The Theory of Multiple Intelligences made for good reading. Not sure how much I agree with it, though. I need to read more about it and think on it.
I don't think the emergence of intelligence is necessarily serendipitous. Evolution favors traits based on whether the carriers of those traits survive or even thrive. At first, our level of intelligence wasn't needed- which, life was just getting started so life hadn't had time to develop such a level of intelligence. But starting out, all an organism had to do was survive long enough to share genes or asexually reproduce, both ensuring the continued existence of the genetic information. Over the billions of years, though, there have been a multitude of extinction events that pushed life to its limits. Of course, these extinction events didn't "reset" evolution as some would believe. The best genes survived and carried on. But in order for life to ultimately survive, at some point it has to be able to realize that it is threatened by things not readily perceivable, like asteroids, comets, rogue stars and planets, distant gamma ray bursts, death of the sun, etc. The only thing genes care about is surviving, and perhaps past extinction events have pushed our genes into building more complex "machines" with more complex brains for higher thought, problem solving, etc.
It's kind of like a debate a friend and I have had- he argued that indeed sexual fitness was the most important aspect of survival. He provided Genghis Khan as an example- while he wasn't one of the smartest humans to ever live, his rapacious lifestyle allowed him to become the ancestor of 10% of the Asian population. Then you have people like Einstien, Hawking, and such, whose contribution to the overall human genetic pool will never even come close to that of Khan. My argument, however, is that if at least some people don't think, "Hey, this planet isn't going to last forever- lets get off this rock!", then all those descendants of Genghis Khan won't matter because they'll all die, along with their genetic information.
Higher intelligence to me seems to be an inevitability in the evolution of life if it can endure long enough, because creatures like microbes, insects, and fish simply aren't up to the task of the ultimate goal of survival. The genes must build a "machine" capable of leaving the home planet or the whole purpose of life will be for absolutely nothing.
Perhaps there were dinosaurs with some level of higher intelligence, but among all the fossils ever found we've never seen a dinosaur with a tool, clothing, or art. It isn't impossible that some species of dinosaur developed higher intelligence, but perhaps their bodies weren't equipped to build the tools necessary to conquer their perceived challenges. Look at dolphins- easily one of the most, if not the most, intelligent species alive today. They can communicate, work in groups, and hell they can even be trained to help the military find underwater mines. But their biggest problem is that they have no hands... well, that and they live mostly in the water (and it can be argued that fire is necessary for civilization).
But if dinosaurs didn't evolve intelligence, perhaps it was because extinction events hadn't pressured natural selection into that direction yet.
Also, I apologize if I make sound as though evolution or natural selection "thinks" or is necessarily some form of intelligence itself. It's just easier for me to put it in such terms.
But life adapts to the challenges it encounters. Maybe 9(?) extinction events somehow pushed the evolution of life into our general direction because our genes can't continue to exist if we can't figure out a way to leave the Earth. And, several billions or trillions of years from now, our descendants will have to find some way to save the universe from destroying itself, or find or create a new universe, otherwise what's the point of survival and life at all?
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