Our Intelligence: Our Definitions

Clearly if other animals exhibit impressive intelligence appropriate to their environment, perhaps we are not as special as we've been taught. A good conversation with a dolphin about the latest cetacean gossip would be convincing evidence that humans are not the pinnacle of evolution, only the temporary pinnacle of one small twig on the tree of life.We humans have always thought of ourselves as particularly bright, proudly noting our compassion, humor, altruism and impressive capacity to generate language, mathematics, tools, art, and music along with computer development and software development. In citing this self-serving list, filtered to our benefit, we assume that humans possess, and other animals lack, these honorable traits or capabilities. We ignore the inconvenient fact that we choose to define and measure intelligence in terms of our greatest strengths. We arbitrarily exclude from the definition of intelligence higher brain functions in other animals. Enter the compelling interest in communication with dolphins. We would be low on the list of smart animals if we included in our basic definition of intelligence the ability to use self-generated sonar to explore the environment and to communicate.