When the human race is gone which animal do you think will evolve into the next intelligent species?

How about a machine intelligence, It is my understanding that they have nanobots that can replicate themselves. If this is true, then they could conceivably create a vast machine that consumes the entire planet.

a reply to: darkbake

I think wild cats probably do the "chirping" though... most cats I've been around have this other series of noises they make that aren't meows, but more like "murr?" "mmm" or something like that.

Cats have a pretty wide range of vocalizations, as anyone who's ever heard a cat fight can attest!

a reply to: Astyanax

A couple of million years of evolution and that dew claw becomes a thumb and there's no stopping cats imo.

a reply to: Kandinsky

I wonder what an evolved ant society would be like? Chances are it'd be regimented and well-behaved.

I read a long time ago that it is ant colonies, not ants, that should be regarded as semi-intelligent. The colony grows, forages, defends itself and reproduces, its behaviour of its members regulated through the generation of different chemical triggers. Apparently they can even have personalities.

I'm not sure if an ant colony could develop sentience; but we know for a fact that a colony of cells can; you and I are essentially colonies of this kind. So who knows?

About primates, my feeling it that the ones that were going to evolve sentience have already done so. I don't really think it's us that stopped chimps from evolving smarts. Still, you never know.

Rodents are our close cousins, anyway. Especially close to politicians and the people who invented planned obsolescence.

a reply to: Astyanax

Hive minds....hhhhmmm got me thinking.
Is that our next step in evolution with our technological advances? once out brains are connected to a super web will we become a hive mind?.
I dunno of course but it is great to wonder .

Remove humanity from this world and nature takes over.

No one species will be ever as dominant.

Few thousand years and most of the traces of mankind will be gone, taken over by wildlife and plant life.

Evolution can't and will not create anything even close to humans. The world will arguably be far better off without us.

At least until the next intelligent race of beings find it...

a reply to: Astyanax
Good point about ant colonies, Astyanax. It almost seems they’re guided by a collective consciousness. They’re remarkable little critters with a fairly sophisticated social structure. Each dutifully carrying out orders from somewhere.

Some of their living quarters are fascinating. Not sure if all species of ant do this, but some of them segregate “rooms” where specific functions are performed. For instance, there is a room dedicated to cultivating edible crops (fungus), and the crop is tended by assigned workers. Then there is a nursery room where the rug-rats are born and nurtured. The organization of these creatures is remarkable, considering they show no signs of what we call “intelligence”.

Beartracker, that was a good point you made about machine intelligence, too. It could very well come to be that intelligent machines will one day rule. Actually, that possibility is likely the greatest of all the others we’ve mentioned. And it could be in the relative short term (100 years or less).

This is a cool thread...

a reply to: ausername

Remove humanity from this world and nature takes over.

No one species will be ever as dominant.

Few thousand years and most of the traces of mankind will be gone, taken over by wildlife and plant life.

Evolution can't and will not create anything even close to humans. The world will arguably be far better off without us.

At least until the next intelligent race of beings find it...

...................................................................................................................................................... ..........................................................We will always have a Golf Ball on the Moon to memorise our exsistence.
Long after the Pyramids are dust that golf balll will be there.

I've always suspected it will be some type of feline, likely even a pussy cat. Right now polydactylism is a rare trait that effects many cats today. Basically they are born with extra toes on their feet, some of which aren't that far off from opposable thumbs. The trait originated from the maine coon due to helping the European cats that came to Maine walk better on the snow without falling through, which improved their survival chances. If a natural disaster wiped out humans and a large portion of life on earth, these polydactyl cats could potentially survive a nuclear winter or cooling period related to an asteroid or comet impact. I'd think that those toes could eventually develop into actual opposable thumbs to help them grab and use tools and only the smartest cats would probably survive that. Cats are much more resourceful than people give them credit for. I could easily see them becoming a human-like species in 10 million years or so following the event and then the new cat species will argue with itself about evolution and ask questions like, "If we all came from cats, then why are there still cats???"

Evolution can't and will not create anything even close to humans. The world will arguably be far better off without us.

Why not? Evolution did it in the past, why not again, with a different intelligent species? 8 or so million years to go from apelike ancestor to modern humans and that is barely even a second in comparison with the age of the earth. The world may be better without us, but in big extinction level events, new species emerge as dominant, so it very well could happen.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Dolphins and cetian species such as whales bar none, right behind humans.

originally posted by: Chrisfishenstein
a reply to: boymonkey74

None....Animals don't evolve into intelligent beings...

We aren't or shall I say weren't monkeys or apes or whatever form of monkey you want in the past....

You are saying evolution never happened? Then who planted all the bones of hominid and fossil records of precursors to humans? Are geneticists and anthropologists lying and or hoaxing Darwinism ?


please tell me you are joking

a reply to: Barcs

My objection to the proposition that cats will evolve sentience: they are not social animals. I think this is an essential precondition for the evolution of intelligence, because intelligence really isn't much use to a solitary being.

Lions are social felines, of course, but they are never going to evolve sentience because, let's face it, when you have dirty great fangs and claws what do you want sentience for?

a reply to: DarthFazer

At the risk of annoying my good friend boymonkey74, I've taken the liberty of editing his OP to placate your correspondent, dear little Chrisfishenstein.

I have always wondered which animals the Creator will decide to give intelligence to next.

If Judgement Day came and went and the world was still turning, which animal would it be?.

Obviously I would say Angels or Fairies or maybe Pixies (though I never liked Frank Black) but what If they were gone also?

Would whatever creature have to be given opposable thumbs too? I think so but then again with the increased O2 in the air with us gone would insects have a chance? would their hive minds increase in intelligence?

I have no idea but it is fun to guess.

So which animal is going to have the chance of going to Heaven If we go?

Ravings?

BTW this is not a discussion on whether you believe in evolution or not... but if you want to troll and derail it with your personal views on creationism or panspermia I will be self-abasingly grateful.

Happy now, Chrisfishenstein?

a reply to: Astyanax

Lol lpved it.

Let me examine this for a moment. First...humans may be the "most intelligent" based upon our intelligence test that we created, but I think many animals have better lives than humans. I won't go on a tangent but war, cell phones, social media, etc.? None of these are good things for us as a creature. So we only believe we are superior. Hence my answer.

Dogs will become the dominant species because they are just about as stupid as humans, without being as dumb as deer or goldfish. Cats could become dominant...but why become like a human when they are already better than us. No wild animal is dumb enough to aspire to humandom when they are truly free and embrace themselves as personal gods. Insects are just little socialists that prefer to be a group organism and have no interest in domination. So...yeah...dogs. Probably labs because they are really, really dumb...but cute. Cause they have eyebrows (Carlin reference).

a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

What makes you think that the rest of the world is reliant on us? I say that the biosphere would completely thrive without a human existence! It doesn't take a brain to see that we kill everything on the planet.

a reply to: Astyanax

I suppose you are right for the most part, although I've seen plenty of social cats. There are tons of feral cats living in my neighbor and many of them hang out together. I know they aren't like pack animals or canines, but something like that could definitely change over time, given the right environmental changes. With humans gone, cats can no longer depend on them for food, so cooperation might actually help them survive if food becomes scarce. The human population bottle-necked to just a few thousand at one point in our history, and I believe that cooperation was the key to avoiding extinction. Something similar could happen with certain felines. Do we even really know if the ancient ape like ancestor was a social animal? I know chimps are today and humans are today, but it makes you wonder how long that social behavior took to evolve. Now I'm really curious again and will start looking this up because it's a really interesting point.

a reply to: Astyanax

Nobody in here mentioned the honorable Squirrel! Opposing thumbs, bipedaly and social with an extra body part in there tail. They gotta be half ways sentient planning all that hiding of te nuts. I seen videos of them going all out Mission Impossible on garden bird feeders.

Interesting question OP..

I agree first off with a few other commentators that we are a creation and did not evolve from apes,I know you don't want drifting posts but this is relevant as we are not the pinnacle of creation.

Many would say there are already evolved 'beings' in all the base categories:as you know:reptilian humanoids=reptiles-the dogon esque amphibians=amphibians-insectoid Greys=insects and the primate template being humans etc etc.

One thing before I answer your question full on-but I would hazard a contention that life forms of intelligence do not just breathe oxygen, it could be methane based, ammonia so on although this is certainly not accepted in the MSM.

So after my little essay there,It made me think that there is no answer in a sense? as any category could be used 'made' and it would have high intelligence and just inheriting the traits of the original life form.

*I feel tempted to say whales or Dolphins in answer to the OP*

I also come by some top draw CT info on pigs going along the lines that they may contain Human DNA and this maybe why they are compatible donors and skin grafters and not forgetting why the Jews don't eat them lol thought it might be appropriate to bring that up,sorry to derail.

So yes I'll go with whales and dolphins they would be noble humanoids I'm sure.

originally posted by: Beartracker16
How about a machine intelligence, It is my understanding that they have nanobots that can replicate themselves. If this is true, then they could conceivably create a vast machine that consumes the entire planet.

Good point! One Wonders if this is where we are being directed? The likes of Wes Penre seem to think so...