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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

#81

Post by marricks »

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.

We definitely have a unique ability to change our world but whether that's an effective "ruling of the world" and "smart" is really debatable. While that may sound be glib "judging them by their results" is really a ridiculous notion. The "results" would be purely framed in human terms "who can solve puzzles" who can "think like we do".

A cat doesn't need to think like us to live in their cat world, a worm doesn't need to solve a puzzle to live and thrive. Yet they both have thrived for a long time and existed in a way let them persist with their environment in an equilibrium.

It seems pretty reasonable to frame intelligence as thriving within your environment and persisting, and humans have only been around a short time and driven our planet to literal environmental collapse. I'd contend it's equally reasonable to describe humans as some of the least intelligent species.

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

#82

Post by withinboredom »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #51
sdwa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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; IA…

It took us 1000s of years to do that. One might ask, why did we master fire in the first place? Maybe to cook? To stay warm and go north? Do crows need to cook or can they just eat what humans cook? Do they need to stay warm?

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

#83

Post by titzer »

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.

Maybe they are smart enough to realize that jumbo jets would ruin the planet? /s

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

#84

Post by mindfulplay »

This is fascinating - similar to octopuses. But I am not sure if its arrogant of our species to assess intelligence in this way (absolutely no disrespect to these great scientists BTW) : surely there must be a better way; and perhaps our notion of "intelligence" / "consciousness" is primitive and our current assessment is backwards?

Also, if we were to make contact with an alien civilization, hopefully we have something better than "let's see how they open this tightly closed jar underwater?" or "flash them a few red/green cards and see what happens".

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

#85

Post by glenstein »

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 agree with missedthecue that this response is kind of ridiculous. We know things about anaesthesia, blood clotting, soft tissue, and our physical actions are informed by an amassed body of knowledge and an ability to reason from that knowledge and apply it with a degree of sophiscation that crows don't apply, even within the domains of things that are easy for them physically to do.

This is so ridiculous that I'm wondering if I'm missing the point. Is this sarcasm? Is this playing devil's advocate to prove some kind of point?

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

#86

Post by guerrilla »

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?

Humanity couldn't for 99.61% of its existence either and apes in general couldn't for nearly 100% of their existence. If we were to rely on your criterion, then all humans before a few thousand years ago would be deemed unintelligent, whereas we know they are essentially identical to us.

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

#87

Post by summitsummit »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #79
derg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily completely disagree here, but I'm always thinking of the Douglas Adams quote in Hitchhiker's Guide on this: "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had alw…

But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".

what would be the next trump card above intelligence for survival/evolution/procreation/whatever the "goal" is?

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

#88

Post by j_crick »

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,…

Perhaps you might be interested in this project, orthogonal to your question: https://www.hungerforwords.com/

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

#89

Post by SonOfLilit »

j_crick wrote: post #88
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,…

Perhaps you might be interested in this project, orthogonal to your question: https://www.hungerforwords.com/

But there's no grammar at all, at least in the video I watched once :-(

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

#90

Post by aeternum »

marricks wrote: post #81
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.

We definitely have a unique ability to change our world but whether that's an effective "ruling of the world" and "smart" is really debatable. While that may sound be glib "judging them by their results" is really a ridiculous notion. The "results" would be purely framed in human terms "who can solve puzzles" who can "think like we do". A cat doesn't need to think like us to live in their cat world, a worm doesn't ne…

I'm not sure this is a fair characterization. Almost all predator animals overhunt if given the chance. The equilibrium is typically due to the predator's inability to catch the remaining prey rather than some intelligent realization by the predator that they ought to stop hunting so much to preserve the ecosystem.
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