151–160 of 443 posts
I don't think intelligence is a linear scale or gradient, or even a cube, more like a cluster of multiple features/drivers/daemons operating at different strengths in different species, all shaped by the needs of their bodies.
It's fascinating that intelligence exists in different clades & phylum of animals: crows, octopus, apes etc. It suggests intelligence is not very progressive, in evolution. It advances & recedes, and evolution can find multiple paths to it from various starting point. It doesn't take a mammalian brain. Who know what other animal intelligence exists today, or in the past. The current crop of species (us excepted) may…
A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above the crow level, but maybe not by much. What makes us special is persistent collective learning and abstract communication. Unlike animals, generations of humans don't have to keep re-solving the same problems. As a species we have cumulative persistent memory for techniques and abstractions. That's the real game changer. But it took a surp…
For example, the wild, untrained human still has the biological faculty of language.
That is, there is a reason why no animal other than a human has been shown to be able to learn a language. The reason is that they do not have the biological faculty of language.
You suggest that "generations of humans don't have to keep re-solving the same problems/" This is correct, but in many important ways it is not because of our culture or because we learn from our elders. But rather it is because of our genetics.
An example of this is that children who are not taught a language will spontaneously create their own. Normally this won't happen, because children can't survive without adults, and adults will teach the children language. But something very close has happened a few times, an example, in itself far from conclusive, but still illustrative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
I really wish we had better definitions for "smart", "cognition", and "intelligence." With our current definitions, all comparisons are purely subjective. Maybe crows are the "smartest" today. Tomorrow it'll be dolphins, parrots, elephants, pigs, or cephalopods. Who knows?
I mean, there are pretty objective things to test for. Object permanence. How many things can they keep in working memory? How many steps can they work through linearly to an objective? How many dependent elements of a puzzle can be branched off for a single step? Can they understand symbols as being representative of objects? Of verbs? Adjectives? Can they understand counting, grouping? Can they extrapolate solution…
There are things that other animals can do which humans can't, such as an octopus communicating with a grouper fish, two entirely different species, by changing the color and patterns of their skin, to corral and trap a prey (as seen on a segment of BBC's Blue Planet.)
Are humans "dumber" if we use that objective criteria to compare intelligence?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also do this to cats, which is much more dangerous. There's a video with a cat catching a bird (not a crow) that did this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nfIQifAcm0g
I think that's different. I'd guess the cat was unknowningly getting near the bird's nest + kids so mother was panicking.
But I have seen a cat trotting along a wire fence with a concrete base. On that base, which was about the cat's height there was a hooded crow happily scuttering behind the cat and grabbing at its tail from time to time.
The cat mostly ignored it but it was apparent that it judges the chances of catching the pesky bird.
They also like to annoy other animals. I have seen it now a few times that a crow or a group of crows would approach a dog from behind and nip their tail or butt. When the dog turns around the crow will jump back a little and pretend it has nothing to do with this. When the dog looks away they will do it again. I have seen similar behavior with swans. When my dog chases they get out of the way but only the minimum ne…
Dolphins (including orca) do, primates do, the article says crows do. Cats and dogs do too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK so speech has begun 100,000 years ago (perhaps earlier). My point stands: Would humans without poetry not be considered intelligent? Hardly.
I didn't know we had any idea when speech started or even what form of proto-speech preceded and when it could be said it evolved to speech. Homo Erectus emerged 2 millions years ago, I'm not aware of anything that says speech couldn't have started during his reign. Do you have any source for that 100,000 years figure?
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/could-neandert...