system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If it's possible for animals to be born with instincts and behaviors (like bees knowing direction using the sun) could there be some advanced civilization somewhere that is born knowing calculus (for example).

I was wondering this since I've been thinking about all the animals out there that sort of just "know" how to survive already, coupled with the fact that there are planets out in the universe that have existed many times longer than earth, and likely have civilizations that have evolved on them as well.

On another note, do you think the technology to create a baby with all this information already in it's brain will come about sooner than a similar evolution would?
gpt
Sure, it is possible, but it would likely be quite a burden on the poor creatures. The great advantage that humans have had over other organisms on Earth is our tremendous adaptability through our ability to learn brand new ideas which our genetics don't provide. If this generation calculus is useful, but next generation flying airplanes is useful, we don't want to have big chunks of our brain dedicated to calculus from birth.

What seems to be more useful to us are structures which make learning different things easier, but not too pre-programmed in something specific. For example, we have a tremendous in-built capacity for language, but nobody knows a specific language, so if a person born to German parents grows up in Japan, that child will be able to learn the contextually appropriate language. Similarly, we have in-built capacity for understanding numbers, but not to nearly the same degree. Presumably we could increase this capacity through bio-engineering, but we wouldn't be stuck with one particular way of thinking about math.

For evolution to result in an organism with this much specific information would require an environment which selects rather heavily for it and an organism which has a reasonable capacity to move into the niche. Our more generalized approach to learning seems much more likely to occur as these capacities are well suited to a greater variety of circumstances. For an organism to not develop technology capable of self-engineering, but be in the genetic ballpark of behavior such as differentiation seems quite unlikely.