141 votes

In a cemetery, what evidence could be found that humans were intelligent and had technology?

Medical Devices, Medical Evidence Some of the skeletons will show obvious signs of recovery from normally fatal illnesses, obvious signs of advanced surgery like titanium pins in healed broken bones, ...
TCAT117's user avatar
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92 votes
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Can the number of letters in alphabet suggest how advanced civilization is?

There's practically no correlation between the complexity of a given language and the complexity of the writing system used to represent it. Japanese and Korean are both very complex languages, able ...
Charles Burge's user avatar
90 votes

Are there any mathematics that could only be learned by very few people?

Main Answer I have a PhD in Mathematics and came across this question. To be honest, I dislike almost every single answer, except maybe L.Dutch's answer concerning Wile's proof of Fermat's last ...
Jesko Hüttenhain's user avatar
86 votes
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Best species to breed to intelligence

Raccoons The prime thing for intelligence is the ability to manipulate objects. Dolphins might have large brains but they can't really develop complex tools easily. Raccoons are highly adaptable, ...
Thorne's user avatar
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73 votes

How would you avoid making the ability to join a hive-mind very overpowered?

Being in a hive mind is not easy. There's a lot of brainpower that goes towards it. You have to structure your mind to leverage it. As a result, it is very easy to lose localized awareness, so it ...
Cort Ammon's user avatar
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71 votes

How can the intelligence of a super-intelligent person be assessed?

You're telling a story. Having a character take an IQ test is bland. Rather than have some scientist say, "we measured your IQ and it's really high!", have your character actually do ...
Zo the Relativist's user avatar
70 votes
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Why did dragons evolve to be smart?

It's difficult to come up with an evolutionary pressure that would select for intelligence when most dragons will survive regardless. This is, of course, the key point. What do dragons do? Hunt the ...
Mołot's user avatar
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67 votes
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Two or more advanced civilizations aren't even aware of each other

Easy Space is big. Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just ...
M i ech's user avatar
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58 votes

How much smarter would bred humans become?

Intelligence is not a singular trait There are many facets to intelligence. Let's start with some animal examples: Dogs. Everybody loves dogs and dogs love everybody. They have incredible social ...
ArtificialSoul's user avatar
55 votes

Two or more advanced civilizations aren't even aware of each other

Haste makes waste! You have your brand new shiny FTL drive, and the bureaucrats are demanding progress. You have to catalogue 50 new planets this week. Never mind that you can barely check the ...
Cort Ammon's user avatar
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54 votes

Can the number of letters in alphabet suggest how advanced civilization is?

can a number of letters in alphabet suggest how advance the civilization is? There is no correlation between the technological advancement of a civilization and the number of symbols in its alphabet. ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
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53 votes

In a cemetery, what evidence could be found that humans were intelligent and had technology?

What does one normally find in a cemetery? Headstones. Headstones have designs and markings, and chances are, they're going to be at least partially preserved. Coffins. Coffins are less than 7000 ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
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47 votes

Are there any mathematics that could only be learned by very few people?

No such thing exists. All mathematics is a type of language. Like language, it looks mysterious to people who don't speak it. But if you study it enough, you will understand it. There are no ...
Priska's user avatar
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41 votes

Why did dragons evolve to be smart?

Intelligence evolved with size and fire-breathing, not separately What evolutionary pressure is there that has made a small primate develop intelligence to the point of having ethics of fairness? We ...
MichaelK's user avatar
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41 votes
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How much smarter would bred humans become?

Since as far as I know nobody bred humans, we can't tell for sure, so take below answer as pop scientific. It's using the breeder equation and regression to the mean. Assuming that that average IQ ...
Taco's user avatar
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40 votes
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Why have my intelligent pigeons not taken over the continent?

To these animals, Manhattan is the civilized world. Anywhere else is just lawless wilderness inhabited by feral creatures that will prey on each other without a second thought. To move away from there ...
LuizPSR's user avatar
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39 votes

Can the number of letters in alphabet suggest how advanced civilization is?

No. An inverse relation is more likely. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs: around 1000 symbols. Modern English: 26 symbols + 10 digits + punctuation. Communication between artificial intelligences: not ...
avek's user avatar
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38 votes
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Could a sedentary organism develop intelligence, or even sentience?

The only limitation of the development of intelligence is an evolutionary purpose. Every significant trait or feature present in a living organism is there because it helps that organism survive and ...
Mike Nichols's user avatar
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34 votes
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Is mirror test a good way to explore alien inhabited world safely?

Bad idea. bad, BAD idea. Many animals ignore mirror. Many animals violently attack mirror. Some animals stop to adjust their makeup. NONE of them display natural behaviour when facing a mirror! Is ...
PcMan's user avatar
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34 votes
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Does the inclusion of common non-humanoid alien species make rare humanoid alien species more believable?

The default humanoid is more believable than you think A lifeform does not have to be humanoid to be intelligent, but being generally humanoid helps a LOT with tool use. On Earth, we have a few ...
Nosajimiki's user avatar
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33 votes

Best species to breed to intelligence

Limited to animals found naturally in northern California? Crows. Scientific studies have found that crows are as intelligent as seven-year-old human children, being capable of tool use, problem ...
nick012000's user avatar
  • 5,286
32 votes

In a cemetery, what evidence could be found that humans were intelligent and had technology?

The headstone is probably more than enough; we understand the Ancestors had some sort of conception of death and possibly an afterlife because neolithic and even Neanderthals were buried, often with ...
Thucydides's user avatar
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29 votes

Best species to breed to intelligence

Since you're in charge, the best way to go might just be squishy. Cephalopods.: nervous system of cephalopods is the most complex of the invertebrates Best to work with a species that has huge ...
Escaped dental patient.'s user avatar
29 votes

Are there any mathematics that could only be learned by very few people?

Instead of looking for new math that the children can do, show them learning math faster. All new math is built on the old. To do some incredibly complex proof, you'll typically need algebra, ...
Ventifacts and Yardangs's user avatar
28 votes

A world without natural time measures

They are intelligent, therefore they can notice that they grow up. Growing up is change, and change can only occur in a dimension called time. You might ignore the concept of "meter" or "yard", but ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
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28 votes

Is there a practical way of making democratic-like system skewed towards competence?

There have been several proposed systems for supposedly fair, unequal voting rights. The problem is that what some sees as manifestly fair, others will see as grossly unfair. Hence, they will fail the ...
Klaus Æ. Mogensen's user avatar
26 votes
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A world without natural time measures

They could likely develop both time and technology, but likely very slowly If we postulate that there would be essentially no variations in the nature around them - constant light, constant food ...
Mrkvička's user avatar
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25 votes

Is intelligence the "natural" product of evolution?

No, this is definitely not the case. Increased mental power has a significant calorie and other cost so it needs to give equally significant gains for it to be favored by evolution. In other words "...
Tim B's user avatar
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25 votes
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Plant based lifeforms: brain equivalent?

Method A: Evolving a True Plant with Neural Tissue This method describes how a traditional, plantlike organism could evolve a "brain" while maintaining plantlike characteristics in every generation. ...
Zxyrra's user avatar
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24 votes

Could a sedentary organism develop intelligence, or even sentience?

As mentioned by others, Nothing evolves an adaptation just because. The reason there is a correlation between movement and intelligence is because movement requires understanding of your environment (...
anon's user avatar
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