How long could intelligence last?
How long could intelligence last?
This sounds like a redundant question, but it's important to the understanding of extraterrestrial life.
The only intelligent life we know about is human life. What did it take for a life form like us to develop?
Intelligent life required about 65 million years to develop. After the dinosaurs became extinct, placental mammals, essentially little rat like creatures, came out of hiding places and began to evolve into more complicated forms. Eventually, the apes appeared, and from some common ancestor, the Homo genus appeared about 2 to 3 million years ago, and these eventually evolved the Homo sapiens species, which is what we are.
The Homo genus evolved hands and eventually larger and larger brains. This combination allowed Homo sapiens to become the dominant species on the planet.
Could such a species evolve on an extraterrestrial planet?
Maybe, but it would require a lot of things to happen, things that happened on Earth. Let's say for the sake of argument that a creature with hands or claws and a large brain does evolve on an alien planet. Could it form a technological society?
That's a great question. My take on this is: the reason humans formed a technological society is because of war. From the very beginning, humans have fought one another for dominance of territory, food, or control. This is still happening even today. It's not unlike what some animal species do in an attempt to compete for food. Some chimpanzees conduct war on each other. Conflict is rampant in the animal world, but it's only for the purposes of survival. Humans seem to wage war for other reasons than survival.
However, war among humans involved another crucial element. War demanded improved methods of killing. From simple spears and knives, humans developed bows and arrows, guns, bombs, and more advanced methods of delivering death. Think of all of the inventions that resulted from war or the preparations for war: airplane, radio, modern medicine, submarines, advanced electronics, radar, rockets, and the computer. I don't think that we would be as advanced as we are today if it weren't for war. Unfortunately, war has also delayed much of human advancement. Think of all of the money that has been wasted on War. War, it seems, is a two edged sword; no pun intended.
How long we survive will be determined by the ability of humans to forgo war and promote peace. I don't see this happening at the moment, but it's possible in the future. Otherwise we will destroy ourselves.
If war is the deciding factor for developing technology, then this could be the same problem on alien planets. Intelligent species develop, evolve and create technology only to destroy themselves. This could explain why we haven't received radio signals from them. They were too busy destroying themselves.
If there is other intelligent alien species out there, I hope that they aren't as stupid as we are.
Thanks for reading.
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