Question

"Surely animals cannot be intelligent - they only do what their genes tell them to do!" - is the latter statement true? Explain.

Answer 1

Hmm What about 'us' then?

Answer 2

Human Being is a Social Animal

Answer 3

So are bees

Answer 4

What does being Intelligent means?

Answer 5

Yeah but dear friend Only Human Being is that animal who cannot survive without the others

Answer 6

Also, how does the latter statement compare to the statement: "Surely computers cannot be intelligent - they only do what programmers tell them to do!"

Answer 7

Intelligence is the ability to apply knowledge in order to perform better in an environment

Answer 8

What does Genes do in relation to Intelligence?

Answer 9

Neurons, is intelligence because of Neurons or maybe number of Neurons?

Answer 10

genes determine animal phenotype :-D

Answer 11

I recently read a book (damn - only partly). It is called the "Rational Optimist". It makes the case that the humans developed to be intelligent because of the invention of "barter" system and that until then humans were just barely better than their ancestors.

Answer 12

what do humans seek to optimize through the system of barter?

Answer 13

barter system made us intelligent wow

Answer 14

The basic idea behind the barter is that we all don't have to do everything. So, it makes for innovations and inventions that you can trade for something else. The book talks about how they tried to train a bunch of chimpanzees to "trade" something and they simply could not get them to.

Answer 15

Uhm, according to me is false. Every action I do is not a consequence of my genes, but also of my interaction with the environment.

Answer 16

Optimize time. It allows you to use that time for what you can be most productive at.

Answer 17

@alfie

But you said that all a computer's actions are pre-determined by code :(

Answer 18

Yes, but human beings are not computers. More over, according to my biology knowledge, DNA is all about assembling proteins. What I am just typing right now is a complex process, there is no alghoritm involved, it's something that computers do not have (or at least they have in a very insignificant way) creativity, intuition, the ability to find a solution based not on a pattern nor a code.