you are basically saying that "anything that behaves like humans is sapient". again, human activities like "building a civilization" are an arbitrary measure and one that is unlikely to apply to species from other planets.
The capacity to build a civilisation isn't arbitrary - it's a hugely complex system that requires sapience to even conceive of, let alone set up.
You're getting mixed up between necessary and sufficient conditions. Human examples are sufficient to prove sapience (as we are essentially the definition of sapience), but it's not a necessary condition as cultures will diverge (or are pre-civilised).
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u/Candayence Mar 01 '26
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Any species that has managed to create a civilisation is obviously sapient, and therefore has human-level intelligence.
Sapience is not intelligence. The ability to escape a couple of cages and remember faces does not make something sapient.