His answer is the octopus. What say you?

    • seven_phone@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      Humans most certainly would be it by almost any intellectual qualifier you chose to use. Grading every species we have encountered with regards to intelligence and ability to control its environment humanity is a wildly insane outlier. To point of absurdity, to the point where we do not fit to such an extent that some agency other than organic evolution might be suspected.

        • seven_phone@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          2 days ago

          Intelligence is a qualifier unlike other physical qualities, it allows humanity to dominate its environment while not being physically superior to many of the species surrounding us. Intelligence is a quality we recognise and calibrate in other species and seek out in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the development of artificial intelligence. Unlike flying or walking intelligence is universally accepted as a uniquely separate attribute, although not of course by you, so this is where I will end my discussion with you.

            • AA5B@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 day ago

              Human beings can, of course, fly. We can fly much faster and further than any owl could even conceive. However we did it through intelligence, knowledge sharing, tool use, rather than physical evolution. Human flying dominates all other flying life, because of intelligence.

              For pretty much anything most creatures have adapted to do, you could argue so can humans, but because of intelligence, not just narrow physical adaptation. Intelligence is a supreme trait

        • MelonYellow@lemmy.caOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          2 days ago

          Yeah but we literally are changing the planet and affecting other species. We’ve developed nukes that could take out the whole world

            • snooggums@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 days ago

              We are in no way special when it comes to impacting other species or the Earth as a system.

              We do it on purpose, with intent. Heck, we do it for multiple reasons! We also massively impact all parts of the ecosystem at the same time.

                • snooggums@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  ·
                  2 days ago

                  Because it opens up doing so many different things that impact the world as a whole. Beavers instinctually damn moving water and build homes, but that has been their limited behavior for thousands of years. They don’t expand out and change things even more and more over time like humans do, because they don’t actively choose to do new things that continuously expand their impact.

                  That intent and conscious decision making by humans to change the world around them is what makes them special.

            • MelonYellow@lemmy.caOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 days ago

              True but we’re one species. This is comparing one species to all the bacteria

                • moodymellodrone@sopuli.xyz
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  2 days ago

                  I think you should chill out bc this was supposed to be a fun discussion, but I’ll give you the same energy back. The fact that you brought up viruses, which aren’t even living organisms, into a debate regarding species tells me all I need to know about your so-called expertise. We can agree to disagree, that way you can save your arrogance for someone who’s impressed. :)

                  *This is MelonYellow. My server went down with fantastic timing!