Intelligent Extinction : an article by: GF Willmetts
After discussing the viability of sentient dinosaurids, we have to consider what might replace mankind if it becomes extinct. One can’t forget the primate genre and that has been explored in various ‘Planet Of The Apes’ films and TV series. If you haven’t seen any of them, expect to come across spoilers. There aren’t any other homids on Earth right now as far as we know. Choosing them compared to other species is mostly because that is what we came from although not necessarily because they can evolve any further. Other species don’t appear to have any comparable civilisations and we still share some of their habits.
The source for evolved apes was ‘Monkey Planet’ (1963 – translated into English in 1964 as ‘Planet Of The Apes’) by Pierre Boulle where astronauts going to Betelgeuse discover the primates on one of the planets are intelligent and mankind the savages. When they return to Earth, they find a similar evolution happened here. The 2001 film ‘Planet Of The Apes’ followed the book’s main plot. Boulle did draw on the apes habit of copying things and much of their civilisation was a version of human life.
However, it wasn’t the first filmed. The first run of five ‘Planet Of The Apes’ (1968-1973) films took the essence of Boulle’s book but turned it on its head. Unknowingly, the three astronauts had taken a Hasslein time loop and the only survivor on this planet of the apes discovers he’s on Earth in the future. A second pair of astronauts sent to find them, ‘Beneath The Planet Of The Apes’ (1970), follow the same route and only one survives. Apart from the apes, there is the remains of sentient mutated humanity in a nuclear bunker and the humans set off an omega class nuclear bomb destroying the Earth.
From another timeline, three chimpanzees repair one of the spaceships and get it into orbit only to see the detonation and be transported into the past in ‘Escape From The Planet Of The Apes’ (1971). I have to say ‘another timeline’ because Taylor’s spaceship was lost in a lake and it didn’t appear to have any means to get back into orbit. The mankind of the present take them as celebrities but covert units do not want them to live, especially as the female Zira is pregnant. Her husband, the historian Cornelius at an enquiry does reveal the history of his timeline where in the past cats and dogs were killed by a spaceborne virus and the apes were taken on as pets and then slaves as replacement. Eventually, they learnt to speak, rebelled and survived a nuclear war that wiped the majority of mankind out and enhanced primate intelligence. Although these chimpanzees were killed, their son survived.
In ‘Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes’ (1972), it is 20 years later and Cornelius’ history of the space virus has taken domestic dogs and cats and apes were taken first as pets and then slave labour after conditioning. However, if isn’t Aldo who first speaks against their slavery but their son Caesar, brought up and concealed in a zoo, triggers the uprising instead so reality is rewritten with some knowledge of what was supposed to happen.
The knowledge of primates wasn’t totally accurate when there films were made. Gorillas were seen as more aggressive and violence becoming the military. The orang-utans the intellectual leaders and the chimpanzees the scholars and scientists. With what we know since, gorillas are actually quite passive despite their size and chimpanzees the true aggressors. The orang-utans are quite laid back. Something that was followed several decades later.
The TV series, ‘Planet Of The Apes’, running at 13 episodes from 1974 had two astronauts arriving in a future where the apes were in charge but the humans could still speak. A necessity to give them other people to speak to as well as being on the run from the apes. An odd transition that didn’t make sense to the history as given in the films. I mean, how did they go from speaking to savages from that state?
When the second run of ‘Planet Of The Apes’ (2011-2024 so far) made the growth of primate intellect the result of a genetic experiment on a single chimpanzee and then to other primates. This time, they kept to what we currently know about apes.
That’s a brief recap. The success of the latest ‘Planet Of The Apes’ series, currently at 4 films shows popularity to the human population. This is probably in the same order the likes of the ‘V’ TV series and mankind has been dominated by an alien species and, indeed, other aliens over the years in a variety of TV series and films.
Would it happen for real? Probably not. The major groups of gorillas, chimpanzees and orang-utans have probably reached the height of their development. If there is a limit to further development then it’s the limit of their vocabulary and articulation. They’re jaws aren’t really made for speech equivalent to our own. They can communicate amongst themselves on some levels but complex thought and abstract imagination beyond feeding comparable to ours isn’t likely. The Bonobo chimpanzees have calmed their aggressions by literally making love not war. Other chimpanzee species are far more aggressive in their pecking order and excommunicate old leaders and any who don’t fit in. A trait humans also do incidentally. If they were to change, it would take radical changes in their make-up.
It would take some physiological changes as well as mindset changes to have a similar mutation for change across a species, let alone three of them. Its not like a butterfly species having two colours with one dominating in the industrial revolution. An alpha chimpanzee as shown with current observations can only dominate a tribe for so long but long enough to yield some off-spring. His replacement will kill his predecessor’s offspring if they are below a certain age. Being intelligent does not indicate superior strength or any other physical attribute and it would be luck if an intelligent sub-species survived such conditions. It would take many failures to get a few successes to propagate a viable sub-species and that assumes evolution in whatever form it is decides intelligence is an option for species survival.
Personally, I don’t think so. If it was going to happen, then it would have happened by now with all the experiments on behaviour chiefly done with chimpanzees. Those that have been ‘trained’ in communication tend not to get on with their own kind, clearly showing how they identify more with us in that state. Mankind’s existence or non-existence would not have made any difference as each species fills the niche available for it. The line to Homo Sapien had neanderthals, Denisovans and others is no longer there but their genetic cross-breeding is still with us. The thought that humans killed them doesn’t appear to be entirely correct when you consider there was some interbreeding and that wouldn’t happen unless their genome wasn’t close to our own. There are significant differences between the three types of humans to show there was some divergence and yet still remain compatible. It is this blending that we are what we are today. In comparison, other primates do not have such cross-breeding to bring out other recessive characteristics or other traits to climb the evolutionary tree. If this applies to primates, then the same would be true of any species. Intelligence would be seen as a evolutionary cul-de-sac, doomed to failure.
If you want to take this on a galactic scale, it would be hard to deny there being other life in the universe, but the odds of actual sentient life might be lower if they didn’t survive inter-species wars, nuclear war and global warming common to our own planet’s mismanagement. The need for intelligence isn’t a requisite for an ecology. It would be unlikely any sentient species would come from passive stock. There is a need for survival instincts and domination of other species in the food chain. It doesn’t mean the conquering of other predators. There are still many other species that we give a wide berth to.
Intelligent behaviour doesn’t necessarily mean similar sentience to ourselves but we also have nothing to compare ourselves to. Should a first contact situation occur with an off-world sentient species, we can then begin to assess and compare our situations. We are also likely to find ourselves low on the intelligence scale and evolution compared to space-farers who will have a greater knowledge of the sciences than ourselves. Humans do have a xenophobic fear even without our own three sub-species and it would be wise not to extend that to off-world intelligent creatures who might just be more civilised than ourselves. Should their mindset be similar to ourselves and they just want our planet, we might have to settle to being their servants or slaves, let alone be experimented on. Preferably, they might view our arts as something that needs to be preserved instead and that there are few enough sentient species to preserve us. One can only hope we have a similar disposition should the circumstances be reversed.
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