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How likely is it that there's an animal on earth that's smarter than human beings in key areas? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by cinoreus@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Let me elaborate, how likely is that there's an animal on earth that's smarter than us? By smarter, I understand intelligence is a nuanced topic unique to different animals, so for the sake of argument, let's talk about, mathematics, critical thinking about where and how to apply those mathematical concepts, and creativity in any form.

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[–] cinoreus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah I did expect my language wasn't precise enough, so to be more clear, animal that can excel at maths or creativity in a similar way humans do.

[–] antbricks@lemmy.today 3 points 6 days ago

Unfortunately, by the tightening up the language, the question resembles more and more "Are there animals with human brains?" To which of course we have to say no, so somewhere along the scale before the question turning into that there must be some version that is an interesting question with an interesting answer.

So what kind of answer are you looking for? An intelligence that resembles human problem solving sufficiently that we could somehow use it ourselves? A fungus can solve a maze through branching in a way that we can't so its solution isn't useful for a human actually in a maze. But maybe a linear algebraist could apply the technique to families of problems and a solver could be implemented in specialized hardware more efficiently than a Turing machine GPP.

But I don't think we left any non-human intelligent species around to compete with us, if you're looking for a conversation. Neanderthal was the last.