Saturday, August 20, 2016

The physical appearance of evolved species

Watching some sci-fi movies got me thinking about the idea of humanoids and different evolved, intelligent, self-aware species having different appearances and originating from different species, such as a crocodile-resembling humanoid, an ape-resembling humanoid (us), and so on.

But here's what I'm thinking... Are all those options equally plausible? I think not. Human beings evolved to have diminished predatory characteristic as well no distinguishable characteristics of prey.

I mean, we have the right teeth to chew meet, but we don't have a vicious mouth designed to kill an animal by chewing on its neck, and we don't have long ears and super strong legs like rabbits do so they can escape a predator. In fact we developed in a rather new direction and in a leisurely way. We developed more and more toward the ability to self regulate (this is an observation made by Harry Binswanger).
But here is the main point here: Because we re intelligent we don't have an evolutionary pressure to develop either in the direction of prey OR predator. And the same thing will be true for EVERY evolved species, by which I mean mentally evolved.
The only way that will change is if somehow, a lot of only evolved species would exist and would have to kill one another to survive. But then let me ask you this: Have they all forgotten how to raise chickens??
Conclusion, such conditions will never be met for evolved species and therefore all of them will have a peaceful appearance, and not like a T-Rex.
Sure, you can have an intelligent predator, more intelligent than the others, but once they cross a threshold and become intelligent enough to farm, they no longer have an evolutionary pressure to maintain their predatory qualities and those traits will disappear over time.

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