From: Michael Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Tue Feb 06 2001 - 15:50:15 MST
Chuck Kuecker wrote:
>
> At 01:21 PM 2/6/01 -0500, you wrote:
> > > Ever compare the intelligence of a house cat to a lion? Or a chihuahua to a
> > > Great Dane?
> >
> >I've known parrots that were far smarter than dogs or cats (and
> >lighter).
> >
> > >
> > > The resulting creature would be mostly brain, not much use for colonization
> > > or exploration unless backed by mucho hardware, which I believe would
> > > outweigh the traveler by quite a bit.
> >
> >Thing is you don't need to ship all that equipment: you need a computer
> >CAD/CAM prototyping system to construct parts out of refined materials
> >in situ.
> >
> >Mike
>
> Yes, but you still need the refinery, and some processing to build more
> than one-offs. With nano, I guess we are home free, here. Alternatively, we
> can send numerous supply drones ahead of the colonists, as many have
> advocated - then the infrastructure is ready before the colonists leave home...
Shipping a refinery would be needed in any event. One prototyping system
and one pickup truck sized micro-refinery to produce handfuls of
material at a time is all thats needed. Make the prototyping system able
to reproduce every part in a refinery, all heavy industrial equipment,
and scale upwards.
>
> Is the intelligence of the parrot real, or because it can talk? I have
> heard varying opinions on "birdbrains"...
I've seen parrots play with dogs for hours. A friend had one that would
take his Newfoundland dog for a walk around the block for him, sitting
on its neck. The newfie was kept in check by pecks from the parrots
beak.
Very well, take squirrels, who exhibit very high puzzle solving
intelligence. A human brain carries great redundancy to protect against
heat and shock damage over a human's life. Improving a neuron's ability
to withstand these shocks would allow smaller brains with equal
intelligence. Shrinking the size of a neuron also does the same.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:05:39 MST