All it needs for culture to succeed is written down tech. Could we provide video service to crows?
Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
31–40 of 443 posts
Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#32We have crows and jackrabbits in our neighborhood. You drive down the road toward a bunch (I think they prefer the term "murder") of crows having a meeting in the middle of the road. They'll eventually start nonchalantly strolling to the side at a calm, measured pace perfectly timed to just barely get out of the way as you pass and stroll back again, no feathers ruffled. Jackrabbits will be sitting safely in the gras…
Oh yes!
I live in a mostly rural area with lots of roaming fauna. Deer, hares, hedgehogs, cats of course, martens, rodents, foxes, all kinds of birds. Both when driving privately and when at work as a bus driver, I am observant and conscientious about all this wildlife: The roads are full of roadkill, which both saddens and angers me - but none of it is mine; I keep my eyes on the road, and I slow down for everybody.
Except for the crows and the rooks. I keep an eye on them, and keep a foot poised for braking, but I never have to. They stroll, as you describe it, quite nonchalantly out the way, sometimes leaving a walnut for my vehicle to please crush. And here's the thing: They happily stroll into the opposite lane, if - and only if - no cars are approaching from the opposite direction. Complete grasp of the traffic situation, and they hardly ever fail - during the last year, I have seen one dead crow at the roadside; I'm gessing he took cool one step to far.
Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#33This article focuses mostly on problem solving, planning, and tool use as the primary hallmarks of intelligence. But what problem does writing a poem solve? Do you have to be intelligent to write a great poem? What about the intelligence need to compose a great whale song[1]? Or paint a great painting? These are things not measured on intelligence tests and that don't fit well in to scientific experiments because the…
Recodings and culture independant 'universal' learnable communication is the next stage.
Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
noisy, attack people without a reason, kill other smaller birds, eat their eggs and nestling and take over their spot. I used to live in a neighbourhood with such a beautiful birds, now Crows took over an all I near in the morning is CRAAW CRAAW
Live in Davis next to an active freight train track that shakes the ground and tens of thousands of crows landing in the trees in the evening, hundreds per tree, then let me know how you like that. :)
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Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#35Cats and dogs are smarter in every sense of the word. More neurons for one, but the most obvious reason is their ability to convey emotion. Emotion is by far the deepest level of reasoning because it has the ability to transcend pure Darwinism. Emotion is what separates the natural brain from the quantum computer version. True AI is emotion + reason. Without learning from the past, and applying a multiplier based on…
Have you lived around crows? They have no problem conveying their emotions...
Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#36If you haven’t seen the CrowBox, a vending machine for crows, it’s pretty cool.
Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#37Cats and dogs are smarter in every sense of the word. More neurons for one, but the most obvious reason is their ability to convey emotion. Emotion is by far the deepest level of reasoning because it has the ability to transcend pure Darwinism. Emotion is what separates the natural brain from the quantum computer version. True AI is emotion + reason. Without learning from the past, and applying a multiplier based on…
Have you lived around crows? They have no problem conveying their emotions...
Or that’s just you personifying them via disneyfication.
Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#38When I was ~10 years old, I found a fake decorative crow (Halloween stuff) and I figured out that I could jump up and down with the fake crow and it would only be a matter of time before a few real crows would start circling... 15 minutes later there would be 100 circling, then thousands. It became a party trick that I'd show friends every now and then.
Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#39Country folk assure me that crows can also not only tell the difference between a gun and a stick, but they also have a pretty good idea of what the effective range of the gun is.
Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
#40When I was ~10 years old, I found a fake decorative crow (Halloween stuff) and I figured out that I could jump up and down with the fake crow and it would only be a matter of time before a few real crows would start circling... 15 minutes later there would be 100 circling, then thousands. It became a party trick that I'd show friends every now and then.
Why do you think they were interested?