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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 9722443" data-attributes="member: 177">Woohoo!  Is that assertion going to need a boatload of support!Really, "As proof, here's a thing which is not proven!"  That's your argument?Now, we get to how this does not properly consider how our brains, or evolution, operates.Yes, our brains use a whole lot of our biological energy budget. But, unless you are literally starving or freezing to death before you have kids - and the brain is thus using calories that could otherwise keep you alive - that expense is not providing a selective pressure against intelligence.And, remember, AI isn't (yet) making our species dumber - AI has not been around long enough to impact the gene pool and select against genes for brains that work well.  Broadly speaking, the answer is: time.The universe is something like 13-14 billion years old.   We, as intelligent creatures, are between 3 million (Homo habillis) and 300,000 years old (early modern humans), depending how you want to count.Simple statistics gives us that any other intelligent species out there is older than we are, because we are so new, on geologic and cosmic timescales.  So, they've got the magic technology, because they've been around longer to develop technology.Water isn't an element.  And, instead of being "most reactive", its benefit to us is that it is pretty stable - it provides an environment in which our chemical processes can take place without itself being alteredIf the chemical basis for your life is too reactive, your required molecules keep falling apart in reactions.  If the chemical basis for your life is too stable, the chemical processes of that life require significantly more energy.  Carbon seems to be in a bit of a sweet spot - lots of covalent bonds, so it supports complex structures, and chemical activation energies that aren't too high or two low.No - they can know other laws of physics, for reasons of time mentioned above.  But so far, but electrons and protons and neutrons are the same everywhere, so chemistry is the same everywhere.</blockquote>

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