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

331–340 of 390 posts

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

#331

Post by yesbabyyes »

samatman wrote: post #160
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…

Crows, being social animals, have a concept of friend already. They also have a concept of foe. Crows are well-documented to wage war against red hawks (buzzards across the pond), and this goes further than just bickering over a tasty bit of carrion: they will actively gang up on red hawks whenever they see them. Which is risky business, red hawks being larger, with sharper beaks and talons. It's pretty neat that the…

I've seen crows and ravens chase away buzzards, ospreys and eagles. My family keeps chickens, and the corvids like to go into the coop to eat. Not a big deal since they get plenty of food, but my uncles don't like them and think they are too noisy. Once there was a dead raven in the coop, it must have got stuck and somehow hurt itself. My uncle nailed it on a pole; I thought it was horrible and removed it. That same week, one chicken was killed by a buzzard. I figure the ravens let it happen, so I made a deal with my mother to give offerings to the ravens and crows, entrails when we kill a chicken and such, to ensure they know that they have friends as well, and that it's welcome if they chase away the birds of prey. I always greet the ravens when they fly by. Magnificent birds.

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

#332

Post by smusamashah »

hexbinencoded wrote: post #237
zw123456 wrote: post #175

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…

Yep. You can make friends with crows, and they will remember you for a very long time. If you get shiny things, then you're the crow's meow. Bones maybe just "meh." https://youtu.be/dg3ApNJct6Q https://youtu.be/0fiAoqwsc9g https://youtu.be/HWXe7Js6GnI https://youtu.be/VOmRNeYZVfE Furthermore, crows can be sneaky. A murder of them hanging out behind my mechanic's goaded the dork of the group into stealing a bag sunflo…

There is a saying here in Pakistan (India too perhaps) that when crows 'crow', some guests come.

I think it originated from the observation that they started crowing whenever they saw some new person coming.

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

#333

Post by b0rsuk »

lemmonii wrote: post #238
monkeybutton wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminded me of another article about crows. It sounds like gifting is a known phenomenon but isn't that well established or researched. https://www.audubon.org/news/did-crows-actually-make-these-g...

Is there a possibility of human-crow co-evolution? I really can't think of any other reason the crow would give gifts.

According to a book I read, Cheyennes divide birds into three groups: plain, great, and sacred. To my great amusement they count magpies into the sacred ones. They like them because they live close to humans, talk, and announce visitors.

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

#334

Post by qq12as »

derbOac wrote: post #326
qq12as wrote: post #322

I do not understand why this is about consciousness. My take of this study is that they establish that there are two type of neurons: (i) those recording whether there is a signal ("neurons signalling stimulus intensity" (ii) those recording how to react on the signal based on a rule ("representing the crows' percept"). This is cool, but what does this to have to do with consciousness? They mention that they're not s…

I don't think it does unfortunately. It's an interesting study but this article — either through the original research or its coverage — is distorting appropriate interpretation. It's common of a lot of neuroscience research. The task, too, taps an ability/process that's thought to be key to intelligence, but isn't that distinctive, and is found in a lot of animals. Again, interesting study, crows are smart, but not…

Agreed. I'd be inclined to blame the coverage rather than the researchers for the 'coarse' interpretation (after all, the original title talks about a 'neural correlate' of consciousness)...

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

#335

Post by quonn »

SonOfLilit wrote: post #211
dboreham wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Searle Octopus Test

I assume you're referring to this? https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/2020.acl-main.463.pdf Gotta say in my opinion it didn't age well for a paper published in 2020 (but pre GPT-3). In practice, we have an O that is pretty good at describing how to build weapons against bears despite having absolutely no idea what "weapon" or "bear" refers to. But also, I don't seem to understand how this relates to the discussion, so…

It may not have an idea of a picture of a bear. But it certainly knows all kinds of words that would describe that bear. And it relates those to the bear and also to other things. So I would argue that there is some „idea“. It‘s just not a visual idea and there is not conscious reflection. As far as the first part is concerned, what about a blind person? I would argue they can have a very good idea, too.

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

#336

Post by hnick »

phillc73 wrote: post #303
hnick wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magpies (unrelated to European magpies) are similar in Australia. There are stories of multi-generational respect (that is, the parents teach the next generation not to swoop and annoy the nice human). Wikipedia says they can remember up to 100 people. Here are a few nice stories: https://theconversation.com/magpies-can-form-friendships-wit...

My mother feeds the local magpies, who turn up every morning for their free feed. One can argue about whether this is environmentally sound, but my mother lives alone and she enjoys the connection. She has them literally eating out of her hand. This week she sent me a photo of a young juvenile magpie which had arrived for the first time, clearly brought along by the parents to learn the ropes.

I know an older lady who does this too, she just grabs beef mince from the fridge and feeds them every day. That probably isn't too harmful for them, at least it's not bread.

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

#337

Post by chrisbennet »

Fricken wrote: post #141
sosuke wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Trail running one winter I would often see a coyote and a crow hanging out and sometimes playing together. Crows sometimes will team up with larger predators to hunt. The crow can survey a larger area to spot prey, and the larger predator has the ability to kill it.

That's amazing.

I used to swim with this eel and a bass(?) sometimes one summer. The eel would swim near the bottom and the bass would swim above him a foot or two. I imagine the eel would flush out prey the bass would eat. I'm not sure if the eel got anything out of the deal though.

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

#338

Post by SonOfLilit »

quonn wrote: post #335
SonOfLilit wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you're referring to this? https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/2020.acl-main.463.pdf Gotta say in my opinion it didn't age well for a paper published in 2020 (but pre GPT-3). In practice, we have an O that is pretty good at describing how to build weapons against bears despite having absolutely no idea what "weapon" or "bear" refers to. But also, I don't seem to understand how this relates to the discussion, so…

It may not have an idea of a picture of a bear. But it certainly knows all kinds of words that would describe that bear. And it relates those to the bear and also to other things. So I would argue that there is some „idea“. It‘s just not a visual idea and there is not conscious reflection. As far as the first part is concerned, what about a blind person? I would argue they can have a very good idea, too.

In my understanding of the "Octopus Test" argument from the linked PDF, GPT-3 is exactly an octopus test, and has exactly the same information that the octopus would have about bears, so GPT-3 being able to perform this kind of task disproves the argument conclusively.

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

#339

Post by spot5010 »

https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/feeding-crows-death-ritua...

From the atlas obscure article: > Hindus believe that crows are the link between the worlds of the living and the dead; ancestors, it is said, visit the living in the form of a crow.

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

#340

Post by abstractbarista »

jungans wrote: post #187
Damorian wrote: post #121

One particularly early, groggy morning I was walking into work and there were a few crows pecking around the grass by the sidewalk. Lost in my thoughts I hear a raspy old man say, "good morning". I look around and don't see anyone, then I look at one of the crows and it looks me right in the eye and repeats, "good morning". I doubted my sanity for a few days before confiding in my wife what happened and was surprised…

I'll just leave this here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISE6R_-b3A

That's simply hilarious!
Post reply on HN