RE: Humans Are Not Smarter Than Other Forms Of Life, Just Different
The "argument" was in direct response to statements such as "Ever noticed how most humans cannot survive outside of what we call "civilization"? A rat, a cat or a bird in or outside our cities will learn to adopt in a gist." and "A cat grows richer fur in the winter and lighter in the summer; we have to manufacture, buy and wear clothes. A cat has sharp nails that it can choose to keep inside its palm and use only in times of need; we have to build sharp tools and carry them around. A cat can eat mice, flies, and all "dirty" animals and insects; we'd get sick and we need to prepare food in a special way to avoid it. A cat can hear better, smell better, see better in the dark. It can jump several times its height; we need lenses, mobile phones and running shoes. A cat cleans itself; we need showers with special soaps." And Ivanka Trump has her food served to her whereas I need to prepare all my meals myself!
I wasn't making an argument per se, I was merely reversing yours (actually mostly elemenya's) because I don't know why "civilization" has to be ranked below "inherited privilege" (as I called it) like growing fur and nails. It's not the cat doing most of the things elemenya listed, they're being done on her behalf, automatically, which is why it probably doesn't need as much consciousness as we do, it just sits back and lets nature do its work.
A cat can still live within a city and outside. A human though cannot. They need all these comforts. A cat can live outside its own yard. A human cannot.
When you and your friend are about to take an exam and you need to study, buy books, etc in order to do it while your friend instinctively is better then who is more intelligent? If you as a human has to do build all these crap around you in order to survive while a species a self-sufficient then you are less intelligent, not it.
yet again. we are different. hence why I said nobody is smarter. we are all different
Well about the 'study' example, I guess that's why we differentiate between words like 'talent' and 'intelligence'. The guy who has innate...well, talent! is just gonna fare better, just like a person might take well to learning a musical instrument, while I may need to study a lot.
In general, my personal preference would be that I would know how to do everything myself, instead of relying on nature, DNA, civilization, etc. That's how humans envisaged God in the first place: a being that is self-sufficient, knows everything, can make everything himself, etc. Being the most superior being entails being able to (consciously) do everything yourself. To even approach that, of course, we'd need substantially larger brains with much greater capacities etc. But between a cat that grows its fur unwittingly, and a person who grows fur because he made a pill that makes him hirsute, I'd say the latter is the more intelligent, because he's understood the process.
I'm aware this isn't a reply to your exact argument, I'm just expressing some thoughts that came to mind reading it.
again you are comparing human deeds with another species. what a cat might call intelligence does not relate to your own term because we both have different physiologies.
Understanding the process is irrelevant. Evolution has pushed you to understand aka develop that capacity because you were inefficient to begin with. its an extra step anyway you want to see it. the harsh truth of life is survival....not understanding, not building, not being smart . if you have to measure intelligence you have to draw your parallels from this harsh cold fact.
Not everything needs to be related to survival, otherwise it's just "might makes right". I don't care how many stones a religious zealot will throw at me, it doesn't make him right just because he's overpowered me, and I would claim the same goes for "intelligence" (whatever it might turn out to be): I don't think the most intelligent creature is the one that's better at surviving. The creature that's better at surviving is just that: better at surviving. Some words are indeed bs, but there's no need to collapse the entire dictionary into this single 's' word.
it is might makes right. look around you.
overpowering another individual or species is the epitome of life. the pinnacle of existence. Just because humans are romantic doesn't mean their petty moral justifications reflect in any way on nature's doings.
intelligence needs to have a definition. the broad universal definition is learn through habit or repetition in order to ensure owns survival. Every aims towards there. whether it is done through RNA or epigenetic processes (aka environment) is irrelevant because it all ends up to the same purpose from the same exact parameter.