> otherwise whales would have fusion-powered underwater cities.
No, no, no. Why do you have to assume that intelligent beings must always develop complex technology. If you define "intelligent" to be "like us", you will fail to see the intelligence of almost everything else.
Our own species learned to develop complex technology because we had (at least) 2 different exceptional qualities: an smart enough brain, and hands with thumbs that are good enough to manipulate objects. Each of this is independently useful (or it would not have evolved at all), but we got lucky an won the lottery twice... and then we were able to combine those two features in non obvious ways.
And it took us hundreds of thousands of years to figure out how.
> ...because we had (at least) 2 different exceptional qualities...
On the topic of exceptional qualities, what is thought to be behind New Caledonian Crows and their expert tool use & building is their eyes are more rotated to the front of their face than other crows. Thus, they can focus their vision in front of them easier than other crows of similar intelligence and makes it easier to manipulate and use objects.
I think there's been other crows that have used primitive tools in lab settings, but nowhere close to what New Caledonian ones do in the wild or in the lab.
As you point out in your example, many intelligent species have been observed using rudimentary tools. The conventional explanation is that we must be so much more smart than them, since our tools are much more complex.
My point is that maybe what they lack is not the raw intelligence to envision the use of tools, but the dexterity to apply that intelligence to the task of complex tool making.
> My point is that maybe what they lack is not the raw intelligence to envision the use of tools, but the dexterity to apply that intelligence to the task of complex tool making.
Sounds plausible to me. The more difficult question is how does one ever prove that it's true? I agree that it could be, just overcoming the difficulty in testing with species we barely understand/communicate with hasn't caught up yet to our curiosity.
No, no, no. Why do you have to assume that intelligent beings must always develop complex technology. If you define "intelligent" to be "like us", you will fail to see the intelligence of almost everything else.
Our own species learned to develop complex technology because we had (at least) 2 different exceptional qualities: an smart enough brain, and hands with thumbs that are good enough to manipulate objects. Each of this is independently useful (or it would not have evolved at all), but we got lucky an won the lottery twice... and then we were able to combine those two features in non obvious ways.
And it took us hundreds of thousands of years to figure out how.