Gorilla Eugenics

[FortunaMaximus]

Yes, there's an upper limit to how much intelligence you can cram into matter. Be it human or any other species in the kingdom.

Nature leaves well enough alone. Give it a few million more years on its own, they'll attain self-awareness, and try to communicate this.

Give the same time frame to H. sap from today. You'd have basically a structure not unlike a pyramid atop another, meeting at their points. Evolution reaches a critical mass where the two pyramids meet, and so forth.

It takes a lot, apparently, to even get self-awareness going. And while there theorically might be an upper limit after this singularity, you'd have to reckon that the probable upper limit of expansion is, on a scale, just as large as the necessary elements to get us to that critical juncture.

Or in short: Garbage in, Garbage out. And GIGO needn't be a bad thing.

[Rduke55]

[ QUOTE ]
Give it a few million more years on its own, they'll attain self-awareness, and try to communicate this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you think this is a given? It's actually incredibly unlikely.

[John21]

Assuming intelligence could develop/evolve in the same manner as say a giraffe's neck grew longer, what would prod them to begin thinking ,talking,etc?

It seems like survival is the only stimulus strong enough to prompt the evolutionary process. So we would have to construct an environment that threatened them enough to cause any advancement.

I'm just not sure if nature, unaided, would provide the stimulus for intellectual growth. It seems that the bulk of mankind's intellectual evolution has occured, not because of the challenges faced by nature, but from the challenges faced from other [censored]-sapiens.

I think we'd have to create an environment where their very survival would "force" them to think and outwit one another for any intellectual growth to occur.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Give it a few million more years on its own, they'll attain self-awareness, and try to communicate this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you think this is a given? It's actually incredibly unlikely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ya know, of course it is. So if we're not apes with voice box mutations, are we self-aware? With a sample size of only one, you can never gauge anything accurately except in rhetoric.

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]

Would gorillas eventually become as smart as Paris Hilton


[/ QUOTE ]

Isn’t Paris Hilton an hotel [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]

If so, would they develop "morals"?

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe, but you need to demonstrate that the do not already have them.

[ QUOTE ]

Would God give them an afterlife?


[/ QUOTE ]
No.

[tolbiny]

Thoeretically? There is no reason to think their intelligence wouldn't increase. It seems that they would develop morals which would be in line with how we selected the ones to breed.
If you are talking about practical aspects the first thing you have to realize is that the gorilla's would need anatomical changes to allow them to have relative brain sizes in line with ours. Humans developed bipedalism first which (amoung other things) allowed for a wider birth canal, and also for longer term care of infants, as well as potentially passing on information. it took over 6 million years with populations perhaps in the millions of total individual for all the requisite mutations to occur sine we had our last common ancestor with chimps.

[Shooby]

1.Our brain structures are different than gorillas. Even if we teach them to vocalize, and to understand what their words mean, there's no reason to think that their brains will ever become like ours, or for that matter, our brains like theirs. Our specific intelligence is because of our specific physical brain structure.

2.Do you mean "Will they develop a belief in the supernatural"? Since morality stems from religion, you have to have religion first.
They could have religion if their brain is suited for that type of belief. If their brains allow, we could teach them religion. Indoctrination is how humans become religious. Maybe we could indoctrinate gorillas too.

3.I don't know of any supernatural beings that exist. If you know any, you'll have to ask about the afterlife thing yourself.
Steve

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
Since morality stems from religion, you have to have religion first.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know of any supernatural beings that exist.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, are you claiming to be immoral?

[Shooby]

Am I claiming to be immoral?
No. Morality to me is a made up thing. I'm neither claiming morality or immorality.
Am I immoral?
Depends on what belief system my actions are being filtered through.

Steve

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
They'd probably become smarter. They probably already do have morals. No idea what god would do.

[/ QUOTE ]

The same thing he did when Hitler exterminated six million jews, when Stalin, Mao and Kim Jong Il oppressed hundreds of millions of people to the point of death and starvation, when AIDS broke out, when we figured out how to clone animals, and when 9-11 happened:

Nothing.