If you were an alien visiting this planet would you be able to distinguish between higher and lower intelligence animals? If so, what would the credentials entail? Will it be reproduction and maintenance of DNA? How about adaptability? Perhaps elaborate structures?
Whatever constituents one chooses, eventually the comparison would have to come down to the very physiology of a species. What makes a human, human? What makes a cat, cat? Could we possibly draw objective comparisons by creating phenomenal parallels such as to brain structure, synaptic activity of gray matter?
Humans like to take pride on themselves for being superior to other forms of life. Since we cannot understand the opinions from the opposition, let us simply assume that all other species are as justified to feel the same. There is a massive gap in communications and understanding and that should raise the first red flag when it comes to such comparisons. A cat for example would pity the human for having to build a house in order to survive. Why not just be able to sleep outside? A bear would pity us for having to create clothes. Why not grow fur? Here is another advantage they could have: They don't need to pity or compare themselves to us like we do.
In engineering and in programming one thing matters the most; efficiency. If one has to write 50 lines of code for a specific function while another fellow uses only 2 lines then the former will be inefficient and possibly laggy. In engineering, if one has to build a very complicated machine for a very simple task then it will possibly be more prone to errors and structural failure. Nature works much the same. It cares only for efficiency, not elaborate complexity. Whenever evolution falls short, it simply builds on top of what already exists. There are no do-overs. Imagine for example if you wanted to build a skyscraper but you had to use the foundations of a barn. This is pretty much what happened to our 'elaborate' and 'complicated' brains.
We like to take pride on ourselves for having such an intricate brain. The fact that we fail to understand it, makes us even more proud of it. The sour truth though is that our brain consists of the same architectural structure repeated over and over again on a very primitive foundation that all of mammals share — the reptilian cortex.
All those intestine-like folds is just a simple structural repetition for doing pretty much the same task but in different ways. It had to develop in such way because, compare to the rest of the animals, we suck at pretty much everything else. A cat will just walk and copulate with another cat. We on the other hand, create a ritual that lasts months, involving flowers, dinners, messages, phones calls and at the end the whole thing gets so complicated that we might not even accomplish the task. Your cat might indeed pity you.
Most insects communicate in mid-air over miles away. No need for cellphones. Ants are considered to be the best architects, with humans copying their structures. Moreover, they don't even have to communicate in any way to accomplish all that and yet they are extremely efficiently and organized in doing so. We constantly strive to find solutions for our lives by copying the ways of other species. No other animal even cares to do that because we are fundamentally inefficient.
Every single one of our senses is poor in comparison with most mammals. Our only weapon to defend against nature is a brain that forms complicated patterns and builds weird tools. 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.
Building elaborate structures such as a space station is not necessarily an intelligent thing to do. Space is pretty much an endless wasteland with not much going on anyways. Feeling the need to look up in the sky and just wonder about our place in the universe can inspire awe but also breed existential dread. In fact, historically, it overcame us in such an extent that we fought each other to death in order to decide which super deity created all these and for what reason.
When witnessing all these intricate relationships across species, one owes to be humble in order to understand what really goes behind the scenes. Humans often fail to do so because even when it comes to our own intelligence we like to compare each other based on tests.
After a century or so, we have found out that intelligence amongst humans is entirely subjective and problematic. For example, one can practice I.Q tests and raise his score. Environment plays a huge role in this. One can be smart in an office environment but rather stupid in a forest. I.Q tests are structured in a way to measure everyone based on generic constituents. I wonder though: Would it be objective to compare yourself to a leopard in regards to who can run the fastest?
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If we cannot objectively compare ourselves to each other due to the difference in humans' environments and physiology, how could we possibly draw cross-species conclusions? Perhaps if we toned down a bit in regards to our place in the cosmos we would have come to understand that we are not all that different from each other.
Assuming a rock suddenly woke up and became conscious, it would have made the same realizations as we do. "Look at me how strong and sturdy I am", it would say. "Nothing can break me. Humans use me to hold their structures together. Animals lick me to get my essence in their bodies so they could survive. You can break me down to small pieces and I do not loose my composition. I am found everywhere. Without me, not a single planet would have existed. All these were made for me". What an arrogant piece of shit for a rock huh?
Our teleological perception about the universe jails our mind into believing that we are the most important thing that ever happened to the cosmos. We like to believe that because any other scenario makes the world way too scary. From the moment we have perceived our own demise, we felt the need to create stories that filled our existential void. In doing so, we have alienated ourselves from the rest of the world in a rather arrogant way. Most of the ills we do to each other is because we are afraid.
Our bodies consist of microbes, each deciding when we should eat, shit and reproduce. Every single thought we have is predetermined from elaborate functions that these organisms perform. Every simple infection is nothing but the battle ground of these species. Each one of us is a universe for hundreds of thousands forms of life. Much like earth, we maintain an ecosystem with things living inside and on top of us.
Earth is stranded in the middle of nowhere, looking at all the other planets. So much going on upon it, so desolate the other planets. It feels proud for being able to harbor something special as life itself. We, as humans, are not that different from this pale blue dot that is stranded in the middle of nowhere. We share similarities with all life on earth but we have to acknowledge that we are not better, or worse that the rest. Just different.
