You choose the animal! Tomorrow, one animal species will be granted equal intelligence to humans.

@Oportunist said in #30:

are you sure they bite head off?

No I'm joking but always thought it would be funny twist to story xxxx

The most realistic contender for human intelligence is an amoeba, because I have been observing for many years how the vast majority of people are real amoebas.

"Being in harmony with one's surroundings" is a worthy goal. Meditation seems to lead toward its realization.

But it is not the only or even the highest good.

The pursuit of understanding and the dream of expansion to other worlds are characteristic of some of humanity's best. Our best are often not content with mere comfort. Humans try to improve and evolve. And the need to do that doesn't spring from contentment and harmony.

Think of those long-forgotten brave and curious wanderers who pushed out of Asia, across the Bering Strait (via the then-existing land bridge), and into North America and then even down to South America, more (possibly much more) than ten thousand years ago.

Think, even earlier, of the long-forgotten brave souls who pushed into cold and challenging realms out of warm mother Africa, even longer ago than that.

I respect their itch to change.

Aardvarks

Their cool

Shrimps

@Noflaps said in #33:

"Being in harmony with one's surroundings" is a worthy goal. Meditation seems to lead toward its realization.

But it is not the only or even the highest good.

The pursuit of understanding and the dream of expansion to other worlds are characteristic of some of humanity's best. Our best are often not content with mere comfort. Humans try to improve and evolve. And the need to do that doesn't spring from contentment and harmony.

Think of those long-forgotten brave and curious wanderers who pushed out of Asia, across the Bering Strait (via the then-existing land bridge), and into North America and then even down to South America, more (possibly much more) than ten thousand years ago.

Think, even earlier, of the long-forgotten brave souls who pushed into cold and challenging realms out of warm mother Africa, even longer ago than that.

I respect their itch to change.

To be a contrarian - I have a feeling that these migrations took place over thousands of years - with members of the tribe forming their own large families - and breaking away into their own tribes, and moving to their own territories - which over the course of many thousands of years led them verrrry far away. So perhaps each generation moved 20-50, maybe 100 miles on average - to add up to thousands pretty quickly

@salmon_rushdie , your point is a good one. I think the communities migrated slowly, over time, in much the way you describe.

But I can't help thinking that there were intrepid souls among them that sometimes motivated such movement.

I doubt that any one man or woman went thousands of miles beyond their known frontiers. But I suspect a few brave folks set off, alone or with a small group, on walkabouts (something I believe many Australians would understand and possibly sympathize with) that carried them quite far, so that they could return to the larger community with the good news that lovely new land lay in a certain direction, dependably.

Indeed, I'd like to think that I'd be among them! But my spaniel looks at me and I see the doubt in his eyes, and he is no fool, that dog. Of course -- he did NOT know me when I was younger. It's common to lose wanderlust and gain caution as we age, I think. Luckily, I think we gradually become a bit harder to fool, too. At least until about when we start constantly forgetting where we put our combs or keys.

Polynesians took some wild voyages no doubt