It’s important to be clear what we mean with intelligence in this context. The last common ancestors of birds and mammals lived 325 million years ago or roughly 200 million years after the Cambrian revolution. It was likely a lizard-like creature of maybe 20-30cm length.
It was likely intelligent enough to coordinate the movement of its four legs and make some decisions about what to eat. It had eyes. It probably had a brain with neurons. Maybe capable of a freeze response to avoid getting eaten by a predator but no fight/flight. It was likely much dumber than today’s mammals and birds.
Given the same building blocks of neurons and axions that you connect together to form a brain birds and mammals seem to have found different strategies of how to create higher intelligence.
Octopi who diverged before the Cambrian evolution would likely make a much better argument of independent development of intelligence.
It’s important to be clear what we mean with intelligence in this context. The last common ancestors of birds and mammals lived 325 million years ago or roughly 200 million years after the Cambrian revolution. It was likely a lizard-like creature of maybe 20-30cm length.
It was likely intelligent enough to coordinate the movement of its four legs and make some decisions about what to eat. It had eyes. It probably had a brain with neurons. Maybe capable of a freeze response to avoid getting eaten by a predator but no fight/flight. It was likely much dumber than today’s mammals and birds.
Given the same building blocks of neurons and axions that you connect together to form a brain birds and mammals seem to have found different strategies of how to create higher intelligence.
Octopi who diverged before the Cambrian evolution would likely make a much better argument of independent development of intelligence.