...before...

We been perceiving the world with our human systems and sensors for "a few thousand years", ok, a few million years. How had it been perceived before "higher intelligence" came into existence? If we go back a few million years more we can say the world then was perceived by the pretty highly developed systems of animal life (livestock). What happened before, a few billion years back, and more? What ways of perception existed at the time? Over not just a few million of years, we are talking about several billions of years.... Questions questions.