Cat mouth and head information

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Author	Topic: Cat mouth and head information
Ezrah, Kitty of Wonder ^.^ Warrior Member # 4267	written Thursday, February 2 2006 05:11 Profile Homepage #25 Life does indeed take the "easiest route", the shift from prey to predator is a hard one, omnivorism is also a survival mechanism [anything is better than nothing in most cases.] omnivorism also supplies you with building blocks, while theoretically enough of everything can be obtain in any diet that excludes some substance [meat, vegetable matter, liquor :P ] its markedly more difficult. The reason that nature, and then sentience take the "Easy route" is because of energy expenditure. The less energy it takes to do something [staying alive, defending oneself *the prevalence of scare tactics to actual physical confrontations*, etcetera] the less of a threat its failure poses to you, seeing as you can retry, [a cheetah, a very high energy expenditure predator, when chronically unsuccessful is consequently dead] and in the case of critters that are predated, it leaves you with more energy to run and hide. Sentience follows right along because less time and energy spent taking care of your basic needs means more time and energy spent playing, socializing, mating, or building one's own status. While its possible that a completely herbivorous, or completely carnivorous [and I mean truly so, not a subset of an already developed species that adapted their behavior to deal with food shortages] sentient being could evolve, its much less likely, due to the complexity or bulk of a diet needed to obtain all their nutritional requirements, along with the inherent requirement for adaptations, small and large scale, physiological and behavioral to sustain that new diet, or adapt one's self around an old, formerly insufficient one. [ Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:59: Message edited by: Ezrah, Kitty of Wonder ^.^ ] -------------------- If everyone would just forgive someone else, so much pain would be taken off of all of our shoulders... but as tenderness is a virtue it is also a failing, any who would do such a thing usually fall to those who wouldn't. - Ezrah Posts: 50 | Registered: Thursday, April 15 2004 07:00
Frozen Feet Infiltrator Member # 4248	written Saturday, February 4 2006 02:30 Profile #26 But big brains are costly to maintain, and as you said, the course of nature is towards the minimum need of energy. In my view, if a creature doesn't need all it's intellect to survive, evolution is as likely to "cut the excess" as it is to take the other path, ie. civilization. I didn't speak about sentience; all life is sentient, atleast on the first level. Forming of sentience and forming of culture are different things, Ezrah. However, I do agree that unspecialized beings are more likely to form culture than specialized ones. However specialization is the easy route! Those human civilizations which were too specialized to their surroundings have always met their dooms in relatively short times. Think of the inuits: they were very specialized to the arctic conditions, and now just look at them; after the conditions started to change, their unique culture has quickly eroded. Because of globalization this has happened to many other cultures too. I'd also like to point out, that there are two things we humans still are too specialized in; these are agriculture and warfare. I'd explain more, but I just have met the limits of my vocabulary. I have to take few peeks to my english dictionaries before I can continue. [ Saturday, February 04, 2006 02:51: Message edited by: Frozen Feet ] -------------------- I have nothing more to do in this world, so I can go & pester the inhabitants of the next one with a pure concscience. Posts: 617 | Registered: Tuesday, April 13 2004 07:00
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Saturday, February 4 2006 10:35 Profile Homepage #27 FF, could you cite sources for your list of self-aware animals? I know that humans, dolphins, and some primates are considered self-aware, but I didn't know that wolves were or that there is strong evidence for a major difference between wolf and dog minds. A number of birds are intelligent and possibly self-aware as well. I'm still not clear on the need for specialization, which seems in this case to mean specialization in diet, specifically. The more specialized the diet, the more likely the organism is to have a digestive system designed to get the most benefit from that diet. Omnivorism opens up new food sources but makes all food sources less efficient. There's nothing inherently superior about omnivorism or everything would be omnivorous. The only real evolutionary pressure is to find a diet that supplies all nutritional needs. As soon as any diet, whatever its contents, exceeds the bare minimum and the organism is past some threshold of intelligence, civilization is possible. That intelligence won't come after the diet unless intelligence conveys some procreative advantage. —Alorael, who wouldn't say that humans are well adapted biologically to warfare or agriculture. Meme evolution isn't gene evolution. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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