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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

#61

Post by sosuke »

mywittyname wrote: post #53
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 leg…

Easy food off corpses is my thought. Humans are very soft and tender if they aren't swinging at you.

I've seen several media instances of crows eating the dead.

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

#62

Post by hinkley »

guerrilla wrote: post #23
novok wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not a measure of our intelligence, only our ambition and aggression. The two may not even be correlated.

Possibly inversely correlated.

Tribes that expressed humanity to creatures outside of homo sapiens were frequently wiped out by tribes that couldn't even manage to express humanity to other tribes of homo sapiens.

The victors sit on a throne of skulls, wondering why they are so lonely.

Aggression is a gene that selects for itself. But if it's too successful, then the next time some external selective pressure comes from outside, that 'loneliness' may become an existential threat, wiping out the local gene pool entirely. Just like a virus.

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

#63

Post by kube-system »

rmtech wrote: post #29

I feel that the title oversells this a bit. This research demonstrates that crows know whether they saw something or not. It doesn't demonstrate that they are on a par with humans when it comes to introspection.

It's a pretty big feature, relatively speaking, to have a brain that can implement if(){} else{}, rather than simply if(){}

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

#64

Post by sosuke »

SonOfLilit wrote: post #18

Hopefully someone in the field will read this and be able to answer my question: I've spent a lot of time googling research about animal intelligence, and I now know a bunch of things intelligent animals can do, but I have no idea where their limits are, what they can't do. Everything published uses such... nonflexible tasks. If we're trying to measure general intelligence, why isn't anybody trying to teach corvids,…

Sounds like you've come up with a cool personal project.

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

#65

Post by spideymans »

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.

Would our physical abilities not play a role in our ability to "rule" the world? We're relatively large animals, blessed with arms, finger, thumbs and a remarkable degree of physical dexterity. These physical abilities collectively enable us to physically manipulate the world.

Or in other words, if dolphins had arms and thumbs (or generally any physical attributes that allows them to manipulate their environment as humans do), would it crazy to suggest that they could dominate the seas, as humans dominate land?

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

#66

Post by withinboredom »

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?

Can you heal a shattered leg all by yourself with no one around? I guarantee you’ll lay on the ground until nightfall and probably be eaten by coyotes (since you’re a human, they /might/ leave you alone).

If you have someone with you, maybe they can carry you. Crows can’t carry other crows. If they wanted to fix the other crow, they’d have to do it where the crow fell. It would still get eaten by coyotes. They can’t protect the downed bird, so it will still be eaten. Ergo, why bother trying to heal the bone?

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

#67

Post by vharuck »

missedthecue wrote: post #24
guerrilla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a measure of our intelligence, only our ambition and aggression. The two may not even be correlated.

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 would you consider the bare minimum act to be judged at human-level intelligence?

Remember, for most of the history of our evolutionary ancestors, we were hunter-gatherers that used extremely crude tools. Not really better than crows. Discoveries happened a whole lot slower back then, like the eons between making fire and starting agricultural towns. Given a few millennia, crows may be making their own fires to cook.

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

#68

Post by cialowicz »

afpx wrote: post #55

If Humans somehow make themselves extinct, I bet on crows being the species to take over.

If we, through some miraculous circumstance, avoid making ourselves extinct, then maybe there's a small chance the crows won't overthrow us and take over.

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

#69

Post by missedthecue »

ElFitz wrote: post #59
missedthecue wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think this rebuttal holds much water. Humans are capable of doing things that our bodies cannot. We domesticated beasts of burden in order to move heavy objects from one place to another for instance.

But consider very basic advancements. Communication for instance is something humans mastered from the outset. We are able to store and pass down information beyond the instinctual for generations, something no other animal has done. Imagine if humans needed to rediscover mathematics every generation!

There are plenty of examples I could give that would provide crows with an immediate improvement in the quality of life. I think the reason they have not done these things is because they cannot, rather than because they have chosen not to.

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

#70

Post by TeMPOraL »

afpx wrote: post #55

If Humans somehow make themselves extinct, I bet on crows being the species to take over.

I'll place my bet on cephalopods. Wonder how the two civilizations would interact after discovering each other.

And if we don't go extinct, perhaps one day we'll uplift both species.

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