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Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

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Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#51

Post by TeMPOraL »

sdwa wrote: post #30
missedthecue wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So crows could build a jumbo jet, they're just lazy? It's pretty obvious that animals lack any type of intelligence even close to human ability. It's not even in the same ballpark.

Crows absolutely could build a jumbo jet, they just have no need to because they can already fly.

Would they build a submarine then? Or a rocket capable of reaching orbit?

More realistically: have they mastered fire? There are caloric efficiency benefits to eating warm/cooked food[0]. Have they mastered writing? There's compound interest in terms of civilization development sitting right there, in the ability to put thoughts into a form that outlives individuals without degrading.

--

[0] - At least for humans; IANABiologist, but I'd guess this would be true for other animals too, including birds, and at the very least it would expand the range of foods they can consume.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#52

Post by lehi »

jonplackett wrote: post #17

You can tell how much smarter crows are just by going to feed the ducks. The crows watch YOU and your arm, predict where you'll throw and move there in advance, often catching things in mid-air. It's not just reaction speed, they're watching really carefully and making guesses. The ducks are next on the spectrum, they spot it first (after it lands) and geese are the dumbest, the feed can hit them right in the head, a…

Dragonflies execute predictive flight patterns to catch prey mid-flight with 95% accuracy, so that ability alone may not be a good proxy for intelligence: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26684-dragonflies-ant...

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#53

Post by mywittyname »

sharkweek wrote: post #26

My crow story, which I think I've mentioned on here before. We have young children, and thus the back of our car is always a little disgusting with things like goldfish crackers littered all over the floor and in-between the cracks of their car seats. We got in the habit of throwing the crumbs out onto the driveway when we got home. It didn't take long for us to notice anytime we pulled in, the crows would be lined u…

This makes me wonder if this kind of stalking is the reason behind the association of ravens with war? Many cultures have mythologies of ravens protecting warriors in battle. Maybe they literally followed armies in the past, scavenging food, and attacking the foes of the army.

I understand that they eat carrion, hence their association with the dead. But that wouldn't explain the stories like this:

> According to legend, prior to one battle a gigantic Gallic warrior challenged any Roman to single combat, and Valerius, who asked for and gained the consul’s permission, accepted. As they approached each other, a raven settled on Valerius’ helmet and it distracted the enemy's attention by flying at his face, allowing Valerius to kill the enemy Gaul.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Valerius_Corvus#Early_c...

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#54

Post by missedthecue »

cassalian wrote: post #47
missedthecue wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So crows could build a jumbo jet, they're just lazy? It's pretty obvious that animals lack any type of intelligence even close to human ability. It's not even in the same ballpark.

What motivation does a crow have to build a jumbo jet? Furthermore, the vast majority of humans have no idea how to build a jumbo jet, and throughout the vast majority of human history, there were no jets - jumbo or otherwise - does this mean that we only have higher intelligence in today's world, now that we are able to build jumbo jets? For the vast majority of human history, we only had the simplest of tools and i…

Crows have only been around in one form or another for 30 million years give or take, so if they haven't done anything more interesting than adapt to their environment and use basic tools since, I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that the reason is because they are incapable of it, not because they have chosen not to.

At the end of the day, it is impossible to prove a negative, so no I can't show you off hand that a crow can't actually conceive of this or that or the other thing

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#56

Post by TeMPOraL »

snazz wrote: post #49
missedthecue wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specifics of jumbo jet manufacture really has nothing to do with my point. The point of my comment is that there is a very evident and very clear discrepancy between human intelligence and animal intelligence. It's always fun to watch a clever squirrel find its way into a bird feeder, a cunning fox outsmart a rabbit, or a curious monkey recognize himself in the mirror. These are signs of sentience, sure, but all…

Building anything significant requires a relatively high level of dexterity, does it not? Even if crows could figure out how to build and operate tools that would allow them to build significant physical structures and objects, their bodies are not well-suited to doing so.

It's not about building anything, really. The cornerstones are figuring out a reliable method to store knowledge over generations, and then figuring out mathematics more advanced than counting your food and potential mates. Having that, you have both an abstract framework for developing better understanding of the world (which is a necessity for better control over it, i.e. technology), and a way to implement it as work that spans generations.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#57

Post by DavidSJ »

novok wrote: post #20
cassalian wrote: post #7

> crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds, a manifestation of higher intelligence and analytical thought long believed the sole province of humans and a few other higher mammals. I've always found the common thought that only humans and a select few of other animals are the only ones that posses higher intelligence to be incredibly arrogant of our species. Why wouldn't they have higher…

Humans were effective in their intelligence and rule the world with it, no other animal has shown anything approaching something like that. You judge them by their results.

On the other hand, the best of our inventions and discoveries seem to have been just barely within our grasp, and it took modern Homo sapiens 200 thousand years to reach this level of domination of the planet.

A slightly less intelligent species (or perhaps one lacking just the right body type), such as our own ancestors or perhaps our extinct close relatives, might have taken 10 million years instead of 200 thousand, or just never have done it at all.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#58

Post by TeMPOraL »

guerrilla wrote: post #28
missedthecue wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So crows could build a jumbo jet, they're just lazy? It's pretty obvious that animals lack any type of intelligence even close to human ability. It's not even in the same ballpark.

See, there's your arrogance again. They may have no interest in doing so or anything leading up to it and desire is not a measure of intelligence.

Occam's razor suggests that "not capable" is a better explanation than "not interested in", when considering things that are clearly an immediate and strong benefit to a life form.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#59

Post by ElFitz »

missedthecue wrote: post #38
guerrilla wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, there's your arrogance again. They may have no interest in doing so or anything leading up to it and desire is not a measure of intelligence.

OK, so how about the fact that they haven't figured out how to heal broken bones? Is that my arrogance again, or is it that they would just prefer to flop on the ground until nightfall and then be eaten alive by coyotes?

And how are crows supposed to defend wounded fellows from coyotes? Or carry them to safety?

How about the fact they can apparently build compound tools from parts?

Your example isn't just about brains. It requires both proper bodies and arguably complex social behaviors, which are quite separate from intelligence itself.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#60

Post by nicoburns »

padjo wrote: post #25
biggc wrote: post #6

> a clueless hedgehog across a highway before it becomes roadkill Before watching the linked video I thought this was describing crows deliberately placing hedgehogs in harm'ss way so that they could eat the resulting roadkill

I would urge caution in interpreting motive from animal behaviour. To my eye that crow could just as easily be attacking the hedgehog as helping it.

This is a sensible caution, but we should also be careful not to do the opposite and assume an animal is incapable of sophisticated motives and intelligent planning.
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