Thanks for the recommendation, podrock. I was enriched by it.

Wilson didn't speculate about the future development of eusociality--how far it could go beyond what we see today in the two major classes of eusocial species: Numerous but small insects, and larger but less numerous mammals.

Both classes today domesticate compatible species, so in a sense our extended phenotype includes other species we've roped in and whose behavior we've circumscribed using social control methods. Ants have aphids, humans have livestock and pets and working animals.

I don't know how much farther you can develop useful species beyond making them convenient to grow and harvest. But the mammalian category, exemplified by us, might be able to go much further through our social interactions with pets and helper animals.

And of course the bears who wander into our sphere and whose behavior over time becomes aligned with our own to optimize food rewards. We have a social relationship with them, too.

I think perhaps once you achieve self-organization as a eusocial uberorganism of the mammalian class, the next step is to naturally and unconsciously integrate nearby species into your sphere and uplift them by an almost-literal process of osmosis. If all these other species find their attention riveted on one dominant eusocial species, they'll gradually synchronize their behaviors to optimally benefit from adoption into what becomes that species' clan.

From another angle, maybe we're as smart as we can be, and now we're evolving intelligence further by developing it in the species who become integrated with our own.

So it could end up like Brin's universe, but without the conscious intent to uplift companion species. We could find ourselves leading a clan of intelligent species who grew up with us without our even noticing. At first.

Enough of that. On another track entirely: You do realize that Wookies are uplifted bears, right?