I did refer to your original question on how there are people who disagree on the statement that humans are more intelligent: if you treat that as a question about which axiom is in effect instead of a change of arguments or makes more sense.

You’re reference to the consciousness discussion is an awesome one btw! I would describe “closing in on a definition” as “agreeing on a common axiom”.

But that’s not happening on a forum post where people off various backgrounds and believes fight (instead of argue).

To make it clear: I’m in agreement with you, I only tried to expand what you already started by my train of thought on why that thread you linked is the way it is :)

Oh and I think that’s the root cause for your post: there can not be a common agreement of those positions because they are axiomatic, as in fundamental definitions.

If you define intelligence one way it’s very clear that humans have more of it. if you use an (aggressive, in my opinion) species agnostic definition even tied to motivation it’s at least not that clear cut.

Personally I’m more with you but I find the thought experiment fascinating. To quote Douglas Adams:

“”“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”“”

That’s a philosophical question at the heart: how can you estimate anything like intelligence with neither collaboration nor a common understanding of intelligence?

That’s the gust of it from my understanding: cows show patterns that we interpret as intelligence on w human level. Everything after that is by its nature is human centric.

Personally I’m with you but it’s impossible to disprove the existence of intelligence on any other scale they doesn’t include human motivation. (I.e. the cow has s higher intelligence than any human but we don’t know any way to force or motivate it to show it in a way that we could understand.)

It’s easier to grasp as a sci-fi concept for me: what happens if aliens come to earth but we cannot figure out their behavior, motivation, tech or thought. And they don’t (want to) manage to close the gap. How could we assess intelligence beyond the tech we see? Perhaps they just found it after all.