Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

statnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 390 posts

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

#101

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

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, there are more kangaroos in Australia than people...

Or if that doesn't tickle you, how about: cockroaches!

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

#102

Post by aeternum »

summitsummit wrote: post #87
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think the ability to 'reprogram' oneself. We are currently more or less stuck with the genetic code we receive at birth. A species which is able to modify their code at will would be incredibly adaptable and would likely surpass us very quickly.

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

#103

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

nicoburns wrote: post #60
padjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But if we take time to consider that animals may posses intelligence and rich inner lives, then we may also have to consider that our treatment of them is monsterous. Can't have that.

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

#104

Post by codezero »

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,…

I used to work at a university and helped build some code for a few neuroscience experiments to the question of lacking technologists - absolutely yes. They basically work with whoever the computer person is in the team/lab, and rarely budget for that as a specific part of their research because how do you even do that? These people are hyper specialized in their field.

This isn't 100% true everywhere, but for the average researcher I think it is true in almost all fields of research.

With my Linux knowledge I was able to turn our solar physics lab into a machine that could pump out way more data than it would have being built by a guy who mainly knew FORTRAN and VMS. (Paul if you are reading this, I'm exaggerating, you have a PhD and worked at the SuperComputing center and are a genius, but I hope you retired)

Even looking back, I could have done a whole lot more if I knew anything about AWS back then, which I didn't, so I used my budget on bare metal all the time, which was a huge waste of time and resources.

I also think there are other issues, because a lot of this research has to have a specific structure, you only get grants for what you propose, and they usually won't give you a ton of money for a wild new idea that's not based on some prior specific precedent.

The entire way we advance human knowledge is kind of fucked up but I don't have a better proposal :)

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

#105

Post by cercatrova »

jbotz wrote: post #76
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 didn't come to rule the world with our intelligence... we came to rule it with fire. Fire, control over it and the ability to make it, is the one thing humans have that no other animal has. We may (or not) be more intelligent, have a more complex capacity for language, etc., but those are differences of degree. Only fire is truly a difference of kind. We are the animal that makes fire. Fire is literally what made…

I really do wonder how humans would've adapted had we been aquatic animals. Energy usage via fire is not possible, and it seems other energy usage under water is much harder than simply creating fire, so we could still have the same level of intelligence as now, yet be so far behind technologically than we are now.

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

#106

Post by meroes »

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.

effective -> selfish seems equally scientific

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

#107

Post by thaumasiotes »

mrlala wrote: post #37
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.

>So crows could build a jumbo jet, they're just lazy? How can they physically even come close to building a jet? It seems humans physicality has a LOT to do with our intelligence. Perhaps someone with actual knowledge on this can chime in.. but it seems to me if you have a build similar to ours, you have the opportunity to actually progress and manipulate things to a level where it might a situation where as a specie…

How could a human physically come close to building a microchip? We're much, much, much too large for that to be possible.

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

#108

Post by outworlder »

liability wrote: post #72
spideymans wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Besides lacking thumbs, dolphins would also have a pretty hard time harnessing fire as a tool. This probably truncates their tech tree severely.

> Besides lacking thumbs, dolphins would also have a pretty hard time harnessing fire as a tool.

I keep reading about this, and I don't see it as a major problem.

Sure, it might take a while for them to even grasp the concept of fire. Much like it took us a while to grasp relativity.

However, once they know it to be possible, it's an engineering problem. They can build their forges above water. Holding breath to operate them (until they can do it remotely) is inconvenient but they are pretty good at it.

There's also a fair bit of construction they could do without even resorting to that. Humans can weld underwater. They could too.

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

#109

Post by outworlder »

p1necone wrote: post #75
spideymans wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I'm endlessly grateful that Raccoons aren't more intelligent.

Yet. Coexisting near humans, it's likely that the environment will incentivize smarter raccoons.

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

#110

Post by fao_ »

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".

Aha, so when an interstellar empire comes around and fucks up our planet -- if not outright just sending an asteroid our way, it's justified because we are of a lower technological level?

The humans and proto-humans of the past weren't 'stupid'. And even if they were comparatively, 'stupidity' isn't a justification for committing harmful actions, degrading, or otherwise treating the recipient as lesser. This sounds like a philosophy that encourages "well I'm going to hurt you and it must be right because you can't stop me or dissuade me".

Post reply on HN