants & bees here

[CMoon]

The hardest part of evolution is getting a "being" to evolve beyond eating, breeding and dying.

I actually disagree with this; the more I learn about how the cell may have evolved, that seems like such a bigger deal than anything else. Not that I'm looking for some outside force explaining things away, but even when it seems were close on understanding how cells may have originated, we're still very very far away from really being able to recreate it. In comparison, everything else seems easy.

As far as curiosity, it genuine does show up in all primates, but I think there's only so far you can go with it when you don't have language to construct your thoughts with. I would counter that our particular situation is one of natural primate curiosity combined with the expanded elements of abstract and symbolic thought. That doesn't mean it isn't remarkable though; but so many adaptations (like flight for instance) really are remarkable.

[CMoon]

*sighs* I teach 12 year olds.

I assume your talking ants & bees here

[BryanM]

A chunk of the human brain actually altered to support more complex language didn't it?

To help us kill and eat those lesser humans too stupid to choose to mutate in such a manner?

[CMoon]

A chunk of the human brain actually altered to support more complex language didn't it?

To help us kill and eat those lesser humans too stupid to choose to mutate in such a manner?

I don't really have a background in neurology, and everything I know about the language centers of the brain are based on popular science books and documentaries. My understanding is that it really is language that sets us apart from everything else, and being a language user is hardwired. All children are 'language ready', and will develop language given a social environment, period. If isolated though, beyond 7 years or so, those potential neural circuits are lost, but interesting enough, the person is not just stripped of language but also of pretty much all the intellectual ability that makes us human.

I should add that all human languages share the same syntax, which is why linguists and neuroscientists believe that ultimately language is biological. There's also evidence from groups of deaf children denied access to sign language spontanteous developing complete languages on the spot--and of course with the universal syntax that all languages share.

As far as why humans evolved language--that's a really interesting question. You have to think what the advantages might be in social groups. If you can communicate the past, share ideas, lie, make sophisticated alliances, etc., would this grant an advantage to some proto-human hominid? I think very much so.

[neorichieb1971]

Our language ability is probably structured around our fingers. We can draw and I would imagine that was the first form of communication. After that it was torrented across the world. Then you had a vocal chord in the human which can turn vibrations into a communication form. Most animals haven't had that opportunity of having a vocal chord that can hum or sing. An alien might not even have an atmosphere to communicate in so we have to take that into consideration.

Or perhaps, we are intercepting messages from alien beings right now and have been for years and haven't the technology to hear it, see it or feel it. They are probably wondering why we didn't send them a crop circle back.. How rude of us

[GaijinPunch]

My understanding is that it really is language that sets us apart from everything else,

I read an interesting article in NYT recently stating that it was commerce. I know all the Jack Donaghy types of the world would love to point out how business is ingrained into our minds, but the article made a valid point that way back when, some early men traded some shit that was only found in the mountains w/ some shit that was only found near the beach, and the art of trade was born. Man is no longer a one-trick-pony, so to speak.

After that it was torrented across the world.

I wonder if anyone ever stopped seeding.

[Randorama]

There are a lot of things that set us apart from other species, to be honest.

A general feeling I have is that most people claiming the uniqueness of certain aspect of "human life" with respect to other species tend to be a bit miopic. I will try to illustrate the idea in a non-technical jargon.

As far as I understand, many (all) aspects of human cognition appear to display certain complex properties, which suggest that our minds tend to organize information in a certain principled way. In particular, it seems that a crucial ability is to be able to, say, take different units of information and compress them into a single unit, while at the same time being able to access the (structural) relations these bits. Think of learning a phone number, a sequence of e.g. 7 digits, as one sequence, and at the same time learning that this sequence is made of single 7 single digits.

It is in theory possible to represent via e.g. model-theoretic structures (i.e. logical systems with a corresponding 'model' or data structure) things as disparate as music, language, action planning, social relations, visual/auditory processing, and a lot of other stuff.

One could use other mathematical structures to represent these facts: the actual formalisms are to an extent irrelevant. It nevertheless appears that, if one picks up a certain 'slice' of human's intellectual capacities, the principles that can account for the observed activities are extremely similar (probably, the same) to the ones that can account for some other activity. One of my favourite examples is about the substantial identity between Language and Music, which can be found here.

Now, as far as I understand the debate, at some point "somewhere in time", Humans suddenly started cognitive capacities "across the board" that displayed certain particular ways of organizing information. My guess is that no specific cognitive faculty started the ball rolling - very roughly, at some point our brains changed and were able to integrate information in a complex way. As a consequence, we suddenly were able to socialize, sing, play games, etc., probably in no particular way.

Language appears to be slightly different, but personally I think that the problem is more fine-grained than a lot of the big names in the field claim it to be. I'd like to expand the point if someone wants me to, I think this post is already quite dense so I'll stop here :p

[CMoon]

As far as I understand, many (all) aspects of human cognition appear to display certain complex properties, which suggest that our minds tend to organize information in a certain principled way. In particular, it seems that a crucial ability is to be able to, say, take different units of information and compress them into a single unit, while at the same time being able to access the (structural) relations these bits.

This is more or less what I was thinking about when I was referring to 'abstract and symbolic thought', which yes, is a way of organizing and chunking. While some other animals demonstrate a little of this, it's more like we process everything through this filter. Everything we see is through language, or at least though a system of organization that seems very different than the way other things perceive the world. Language is very much a human invention (a biological one), but yeah, I think those language centers are a construct upon (or perhaps in conjunction with) whatever parts of our brain that are responsible for processing information in this unique way.

So can I just start quoting Rilke's 8th Duino Elegy here?

It is in theory possible to represent via e.g. model-theoretic structures (i.e. logical systems with a corresponding 'model' or data structure) things as disparate as music, language, action planning, social relations, visual/auditory processing, and a lot of other stuff.
...One of my favourite examples is about the substantial identity between Language and Music, which can be found here.

I read the abstract. I hadn't thought about there being something equivalent to syntax in music. I would have guessed this was one of the few areas of experience that might be PURE, but on the other hand, the lack of music among other species does suggest it too is a byproduct of the way our brain works. Again, I think we are both suspecting the same thing--that language and music both are springing out of a fundamental brain change.

Now, as far as I understand the debate, at some point "somewhere in time", Humans suddenly started cognitive capacities "across the board" that displayed certain particular ways of organizing information. My guess is that no specific cognitive faculty started the ball rolling - very roughly, at some point our brains changed and were able to integrate information in a complex way. As a consequence, we suddenly were able to socialize, sing, play games, etc., probably in no particular way.

Yeah, I've only heard speculation about what might have driven this change. It's still a huge question What we do know is that there no evidence that humans 100 thousand years ago thought like we do, even though they would have looked more or less identical to us. There's no evidence anyway of any of the hallmarks of symbolic thought. Even the lack of burial ritual is significant if some current thinkers are correct in suspecting that the whole notion of a mind/body seperation, an afterlife, etc. springs from symbolic thought (I was watching a video of this on TED, but can't be arsed to look it up now.) So what drives this brain change? Or better yet, which comes first--the complex social life, or the brain that allows complex social life? I'm sure no one can currently answer that.

I'd like to expand the point if someone wants me to, I think this post is already quite dense so I'll stop here :p

Well my only caveat is that everything I know is super general. I know in our previous discussions you've got a way more technical background than me. As long as you can keep it relatively simple, I'm in!

[Dale]

Can't birds comprehend music on some level? I know that some species use it as means of attracting a mate and some birds mimic other birds and sounds that people make. On what level do they comprehend the series of notes and changes in pitch?

[GaijinPunch]

For you linguists: So what's up w/ whales?

[linko9]

Our language ability is probably structured around our fingers. We can draw and I would imagine that was the first form of communication. After that it was torrented across the world. Then you had a vocal chord in the human which can turn vibrations into a communication form. Most animals haven't had that opportunity of having a vocal chord that can hum or sing. An alien might not even have an atmosphere to communicate in so we have to take that into consideration.

Or perhaps, we are intercepting messages from alien beings right now and have been for years and haven't the technology to hear it, see it or feel it. They are probably wondering why we didn't send them a crop circle back.. How rude of us

That would be interesting, but it's almost certainly not the case. It's much more likely that linguistic communication began with physical gestures, with the alternative being vocal gestures (as you note, it's not clear if the vocal tract could produce speech-like sounds when language originated). However, it's very unlikely that language originated as drawing; if it had, writing would have been invented much, much earlier.

[CMoon]

Can't birds comprehend music on some level? I know that some species use it as means of attracting a mate and some birds mimic other birds and sounds that people make. On what level do they comprehend the series of notes and changes in pitch?

It all depends on what you mean by music. When I said that there are no animals with music I really felt there needed to be an asterick there. People using really narrow defiitions of music have said proper music for people doesn't begin until you have the first secular music not attached to a particular ritual or what not, but I seriously find that to be BS. In the same way, we may be limiting the definition of music too tightly when we say animals do not have music. There certainly are cases where animals seem to do things for their own entertainment, and of those animals with vocal ability, how do you say with certainty what is just communication and what might be 'vocalizations for entertainment'...and again, I'm not sure I even like that as some sort of working definition of music in animals.

I think realistically it is hard to say whether animals have or appreciate music. My guess is that they may not, but how do you genuinely rule out every possible instance?

For you linguists: So what's up w/ whales?

Not a linquist, but I'd say it's just another form of animal communication...and a fairly sophisticated one much like bird song. It definitely isn't really any sort of parallel to human language. Again, there's that idea that language isn't just a fancy word for communication, it is an entire neurologically hard-wired way of thinking. Most people use the word without actually understanding what language means.