Ep 59: How to make a mind—part2
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How to make a mind—part2
What we need is our rare and wonderful Earth, and approximately 4.54 billion years. Of course, that begs the question. How did we end up with our Earth, and how important is it that a planet is like our Earth to create intelligent tool users? According to the “Rare Earth Hypothesis,” to get minds, many highly improbable things, things that happened to our planet, must take place. Otherwise you don’t even get to create anything as complicated as a flatworm, let alone intelligent tool users. Over the next several episodes, as we examine how our planet gave rise to our species, we’ll revisit this hypothesis and consider which of many factors are necessary, rare, or common in our cosmos.
Here are a couple of articles with further details on the “Rare Earth Hypothesis.”