Spindle neurons and apicl dendrites.The Whales might have been then the most advanced life form on the planet (maybe they still are?).
I miss old Star Trek
"What is more, whales appear to have had these cells twice as long as humans, and early estimates suggest they may have three times as many spindle cells as us, even accounting for the fact that whale brains are larger than ours." Link
Personally, I think we're head and shoulders above other animals in our multi-layered, redundant awareness. Intelligence is exactly how we got ourselves into this whole mess. Stubbornness, ironically, is a sign of emotional intelligence. Irrational behavior, fantasy-induced selfishness...we see far but still not far enough. Most people are terrified of a a united earth, for example, despite the necessity being obvious and eventual. Making it to a type-one society is the hard part, type two and three are easy after that.
I measure intelligence as how much thought you can think within a given timeframe. If you can do ten minutes worth of thought in a minute, you're ten times as smart as the average. The ability to pick out the most useful or relevant potential scenarios from a "coumpound eye" to make swift, correct decisions would commonly be described as intelligent behavior, whereas creativity depends on considering more scenarios from the "compound eye", less concerned with correctness but occasionally coming to something better circularly than the benefits of linear intelligence will allow. Creativity and intelligence aren't mutually exclusive, but they don't share the brain well. The apex, then is the corpus callosum, uniting the benefits of both hemispheres for pure mechanical thinking ability. The spindle cells mostly dictate emotional intelligence which is a double edged sword. To much sadness and you can become useless. To much anger and you put yourself in jeopardy.
Strnge place for a rant but I think it fits.
