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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

#241

I have a personal experience story regarding crows. This is completely anecdotal of course but, to me, compelling. I live on an island near Seattle, very quiet and rural. We have a lot of wild life. One morning I was woke by persistent crowing by... well crows. Black Crows (not the band). Having been awoke from wonderful REM sleep I was understandably annoyed. So I went out to the street in front of my house and grab…

There are other cases of them bringing shiny rocks and glass to humans as gifts. I think this is well established.

The girl who gets gifts from birds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31604026

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

#242
post #236
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A less vulgar bird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfsnHVaScjg

I'm so blown away by the clarity of speech! After hearing him talk like that, hearing the normal bird noises almost sounds strange, like a human mimicking a bird, or like he's gotten impatient and wants us to understand his native language.

Or maybe he decided, out of desperation, to drop the circus act for a second and try to beg the human to get that leash off of him.

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

#243
post #236
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A less vulgar bird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfsnHVaScjg

I'm so blown away by the clarity of speech! After hearing him talk like that, hearing the normal bird noises almost sounds strange, like a human mimicking a bird, or like he's gotten impatient and wants us to understand his native language.

If you haven't watched it already, you should check out 'Dancing With The Birds' on Netflix. Maybe I'm biased being a huge bird lover, but man that movie left me in awe. This scene in particular... https://youtu.be/Eg0iSIHIK34

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

#244
Just yesterday I was out by the beach, seated on a bench and observed a crow darting around by the seawall as pedestrians passed by.

It was finding some scraps to nibble on, but it kept getting closer and closer to me giving little glances.

Finally when it was just a bit over arm's length I looked it in the eye and said, firmly, "No, I don't have anything for you."

SURPRISED SQUAWK and flight to the wall. I was like, "Hey, it's okay." Still upset by being around this human, it buzzed by the next pedestrians to get away, making them remark on the "aggressive birds".

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

#245

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…

Actually all you've really said is that a crow is a predator and ducks/geese are not.

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogs can catch all kinds of things mid-air. Mine has started doing so with rocks (sigh)...

Dogs are pretty smart though. My one dog is very smart and can easily nab things out of the air. My less intelligent dog can't tell his ass from his elbow and things hit him in the face all the time.

What breeds are your "very smart" and "less intelligent" dog?

(Asking because people tend to equate predatory behaviour to intelligence, which is both not accurate and rather alarming)

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

#247

I’ve mentioned this previously but it’s on topic and still amazes me, so I’ll just copy & paste: I know someone who works at one of the London airports and is responsible for keeping the runway operational. One of the jobs is keeping the birds well clear, and if necessary, sadly, may resort to shooting. The crows know the score though. This acquiantance says the crows know to disappear if they see the bird clearers.…

Corvids are an issue for agriculture, because they eat seed and small plants. The Swiss agriculture bureau has a file for them, explaining how to handle them, and it basically boils down to "you can use a number of different measures, but corvids are smart, they learn and don't forget, so there is nothing that actually works". - https://m4.ti.ch/fileadmin/DT/temi/caccia/documenti/Scheda_C...

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

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to build it. But having an animal intelligence researcher consulting would be very helpful...

If you look up the researchers working on the stuff you think you might be able to help with - just email them. They may even have some budget to help you out. I've found most scientists to be super open to talking w/ interested parties, and often willing to let you help for free :) Some are busy divas, or busy in general, or also teaching and busy, so it doesn't always work, but there are a lot of folks out there do…

Brilliant idea right there. Just reach out and see if any want to get involved to further their own research?

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

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

your comment reminds me of something that I secretly do which I personally used to think was kind of bizarre. when i stumble upon evidence or signs that a certain way of my thinking is incorrect, i like to confirm that suspicion and dedicate time to go into a meditative state where i take my findings and effectively attempt to reprogram my mental algorithms/principles. this takes anywhere from 15m to several hours depending on how fundamental and low level the change is. obviously, the perceived roi is immense.

for instance, this is how i converted from religion to atheism (arguably still a religion)... a product of my nurture that i decided to shed. other examples include my interaction model with others which included tenets such as curbing my decidedly unjustified high level of empathy for all others, controversial as it may be.

1. reprogram in the sense of mental models and thoughts or in a literal cells and atoms sense?

2. potentially depending on your definition and scope of `reprogram`, wouldn't that be a subset of intelligence, as opposed to something higher order or different?

3. what kind of behaviors/habits do you think humans (like you or I, not high-funded corporations) could employ now to get as close to achieving your second sentence as possible?

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

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be wrong, but I think the point of the parent comment was more along the lines of, the things we find to be 'general intelligence' may not be as general as we believe. Something like your sokoban or 2048 example, which you view as a thing that any being with general intelligence should be able to solve, may not be such general intelligence thing and more of a 'human specific' thing and we're too wrapped up in…

"General Intelligence" is a well defined term and there's a lot of literature on why it makes sense. There are many human cognitive skills that seem to be very helpful for some specific tasks (e.g. noticing that someone is watching you, identifying the pitch of a strummed guitar string) but are not very useful in general, but others (e.g. analogous thinking) that we found to be relevant to a vast range of cognitive t…

That was kind of my point, all of that is through a human centric point of view. What if higher intelligence is something else?

Look at say plants, they've been shown to be intelligent in various ways.

https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/92/1/1/177536

Now, when you take an ecosystem like a forest, something interesting happens. The plants begin to communicate with eachother using electrical signals passed along the mycorrhizal networks of the fungi that live symbiotically with them.

https://academic.oup.com/aobpla/article-abstract/doi/10.1093...

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75596-0_...

So, these networks facilitate learning by individual plants within the network, they facilitate long term memory, complex coordinated long term behaviour. Now, a lot of these behaviours and things happen over spans of decades to hundreds if not thousands of years.

That sounds very much like some level of higher intelligence, yet those plants will never complete a 2048 or sokoban puzzle.

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