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Old 07-25-2008, 08:41 AM   #31
Elspode
When Do I Get Virtual Unreality?
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Raytown, Missouri
Posts: 12,719
Quote:
Originally Posted by smoothmoniker View Post
Remember, evolution doesn't select for flourishing, just for survival. In almost every category, from language to reason to art, human intellectual capacity far, far exceeds anything that could be justified on the basis of survival.
But...the more useful the evolutionary adaptation, the more likely a given organism is to eventually thrive and dominate its environmental niche. Once an organism is at the top of a food chain, perhaps more cranial resources are freed up to develop into sentience and rational thought. Perhaps intelligence isn't *necessary*, but it certainly could be a byproduct.

I want to know why anything exists at all.
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