{"id":35034,"date":"2025-10-23T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T09:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=35034"},"modified":"2025-10-22T21:43:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T01:43:45","slug":"brains-beget-brains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/23\/brains-beget-brains\/","title":{"rendered":"Brains Beget Brains"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a theory.\u00a0 I think that human intelligence will spawn higher intelligence in other species of animals.\u00a0 And this isn\u2019t mysterious.\u00a0 Higher intelligence will produce greater success when sharing an ecosystem that more and more is dominated by human actions.\u00a0 And the negative situation is already well known.\u00a0 Animals that can\u2019t adapt to interaction with modern humans have a much lower chance of thriving in the current world.\u00a0 Maybe the grizzly bear is a good example.\u00a0 In the first century of interaction with Europeans, the grizzly\u2019s instinct told him to charge into a pack of Europeans.\u00a0 This resulted in many, many dead grizzly bears.\u00a0 And this pattern continues to this very day.\u00a0 Result?\u00a0 Grizzlies were extirpated from all parts of United States other than Yellowstone where they were protected by law.<\/p>\n

But what about animals that have adapted?\u00a0 Which animals thrive in our company?\u00a0 Well, obviously dogs and domesticated cats are the prime examples.\u00a0 And as far as it goes, we\u2019ve done a lot more with selective breeding of dogs than cats.\u00a0 And I\u2019m guessing that canine brain development has been fundamentally changed by association with man.\u00a0 I think that some kind of selection is happening that will attune dogs with human intelligence.\u00a0 Now, don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 Dogs are not geniuses but they are relatively intelligent animals and so the potential is there for them to continue to evolve into a creature that interacts with humans at a much closer to equal level than is currently seen.\u00a0 Of course, if we were domesticating chimpanzees or bonobos, I think the process would move at a much faster pace.\u00a0 Those apes already have significantly greater intelligence.\u00a0 But apes are truly dangerous animals with unpredictable behavior.\u00a0 Dogs, for the most part, are already part of the human household and have enormous empathy for people around them (for the most part).\u00a0 So, I think that some time in the future dogs will move forward significantly in intelligence.<\/p>\n

But what other creatures huddle around humanity successfully?\u00a0 Well, rodents.\u00a0 Mice, rats, squirrels and chipmunks.\u00a0 They\u2019ve adapted to humans in a big way.\u00a0 And their numbers have probably never been higher than they are right now.\u00a0 But humans are getting better at killing them.\u00a0 New poisons, better traps and strategies for preventing them from getting into our food stores seems to be making a dent in their success.\u00a0 My guess is as we use smarter and smarter methods to keep them at bay, we will produce smarter and smarter rodents that keep wanting to break in.<\/p>\n

And I have this feeling that one day there will be rodents that are orders of magnitude smarter than they are now.\u00a0 I\u2019ll go out on a limb and say that rats will be the ones to noticeably grow more intelligent.\u00a0 This will sound crazy, but I envision a species of rats that become social in a way that mimics human socialization.\u00a0 I think they\u2019ll develop something approaching speech.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be like something out of a Disney cartoon with the rats having tribal gatherings and getting their marching orders from the head rat.\u00a0 Well, I better get some sleep.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a theory.\u00a0 I think that human intelligence will spawn higher intelligence in other species of animals.\u00a0 And this isn\u2019t mysterious.\u00a0 Higher intelligence will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1263,3545],"tags":[5051,5050],"class_list":["post-35034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-science","tag-evolution","tag-intelligence"],"yoast_head":"\nBrains Beget Brains - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/23\/brains-beget-brains\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brains Beget Brains - 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