Intellect

We are not always successful, and sometimes we don't even try, but the capacity is there.

Without the human intellect and ability to think ahead and plan, and communicate with each other so as to try to help them, all children would face the same struggle. We worry about what may happen, but because of our worrying we take steps to work out what we can do to influence our fate and soften the blow if it should fall.

I don't think the things that you are suggesting don't worry some animals are because of intelligence or intellect

Or that they simply don't know any different?

There are many humans (including children) in the world living exactly like those fox cubs.

I don't think I would like the life of an animal

Near me five little fox cubs were born. I have filmed them many times, from little balls of fluff clustering round their mother for milk up to almost-grown adults who will soon be setting off to find their own territories.

To begin with they could not get out of the garden they were in. Their parents visited them with food regularly for a couple of months and they would play in the sunshine by day, and in the infra-red of the camera by night. They would ignore anyone watching them if they kept still and quiet.

Then one by one the stronger ones learnt how to climb the wall and went off with Mum to the big wide world, coming back with her when she visited the others and playing with their brothers and sisters.

The statistics are that only one in five cubs survives to adulthood. In May there were five. Now there are two. No Mum around now, I dont know whether she is still alive. One (the smallest and weakest) still lives in the birth den, the other returns - - and plays with the last one at home. He brings no food for his little sister, she fends for herself, living mostly on insects or digging for worms.

If either of them see or hear anyone around, they vanish. If there is any food to be found - an insect, a crust put out for the birds, a scrap of anything edible, the first one to it gets it, and eats it fast. They do nothing for each other, and they are wary of every shadow. They certainly worry about things.

Three of their number have vanished, what their end was is uncertain - attacked by an older rival? starved? poisoned? hit by a car and crept off into the undergrowth with a wound to become infected? Their parents have not been seen for weeks either. They could have met a nasty fate too, and not one of the other creatures would or could do anything to help them. They may appear to take illness and death in their stride, but as they don't write their memoirs we can't know that.

The "natural life" without abstract intelligence is not Eden.

I don't think the things that you are suggesting don't worry some animals are because of intelligence or intellect but simply because we are sentient beings and we cannot become none sentient beings.

I would say that you have a slightly rose coloured view (a nice one ) of the lives of the animals by comparison to ours, too.

I compare our lives to that of other animals, Elegran and part of me can't help but think they have it right - you don't see them worrying about paying the mortgage/rent/gas/electricity, you don't see them rushing off to work like a trail of ants, you don't see them swallowing copious amounts of anti-depressants, you don't see them fretting over death, you don't see them fretting over being ill (the last two they just seem to take in their stride) - and they still tend live quite well as a society in their own groups (and often less fractious than ours if the newspapers are anything to go by).

It isn't always about inventions, but also the pace and quality of life.

We could have stayed in our cave hiding from the sabre-toothed tiger and not come out, Hollydaze.

We could have not invented the wheel - if the inventor had known in advance that cannon, tanks and warplanes would be deployed using wheels, should he have burnt the first treetrunk prototypes? Was it evil of him to create something that would in future be used to assist in mass destruction?

It is such a beautiful world, it is saddening to think of it being destroyed. Like you, I am so glad to have been born when I was and saw the parts that I did before it started to be concreted over or just simply destroyed.

I do think life will have to become simpler at some point.

Nuclear power was not dreamt up by bad people, I doubt if the other inventions were, either. Most inventions have been made for good purposes, then used in other ways.

People panic when they think of the end of the Earth. I do not. I think we have many more years ahead of us to muck it up, I am only glad that I had the chance to see areas of it before they became too spoilt. I would love to turn the clock back - but as I age know that I would find it hard to do without my car, central heating and other trappings of wealth that ultimately lead to greed and warfare.

janerowena - did human intelligence/thought/imagination/curiosity do us any favours when it dreamt up nuclear power? Bombs that will kill life but leave buildings intact? Bombs that use germ-wafare?

I have heard it said that man has only one enemy: the virus; that says a lot about us!

It's most likely fretting over nothing but I do wonder if we will become masters of our own demise and would we have been more content to not have the abilties we have and lead a more stress-free life - would the whole planet have been in a safer position?

Maybe we have instincts that counteract our intelligence. As animals flee from fire and dangers, we too react to what we perceive as danger, although we react differently according to our personalities.

Maybe we could be regarded as several different species, merely going on the way we choose to react in a crisis. One species being those are always aggressive no matter the circumstance.

Gracesgran - but do other life forms invade, with the intention of taking over, the territory of others? Do they damage the planet in general? Do they worry about anything the way we do? Do they have the capacity do destroy as much as we do?

I sometimes watch wildlife, in all its forms, and wonder if we actually did get the better bargain - they seem so much more accepting of their lot than we are. That is why I questioned intelligent thought (whichever is more accurate) being a gift and would it ultimately destroy us (or the planet)?

On the other hand, marine mammals co-operate when one of them is giving birth and elephant herds are highly socialised. Of course, that's only the females.

Ants can be very aggressive and are determined on the preservation of their community and will destroy what is in their way and individuals are dispensible.

I can understand why you have been questioning our ability to do such awful things to one another Hollydaze. Sadly, I don't think things are particularly better or worse than they have been at other times but we know so much more about them now.

I think you are being quite kind to other life forms too. Many are very territorial and fight because of this. Many also spend their time fighting for their place in the hierarchy. I think man is very like other communities in this. Perhaps amoebas just eat and reproduce but they don't seem to get much pleasure from either. The other side of the coin to all the awful things is all the good ones we can experience.

I do admit though, that for everything we learn not to do because it is an appalling way to treat our fellow man we seem to find something else just as awful.

Is it better to be a discontented Socrates or a contented pig? Supposing the pig is actually contented.

Hollydaze, you entitled this thread "Intellect" and then asked about the effect of "the capacity for intelligent thought"; which are we discussing?

Being completely honest, I'm not sure Gracesgran.

Thinking about the threads recently, the awful news that seems to be never-ending, it just made me wonder if having these marvellous brains has actually done us any real favours.

Other life forms have intricate societies (ants, bees), others have skills we wouldn't be able to replicate and yet they live without the fear and anxiety on the levels we do - they accept that what happens, happens.

Would humans have been happier, more contented with their lot, as a species, if our abilities had remained at a level more akin to that of other life forms?

It often feels that in our quest to know more, control more, own more - will that lead to our eventual demise?

I wonder how the IS would have got on in Iraq if the hornets' nest had never been stirred up. Perhaps even Sadam Hussein still in charge would have been preferable?

Oh yes Lilygran. In fact I've been meaning to start a thread about the Tony Blair prize.

To me, intellectual thinking is a process which can be learned and improved and intelligence is innate janerowena. I always see the third strand of this as education. Both intellectual thinking and education IMO can be improved but I don't think intelligence can.

Are you making a distinction between academic intellectuality and practical intelligence, gracesgran?

Hollydaze, you entitled this thread "Intellect" and then asked about the effect of "the capacity for intelligent thought"; which are we discussing?

Whenever I read any reference to the amazing progress humans have made through intellect, I think of Robert Oppenheimer after the first atomic bomb test: 'We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita... "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."' If it can be done, humans will do it. I don't think intellect is the issue here. Moral sense is. Anyone else reacted with shock horror to discover Tony Blair has been awarded a philanthropy prize? It is by GQ but even so

No, I agree with you, it is a veneer of education. I went out with a few Iranians in my youth and saw how much influence their families and tradition had on them - which was why I handed back my engagement ring, luckily for me as the country was in upheaval a year later.

In most relationships in this country, if something goes wrong and men and women disagree the women know that their voices will be heard. I say most, because it's still too easy for immigrant women to be invisible. But women in many countries are still only tolerated as long as they behave themselves and look happy. If they argue because they feel or see injustice, there is trouble. There are still far too many men who feel that just being a man makes their opinions the right one to have. There are still a few of those left in this country, their numbers are lessening thank heavens. But as long as they do exist, children will see subservient mothers and think that it is the way to be.

Eloethan, true. The Nazis had good education. But their temporary success was mainly due to Hitler's personality. And they were eventually overcome by better people.

I do not believe the terrorists carrying out these beheadings come from a background where a good education has been in place for several generations. Even the so-called "British" ones. They might have British passports but their families have not had the education this country has provided for many years now.

Sorry if that's not politically correct.