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Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

#11

Post by wavefunction »

pmdulaney wrote: post #10
wavefunction wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then what is counting? Is it what we (humans, birds and bees) use to abstract reality?

For us humans it is a process of establishing a one-to-one relationship between objects and a long-since-memorized sequence of words that requires just one member of the sequence to be remembered in order to represent the number of objects.

I think that's part of it to be sure. However I can readily account nine items versus ten items depending on how they are organized. We are counting when we are enumerating, however that occurs in man, bird or bee it seems to me.

Re: Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

#12

Post by NoOneNew »

samatman wrote: post #2

> Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. No they didn't. All human cultures I'm aware of have, at least, the concepts of none, one, two, three, and many. They all understand that none is exactly one less than one, and most of them (but not all!) understand that there's no natural limit to the counting numbers, and have a way of expressing some amount of those numbers. But zero is a human…

I watched a thing about how Koko the guerrilla didnt really understand sign language. They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat. A lot of her "understanding", along with other apes undergoing the same treatment, were all heavy interpretations of the "researchers". She never actually learned a real version of sign language either. It was made up by "researchers" who never learned sign language either. Honestly, when you watch the videos, it feels like watching the unedited videos of those tv psychics who fumble at cold readings. Cherry picking editing does wonders as "scientific proof".

Moral of the story, after reading this article, I agree with you. This isnt as groundbreaking or interesting as it seems. I'm pretty sure they're finding patterns that dont exist and are over rationalizing. Of course an animal would have the concept of none, a little, a bit more and a lot, especially when applied to the idea of scavenging for food. Appling the idea of mathematical concepts to them, with little support just feels like a cheap attempt for grant money. Which, surprise surprise, was the same sham pulled with Koko.

That and some of these tests they talk about, either they're shit at describing them or even I would fail to prove I could count or do arithmetic.

Re: Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

#14

Post by uuddlrlr »

wavefunction wrote: post #11
pmdulaney wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For us humans it is a process of establishing a one-to-one relationship between objects and a long-since-memorized sequence of words that requires just one member of the sequence to be remembered in order to represent the number of objects.

I think that's part of it to be sure. However I can readily account nine items versus ten items depending on how they are organized. We are counting when we are enumerating, however that occurs in man, bird or bee it seems to me.

There's a term for it but I can't easily find it.

https://neurosciencenews.com/neuron-counting-9898/

This article goes into it and mentions "numerical distance effect", which looks appropriate but not what I remember.

I did learn that people who play first person shooters can usually recognize more objects at once instantly; 6 or 7 instead of a more typical 4 or 5, if I recall correctly.

They used number of grapes in a hand to measure.

Re: Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

#15

Post by musingsole »

NoOneNew wrote: post #12
samatman wrote: post #2

> Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. No they didn't. All human cultures I'm aware of have, at least, the concepts of none, one, two, three, and many. They all understand that none is exactly one less than one, and most of them (but not all!) understand that there's no natural limit to the counting numbers, and have a way of expressing some amount of those numbers. But zero is a human…

I watched a thing about how Koko the guerrilla didnt really understand sign language. They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat. A lot of her "understanding", along with other apes undergoing the same treatment, were all heavy interpretations of the "researchers". She never actually learned a real version of sign language either. It was…

> They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat.

...what do you think human children are doing for the first ~4 years of their life?

Also, different learning methods are used by the subject depending on their mood -- most importantly frustration -- and other context. Brute force learning tends to be the last stage before they're so frustrated they give up or become aggressive. It's also a common exploratory tactic.

Teaching human sign language over a variant organically developed by the subject and team would have what advantage, exactly? It may be nominally more interesting to know a gorilla could adopt a purely human communication system -- very interesting. But it's also such a corner case of studying communication and particularly interspecies communication that to call it out as a problem is nothing more useful than a nitpick.

We're coming from an age where all animals were by default assumed to be a sort of squishy -- sometimes tasty -- automaton. We have a long way to go in unlearning that particular arrogance. Assuming that intelligence can only be demonstrated in the purely human terms you seem to be looking for is just another vestige of that same arrogance.

Re: Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

#16

Post by wolverine876 »

NoOneNew wrote: post #12
samatman wrote: post #2

> Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. No they didn't. All human cultures I'm aware of have, at least, the concepts of none, one, two, three, and many. They all understand that none is exactly one less than one, and most of them (but not all!) understand that there's no natural limit to the counting numbers, and have a way of expressing some amount of those numbers. But zero is a human…

I watched a thing about how Koko the guerrilla didnt really understand sign language. They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat. A lot of her "understanding", along with other apes undergoing the same treatment, were all heavy interpretations of the "researchers". She never actually learned a real version of sign language either. It was…

Why do you believe these sources, and your off-the-cuff analysis, and not the original research? Think of it from other readers perspectives: On one hand is the author of the article and the researchers, on the other is a commenter on HN. I'm not saying the parent comment is wrong, but we need some evidence.

Re: Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

#18

Post by ben_w »

uuddlrlr wrote: post #14
wavefunction wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's part of it to be sure. However I can readily account nine items versus ten items depending on how they are organized. We are counting when we are enumerating, however that occurs in man, bird or bee it seems to me.

There's a term for it but I can't easily find it. https://neurosciencenews.com/neuron-counting-9898/ This article goes into it and mentions "numerical distance effect", which looks appropriate but not what I remember. I did learn that people who play first person shooters can usually recognize more objects at once instantly; 6 or 7 instead of a more typical 4 or 5, if I recall correctly. They used number of grapes in…

I think ‘subitizing’ is the word you’re searching for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing

Re: Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

#19

Post by the-dude »

I have always assumed one of our cats could count. Our cats got the desert plates at the end of our meal.

One of the cats left when he had them all, while other cats kept waiting ( or begging ). Sometimes they needed to be shown there were none left.

But that one cat, no matter how many people were at the table, always seemed to know when he had them all.

Re: Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero

#20

Post by krylon »

The more I learn about animal intelligence, the more I suspect we grossly underestimate it.

I recently saw a video of a seagull that entered a grocery store through the automatic door, picked up a (non-transparent) bag of potato chips (or something similar), walked out again, opened the bag and ate the chips. Think about it for a moment, the bird has to understand (to a degree) how an automatic door works, and that there is food inside these shiny bags. When let that sink in, I was thoroughly impressed. I knew seagulls are very opportunistic eaters, but I did not know they were capable of this degree of intelligence and planning.

I wonder how much more there is discover, and how that might affect how we view and more importantly treat animals. We might have to rethink our relationship with them.

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