Peacock feathers

pfft. Why else do you think I write poetry and hang out at places like this?

Seriously, though. Yeah, I do think intelligence likely developed, at least in part and up to a point, as a peacock tail. One need only look around on a university campus to see young people trying to impress one another with their adherence to some political philosophy, their appreciation of literature, their abilities in some branch of the arts, etc., to see some pretty obvious examples. 

I say "at least in part" because surely there is a survival-of-the-fittest aspect. Humans have no claws or horns. Our teeth are only so much use as a weapon. We are not particularly fast, we cannot fly, our eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell is not particularly acute, we have no thick hide or thick fur to protect us from the elements. Those who made it past the elements and predatory animals must have done so because of their ability to e.g., create fire, tools, weapons, and shelter, and the more intelligence, the better they likely would have been at accomplishing this, the more likely they'd survive to find a mate, and pass on their genes.

And yes, those abilities also very likely would have made an ancient human more attractive to a mate. If Blag is intelligent enough to realize Grog's ability to make tools or weave clothing will help him or her survive, and they mate, both of their genes are more likely to survive.

And once they've gone about using their intelligence to make them warm and safe and sufficiently fed, that intelligence is likely to look around for something else to do other than grunt and fart. Taking aside science and technology, which one can explain on more practical grounds -- music, art, poetry, and yes, humor.  (I consider humor, past the "smack Grog with a mallet" point, to require a fairly sophisticated intelligence. Not everyone can manage real wit and irony.)

Sure, those abilities likely proved attractive all on their own, and the realization of that fact probably would serve to reinforce them.  "Say, Grog is getting all the chicks with that drum beating -- I gotta try that."  But even without that -- if you've developed intelligence and curiosity in order to survive, once you have free time on your hands, you are likely to look for something to do with it.

e.g., I've written a lot of poetry I've never shared with anyone and maybe never will. I read a lot of stuff I might never discuss, unless perhaps it happens to come up.  Pretty clearly I'm not doing that stuff to seduce you dudes.  It's just my brain looking to play.  

That said, pretty obviously I spread my peacock tail e.g , in places like this and in the poetry forum, to meet other brains and connect with them.  And yes, damn it, when I do meet such a brain, I unquestionably find it attractive.  It's not exactly a burning in my groin, but I feel a desire to get closer, learn more, see what else is in there.  And indeed, without that, a man will get nowhere with me.  (Handsome doesn't particularly move me -- a handsome but stupid man is no more attractive to me sexually than a tree. )

But then -- I think intelligence as a peacock tail is only true to a certain point.

In the modern world, we don't need our brains on a daily basis simply to keep from dying.  so the very obvious "oooh, Grog can make fire" thing doesn't apply so much.   And when it doesn't the mere spreading of the peacock tail only proves attractive to those who appreciate that particular brand of peacock tail.

Not everyone is going to find my poetry or the fact I write it appealing. Many find it repelling.  Even more true with my brand of intellectual argument.  A buttload of men, sadly, don't seem to enjoy having a woman meet and match them in an argument -- I'm always delighted when I find them. (and damn yes, it's attractive.)  I'm afraid I have found my brain less effective than my ass as far as attracting male admiration in general.  But certainly I've some that dig the brain. 

But then, I find Kanye's music unappealing, while many others find it a turn-on. Others hate jazz, which I adore. Obviously, while I find many intellectual arguments stimulating and attractive, I find others (and those who make them) fucking tiresome and repellent.

I'd say along with evolving intelligence, we evolved individual taste and a lot of variations of the peacock tail.

So tl:dr answer -- I think intelligence likely evolved in part as a peacock tail, but developed to function beyond that.  Fiddling with a pencil or tapping your toes when we're impatiently waiting for something  serves no real function; but we have fingers and feet and will use them, whether or not they are immediately needed to survive. Ditto with our brains.

I was thinking not so much in terms of people doing show-offy things for sexually motivated reasons -- e.g., sexy clothes, expensive cars -- which surely, yes, they do. Rather, I was more contemplating participation in intellectual activities for that reason -- discussing philosophy, writing poetry, composing music, solving mathematical theorems, pondering physics problems. And in fact, I do think some people do that, at least sometimes.

Heh. I went with friends to see a stand-up comedienne recently. I forget her name (one of my friends is a fan, but I'd never heard of her, I must admit), but her routine had a feminist leaning. A very young couple was right next to us in the packed, standing only crowd, and oh my my, you should have heard the young man sucking up to his date propounding on feminist theory. I don't mean to say he was necessarily insincere in what he was saying, but it was abundantly obvious to my group of women friends that his primary goal in pushing it so very hard was impressing her and getting her in the sack.

And I've had a dude or two try to seduce me with poetry. (Which is more than fine with me if what he's doing is sharing a passion for poetry with a like-minded person -- but seriously irksome if he's only trying to get a little action.)

Sexual selection is an interesting subject, as it's an excess, a counterpoint to natural selection. Sexual selection can only act if natural selection doesn't.

The point about human intelligence being like a peacock's feather is not that intelligence was sexy, so much as intelligence became a runaway sexually selective trait, in the same way that long necks became a runaway sexually selective trait of giraffes, or horns for rhinos, or antler for deer. In ALL of these cases (including human intelligence) the effect was extremely gradual over eons, slowly accumulating to excess--only in our case there was an unintended side effect. Intelligence was far more versatile than horns or antlers or feathers. Intelligence as a sexually selective trait became a useful trait in its own right, whereas antlers and peacock feathers remain a burden (deer can be easily snagged in thick undergrowth, and a peacock may struggle to take flight with such large feathers).

Also, there's no doubt intelligence took many twists and turns along the way, expressing itself in multiple forms from interest in jewellery, music, carvings, language, humor, compassion, etc, before becoming transformative and leading us to exploit agriculture and technology.

In my original article, I talk about how the sexually selective nature of our intelligence may be quite telling as if intelligence elsewhere also emerges for this more esoteric reason, then it may be astonishingly rare in the universe. Intelligence itself is common among animals (dolphins, chimps, octopus), but the runaway effect of sexual selection is rare, being only found in Homo sapiens. It's an interesting perspective, huh?

robeiae, thanks for highlighting this on your forum

Me too. Dragon's Egg broke new ground for me.

Yeah, that was something special. And perhaps relevant in this thread. Because the Cheela(?)--the alien life form in Dragon's Egg--became hyper-intelligent by human standards. Yet, the process was in response to external stimuli in many ways, not sexual drive. It beg's the question: is Forward's theoretical life form less-than-realistic or is intelligence-as-peacock-feathers limited to the specific conditions of life on Earth?

And in that same light, is evolution as we know it also Earth-specific? For instance, allowing that life might develop on planets that lack some of the specific qualities of Earth, would evolution occur if, for instance, there were no major advantages to be had?

Well, we can't assume genes as we know them are a constant for all life. Some might use yoga pants...