The primary reason I see is the Machiavellian Intelligence hypothesis- if human-level intelligence is reproductively successful primarily to seduce and outwit, then a species that does not need to seduce or outwit in order to get the best partners will not develop human-level intelligence.
A hermaphrodic species could still need intelligence to outwit other members of the species.
My point in this debate is I want to see the math. The first proposed version of group selection sounds plausible but isn't once you do the math.
Huh? You made no mention of math earlier. Is there math you think you have to support your position? If so, yes, you are correct that there are game theoretic models that predict certain classes of behavior being more likely. For example, one does in fact expect certain patterns based on which gender invests more resources in the young. There are some really interesting examples where the males have for various reasons come to invest more in the young, and exactly what you expect often occurs, the females end up having harems of males and try to pump out as many offspring as possible. Jacanas are a good example of this
I believe the strength of that role depends on the relative size of the gametes- and so it may be that hyena gametes are very close in size or there is some other reason why they are an exception. I do agree that "secondary" was not the right way to put my claim- instead, I'll reword it to be that "in a bisexual society, sex roles will have deep similarity to human male-female roles."
The problem you are running into is that gamete size is only a very rough proxy for level of resource investment. And as a proxy it becomes weaker the more time the species spends raising its young. Your second comment is more accurate.
But it is important to realize that for all of this humans actually show major exceptions to the rules that one expects to have. In particular, one expects males to spend more resources engaging in showy demonstrations of fitness. And in fact in many species one does see this (peacocks are of course the most famous example). But in most human societies, females spend as much or more resources than males looking nice. Jewelry is generally much more common among human females than human males. This is strongly not what one would expect.
Indeed, we could imagine an alien species that, for whatever reason, doesn't trade with one another. They're easy to imagine because they evolved on Earth. What I find entirely implausible is that such a species could be the first to make it to human-scale intelligence and technological domination.
I agree with you that trade is probably a necessary precursor. I'm not sure that it is absolutely necessary for intelligence but it is presumably necessary for the technological domination part simply because no one is going to be able to develop all the technologies on their own. And in fact, trade behavior occurs in a variety of species in limited contexts.
Right, but the differences between corvids and human-precursor primates are mostly superficial. If corvids had made it to human-level intelligence first, the similarities would be very deep
Really? Some birds are able to sleep with only one side of their brain sleeping at a time, while the other half watches for predators. I don't know of any corvids that can do that, but it isn't at all implausible. You don't think that ability wouldn't drastically alter perception of self, and many other behavioral attitudes? And when one realizes that corvids lay eggs rather than giving live birth, how many issues related to that go away? Or if we turn to the list that Kaj helpfully supplied and look at dolphins, one of the other very intelligent species I listed, how many of the things on that list would simply not be important to them just because they live underwater? Firestarting and fire rituals would be out for obvious reasons. And that's just the most obvious starters. And then there's all the stuff on the list that is simply a product of humans being overactive pattern seekers (e.g. luck, magic, faith healing...) or having poor introspection ability (soul-concept), etc.
A hermaphrodic species could still need intelligence to outwit other members of the species.
It could. But do you agree that parthenogenesis is a very unlikely reproductive method for a HLI? (I've gotten tired of writing human-level intelligence.)
You made no mention of math earlier. Is there math you think you have to support your position? If so, yes, you are correct that there are game theoretic models that predict certain classes of behavior being more likely.
I thought it was obvious, and have paid for that mistake with karma.
...In particular, one
One of the most important points raised by the sequences is that not all minds are like humans. In quite a few places, people have discussed minds with slight changes from human minds, which seem altogether different. However, a lot of this discussion has been related to AI, as opposed to minds created by evolution. I'm trying to think of ways that minds which evolved, and are effective enough to start a civilization, could differ from humans'.
Three Worlds Collide would seem like an excellent starting point, but isn't actually very useful. As far as I recall, the Babyeaters might have learned their baby eating habits as a result of societal pressure. The main difference in their society seemed to be the assumption that people who disagreed with you were simply mistaken: this contrasts to humans' tendency to form rival groups, and assume everyone in the rival groups is evil. The Super-Happies had self modified, and so don't provide an example of an evolved mind.
So here are my ideas so far.