A creature would not evolve to solve abstract problems specifically. I was thinking more of creatures which lack hands or other such structures, or perhaps a creature which does not value its freedom
Yeah that’s a lot more realistic 
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… I mean, let’s look at some real life pets that are incredibly smart:
- Pigs.
I’ve raised pigs, actually, and given sufficient mental exercise (aka not raising them in an incredibly rote, boring environment auch as most farms) they’re curious, social, and tool using critters that will get into trouble. A lot. Tool use? Watch as they open doors they can reach, manipulate passerby for extra food, and amuse themselves with toys/blocks/games/what I swear was a three pig game of soccer. -.- that of course they stop when I try to film, and immediately start begging for food. Self aware? Eh, I can’t find any conclusive studies saying porkers are, but they are definitely intelligent.
- Parakeets/Parrots
While I have never personally owned one, parrots and parakeets are incredibly intelligent animals, so much so, that, as a pet owner, you need to make sure to interact with them or give them something to do often else they will start making trouble to get your attention. It’s actually one of the reasons they’re not recommended for everyone, given the amount of effort that goes into caring for one. I’ve heard comparisons to eternal toddlers before, actually.
- Dogs
Mankind’s favorite (and one of the most successful) attempts at mammalian bioengineering. Intelligent enough to be easily trained, physiology adapted to fit our needs and whims (we bread them to have puppy dog eyes, people) and psychology adjusted to fit into our homes. Not so much upkeep that they take up all of our time, but more than enough to live with us.
One of the limiting factors on how likely an animal is to become a pet is intelligence, actually. A (comparatively) unintelligent one, i.e. fish, plants, lizards, insects, maybe hamsters, tend toward a cosmetic or trophy pet . They look good, but tend not to be heavily integrated into the family structure itself.
From there, we tend to move into small mammals which are cuddled/lived with, maybe trained, and on up to about an upper limit of cats and dogs. Which, of course, tend to end up closer to functional members of the household.
Past that point, going into the intelligent birds/octopi, even for some dogs, the amount of upkeep needed to keep the animal entertained and happy tends towards a detriment for the average individual, even sometimes family. Octipi in captivity are known for dying because they get so bored they go exploring and end up suffocating.
… I guess, technically, it’s the upkeep itself that tends to be a limitong factor, which makes sense, if you have to spend a great deal of time caring for something,the porpotion of people who want to do it, instead of something else they may enjoy more decreases drastically.
Where am I going with all this?
This whole hypothetical is rather close to the truth.
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Dang poor octos. Those pets are smart. A thing I have found is that humans have reached a level of intellect, stability and tech that we are no longer selected for our intelligence. It would make sense if a similar thing happened to our pets.
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I believe it works the other way round too. A human settlement is a very unpredictable environment, so intelligence becomes a more valuable evolutionary trait. You have to make sense of things, and win the human’s attention, to survive. For example most mammalian pets like dogs and horses can read human facial expressions. But for their wild variants that trait is obviously useless.
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Honestly, it does put some selection pressure for social intelligence. Huh, hadn’t thought about it that way. But, actually, it’s less useless and more a specialization of an existing trait, since humans put a comparatively massive amount of attention to facial expressions. Horses and wolves were already pack/herd animals, so they needed ro be able to make sense of body language.
Take sheep. Sheep are dumb as a rock. I mean this kindly, but they have the critical thinking skills of an overly mobile bush, most of the time. I have raised exceptions, but they are, by and large, bottle babies who imprinted on someone/thing else. But socially? They can and will remember of dozens of different individuals, learn (or create) names for dozens to the low hundred others in their herd, have several dozen different “words” that vary by herd, ala regional accents.
… No, I did not learn to enough baas to convince the sheep to walk back into their pen and you cannot prove otherwise.
I’m not sure how much of that is loss of intelligence, and how much is specialization. General intelligence? Absolutely. We don’t have to juggle nearly as widely diverse of topics as say, even four hundred years ago, let alone a couple thousand. That said, the average retailer works with a lot of people. Seriously when a bog standard job can have hundreds helped in a day, and you tend to be successful if you can read moods, ect… Still the same social intelligence, but said person now no longer needs to hunt for their food. That said, it’s a really interesting topic, and I know there’s been debate about it… Should go see what I can find.
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But that’s irrelevant as far as evolution is concerned. I think you’re confusing usefulness to the individual with usefulness to natural selection here. Natural selection doesn’t work unless people who lack a trait are literally dying because of it. Thus, the argument that humans have stopped evolving isn’t about whether we use intelligence, but whether we are dependent on it. So long as healthcare works on stupid people that is not the case.
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Eh… While I am conflating usefulness to the individual with natural selection here, there’s a reason: natural selection favors fitness of the group, which does not always mean death. An group more successful in a given niche, will end up outcompeting others, even if all else stays equal, creating selection pressure. Remember, selection pressure does not equal death to the species (sometimes not even individuals). Sometimes, it just means that a different niche gets contested. Other times, it just means you have less kids.
Case and point, invasive species. While an invasive species will tend to upset the balance of an ecosystem, and tend to kill the exant species of any given niche, the displaced species can and will adapt, though this is most common in larger, generalist species with aome plasticity anyway. The hard part about adding the examples (besides feral cats vs foxes and other small ambush predators) is that the displaced species tends to already be under pressure due to human interactions before we notice it happening. Honestly, this is further mediates by the differences between an invasive species and a introduced species which from the times I worked in conservativion is more the direct impact of a given species.
Even then, natural selection is based on passing on genes. An organism that lives a full life, but is unable to successfully reproduce, will still be an evolutionary dead end, while one that has kids who then go on to have kids, even if the individual itself dies quickly, still will have been successful. It’s why self sacrifice (which from an organisms point of view is death) has still been independently evolved many times, because so long as the likelyhood of a successful next generation is increased, then the gene is passed on. Look up books about gene centered evolution (The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is out of date, somewhat innacurate, but still an awesome read if you enjoy science literature. Just… Grain of salt.)
Tldr, natural selection is based on fitness, and fitness does not mean death to any species, if it can adapt.
Okay, so back to humans specifically.
Now, the reason why I had been focusing on emotional intelligence? If we use generated wealth as a very general indicator of fitness (and yes, I mean general, I am well aware of the the fact that there are dozens of general issues with this setup, but it’ll work as a vague generalization), the majority of the fitter individuals are trained from a young age to understand social signals. Is this an absolute requirement? Not at all. But we still see a great deal of the wealth, and therefore opportunity, in the hands of those that tend towards successfully interacting (positively or negativity) with other people, I.E. celebrities, business managers, political figures.
So, why was (and still am) I using wealth as an indicator? Wealth provides opportunity. Whether this opportunity is in connections with others (so you don’t have to directly know someone, a friend of a friend may, and this is interestingly enough there for all tight knit communities, so it’s far from just the rich), in second chances (every kid who’s got a million dollar investment from parents/close family in their startup), or training/outsourcing in a given requirement. Any combination of the above can help you get ahead, but wealth may be substituted to provide one (or more) of those that are deficient.
Still a vast oversimplification of complex social, political and economic interactions thats about guarenteed to start a heated discussion? Absolutely. Useful enough to vaguely model for our needs? I hope so, given that specific cultural contexts will change how any given model weighs more than the basics.
… That, and while I know enough in socialogy and economics to be dangerous, I am in no way an expert, so I would really rather not go beyond what I know.
And sorry, I want to write so much more on this, but at that point it kind of needs it’s own thread for the essay.
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Would it be possible for a creature without hands or tools to domesticate animals, so that they could get a handy creature to build for them?
Ants? IIRC, ants don’t have hands and can domesticate other species nonetheless.
So I have a solution to the everlasting “symbiont debate”. Just add a new category! I also thought up another new category. New catagorys:
Symbionts: a domesticated critter that increases the physical abilities of the owner. (I suppose it could increase mental abilities but if it takes one from non sapient to sapient the relationship may be backwards.)
Examples: any domesticated symbiont in fiction.
Entertainers: a subset of happiness type, they are part of a sport of just do entertaining stuff. Examples: racing horses, fighting dogs and cats with social media accounts. Sentient examples: gladiators, Jabba the hutt’s slaves.
This system could still fail to include some creatures. For example:
- A creature that incubates eggs for a sophont that isn’t a brood parasite (so it wouldn’t be a symbiont)
- A ploughing creature with an organic plough
- A creature that ferments something in its gut
Ants have ‘cows’ (mealy bugs) and roaches, literally called Ant Roaches.
Okay, so in order here:
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I would actually put this as entertainment/companionship, unless the eggs then proceed to eat said animal, in which case livestock, slaughtering. Why? Because while viable alternatives are likely to occur for the eggs incubation (heaters/the species itself) the animal freeing up time would result in a large happiness bonus, meaning the end result would be the same. For a really toned down version, all the people who have their dogs keep an eye on their children (similar concept, care of young to free resources). If the kid eats the animal, then it seems just to be a specialized form of food.
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Yup, you have a point here. Instead of transport, maybe have a general “Work” category, covering everything under labor animals (oxen were used primarily for farm work, actually, with the elderly animals being culled from the herd) and transport (Horses) with some overlap between? Really, you could technically use either category for the work of the other, just at a reduced rate. Or, you know, you just selectively breed until that’s not an issue (side eyeing mules).
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Livestock, Harvesting. It’s cows, but instead of milk you get alcohol.
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could we have genetically modified animals like this during the space age
What’s the difference between Fan and Pets? Shouldn’t they be considered the same?
Regarding slavery: a slave-dependent society only really works when there is a regular influx of new slaves.
The purpose of the slaves is to perform labour at a lower economic cost than regular workers (considering requirements for food, clothing, shelter, etc.) The slaves are provided with less than they require to sustain themselves long-term, thus working themselves to death, and requiring that they be replaced.
Once the availability of new slaves decreases, continuing the use of slaves means giving them enough to survive for longer and reproduce effectively. This means raising their living standard, and using more resources on them. At that point, they become indentured servants, rather than full-on slaves. And if the system relies on heavy use of slavery, it can no longer function in the same way.
No, because there is a major difference between a slave and a servant: a slave is owned by their master while a servant isn’t.
Wait a minute, when did this thread become a slavery thread? There’s already one thread about it.