The article in the url below made me smile. It is a review of a recently published book, 'If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal.' The book is a philosopher's perspective on human intelligence and, perhaps not surprisingly, the author is not impressed. As the reviewer neatly summarizes for us:
"The following bit of black humor isn't drawn from Mr. Gregg's book but summarizes much of its argument. After a worldwide nuclear holocaust, the few surviving amoeba-like creatures hold a meeting at which they decide to try evolving again. But before they do so, they together make a solemn vow: 'This time, no brains!'"
The kernel of the book's idea comes from the author's analysis of Nietzsche, who was both liberated and constrained by his own intelligence:
"'If Nietzsche Were a Narwal' begins, appropriately enough, with the great depressive himself, who had plenty of brains. 'Nietzsche,' Mr. Gregg writes, 'both wished he was as stupid as a cow so he wouldn't have to contemplate existence, and pitied cows for being so stupid that they couldn't contemplate existence.'"
The author builds on this foundation, questioning the value of the key characteristic that supposedly defines human intelligence – an awareness of our own eventual demise:
"Mr. Gregg maintains, for example, that death awareness—widely considered a hallmark of human intelligence—isn't all it's cracked up to be. While the human understanding of time and gift of foresight have their perks, when it comes to death, is ignorance bliss? Mr. Gregg thinks so. 'The day-to-day consequences of death wisdom'—grief, dread, nihilism, mental and emotional anguish—'really do suck,' he writes. 'I believe that animals … do not suffer as much as we do for the simple reason that they cannot imagine their deaths.'"
The author expands on this core idea, illustrating exactly how we can be our own worst enemies:
"We humans are besotted by intelligence, especially our own. And yet 'intelligence is not the miracle of evolution we like to think it is. … The planet does not love us as much as we love our intellect.' In fact, 'our many intellectual accomplishments are currently on track to produce our own extinction, which is exactly how evolution gets rid of adaptations that suck.'"
In this sense, perhaps the sub-title of the book is more revealing: 'What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity.' The point can be applied broadly:
"As for ethics and morality, Mr. Gregg notes that, while human cognitive skills 'have molded the human moral sense from the clay of animal normativity,' our moral reasoning 'often leads to more death, violence, and destruction than we find in the normative behavior of nonhuman animals.' Animals, not unlike humans, typically have norm-based systems, but deviations rarely result, as they do with us, in mass death and suffering."
As the reviewer concludes:
"It is startling to consider that our very intelligence may have made humans no better morally, even no better off physically, than other species. Indeed, by many measures of evolutionary success (number of individuals, persistence over time, likelihood of persisting into the future), Homo sapiens is doing poorly compared to many other species. And not benefiting the Earth, either."
The author's own conclusion covers similar ground:
"Mr. Gregg concludes, glumly but effectively, that 'there's good reason to tone down our smugness. Because, depending on where we go from here, human intelligence may just be the stupidest thing that has ever happened.'"
For comparison, there is another review of the same book in the article in the second url below.
Take care
David
David Chandler
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Big Brains, Big Problems
By David P. Barash
July 21, 2022
The Wall Street Journal
Late Edition – Final
A15
Sorry, but We're Not as Smart as We Think
By Jennifer Szalai
August 11, 2022
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
C2
