Crows have been shown to understand the concept of zero • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by xcambar » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #60

josefx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more I learn about animal intelligence, the more I suspect we grossly underestimate it. It goes both ways, in the past we had Clever Hans[1]. People believed Hans could perform simple math, when his cleverness was actually watching his owners expression for small changes. So any observed intelligence ends up under suspicion of them acting on information gained from a much simpler side channel. [1] https://simpl…

The thing about animal intelligence is that it is probably significantly different from ours. In studying it, we must avoid antromorphization of animals. Mammals are somewhat close to us, but we have diverged from birds over a hundred million years ago and we still struggle to understand how a tiny and smooth brain such as corvids have can produce such an observably intelligent behavior.

For something radically different, I'd suggest you look at octopuses. They're as different from human as can be.

Surely BBC or NPR has a decent documentary on the topic.

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

#92

Post by PhasmaFelis » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #70

kwhitefoot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more affecting to me was Alex asking what colour he was: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/27/alex-the-parrot-is...

He said no such thing he was asking what color a parrot in the mirror was.

We can't know for certain (at least not from that article), but there is some evidence that at least a few exceptional birds can pass the mirror test, and Alex certainly appears to have been an exceptional bird. It's plausible that he understood it was his own image.

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

#93

Post by srean » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 9:01 PM UTC

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #89

srean wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the question whether one can 'think' of something without having a linguistic representation is a topic of active debate. My personal take is that its possible, predators plan ambush, but do they have a linguistic representation ? Its not clear that they do.

I agree with the context that you described. In fact, I'm delighted that we agree on that context. I agree its not clear, though I might lean the other way. Who knows.

Hellen Keller's writings may interest you. Her recollections from a time when she did not have an internal language is very interesting.

Many believe that animals do not have an "I" the self reflective "I", that they are not aware of themselves etc etc. This runs contrary to my beliefs, I have had several conversations/arguments on HN along those lines, but lets not dwell on mere beliefs.

What I find interesting is what test/experiment can one perform that can demonstrate that a human, who is not allowed to communicate linguistically, has the attributes mentioned above. If we cannot design such a compelling experiment that shows are inability to detect those attributes in animal even if those attributes maybe present.

We need the restriction of no-linguistic-communication so that animals and humans are on the same playing field. Hellen Keller, when she did not have language she would have been on the same playing field.

My position is that if I cant even prove/demonstrate to others that you are sentient in the senses described above, how can we even claim that animals aren't sentient. We have no way of demonstrating it even if they were.

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

#94

Post by belter » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #78

belter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one impressed me so much, I never looked at Crows again the same way: "Are Crows the Ultimate Problem Solvers?" https://youtu.be/cbSu2PXOTOc

They are smart but TBH that crow already did all the sub-puzzles independently, he knew what the possible moves are just had to execute them in some order.

I dont think a Dog could do the connecting of the several tasks. What about this one?

"Smart Crow uses cars to crack nuts in Akita, Japan near Senshu Park"

https://youtu.be/NenEdSuL7QU

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

#95

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #51

krylon wrote: post #20

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 t…

I never fully understood why some cultures assume humans must be fundamentally different - it’s not a universal notion. Some hypothesizes and argues that our ancestors extinguished every other species that showed intelligence by eating them, which I think is a bit too wild of a theory. But maybe the fact that it’s often small birds that shows intelligence is also interesting. They’re among hardest to hunt.

Descartes considered animals to be little better than automata and given his high social position and intellectual achievements, and the convenience of this argument for his co-religionists, it stuck. Even today (and right here on HN), any sort of conjecture on the inner life of animals tends to bring out a few finger-waggers condemning 'athropmorphism.'

https://philosophynow.org/issues/108/Descartes_versus_Cudwor...

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

#96

Post by aksss » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #79

This is the new bit, if you've already read about the basics of animal counting: > The crows mixed up a blank screen more often with images of a single dot than they did with images of two, three or four dots. Recordings of the crows’ brain activity during these tasks revealed that neurons in a region of their brain called the pallium represent zero as a quantity alongside other numerosities, just as is found in the…

You're doing God's work, sir.

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

#97

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

martincmartin wrote: post #34

popctrl wrote: post #32

The idea that zero was "invented" at a certain time by recent humans and not in use until then has always seemed absolutely absurd to me. I will admit I haven't read deeply into it, but there's just no way people didn't have a concept for "none of a thing" until a couple millennia ago. One of the justifications used for this reasoning is "You don't go to the market and buy 0 fish". But all that tells us is: There's n…

Having a concept of "none of a thing" is one thing. Abstracting that to a number is a different thing. Even today, when you ask someone "how many kids to you have," and they don't have any, they say "I don't have any," not "zero." In other words, they respond with a phrase, often one with a negation (not), instead of a number.

Seems contrived. 'None' is an equally valid answer, and easy to conceptualize as a number, eg 'start with three, take away two, take away one, now you have none.'

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

#98

Post by caddemon » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

musingsole wrote: post #52

caddemon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that strengthen his point? Koko stumbled around frequently, well after the learning period was advertised as done. Kids stumble around less than was claimed, as you mention.

The time window of learning ISN'T THE POINT. You're asking an animal to internalize a system of communication quite literally designed from the ground up for different hardware. It's like asking why does my Oculus headset take so long to communicate over ZigBee. What would be magical is that it did it at all. Lamenting how long it took to bend the Oculus hardware into some contorted SDR would be stupid.

I'm not lamenting how long it took, I'm lamenting that the claims were exaggerated to begin with, because Koko never stopped stumbling like that.

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

#99

Post by aksss » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #51

krylon wrote: post #20

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 t…

I never fully understood why some cultures assume humans must be fundamentally different - it’s not a universal notion. Some hypothesizes and argues that our ancestors extinguished every other species that showed intelligence by eating them, which I think is a bit too wild of a theory. But maybe the fact that it’s often small birds that shows intelligence is also interesting. They’re among hardest to hunt.

That's a bit of hyperbole, isn't it? You never understood why some [most] cultures assume humans must be fundamentally different [than other animals]?? Well, smelting iron ore, and a long, long list of other unique accomplishments never replicated by any other species on the planet [or known universe for that matter] tends to crystalize the observation that there is something fundamentally different about this singular species. That animals are smarter than human cultures have ever generally given them credit for doesn't bridge this enormous gulf. Humans generally think less of (underestimate) anything not relevant to their immediate existence, including other humans (from other cultures, time periods, political parties, etc). Same reason my dog is uniquely intelligent, and can even understand English, but dogs in general are not intelligent. Maybe this tendency to denigrate is an evolved survival skill. Nonetheless, call me when the seagulls start splitting atoms.

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

#100

Post by ajuc » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

belter wrote: post #94

ajuc wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are smart but TBH that crow already did all the sub-puzzles independently, he knew what the possible moves are just had to execute them in some order.

I dont think a Dog could do the connecting of the several tasks. What about this one? "Smart Crow uses cars to crack nuts in Akita, Japan near Senshu Park" https://youtu.be/NenEdSuL7QU

I'm pretty sure some dogs could do this (if the tasks were changed to suit their natural range of motions and interactions with environment). When you teach a dog 4 tricks and try to teach him 5th he will randomly repeat the previous 4 in different combinations trying to get the treat. At least some dogs, others don't care much and if the first thing isn't working they give up.

My parents had a dog that was very smart and pretty aggressive to our cat. He had a dog kennel in a small section of backyard enclosed with high fence. Near the fence there was a small cherry tree where our cat liked to climb.

Cat wouldn't climb the tree when the dog was outside of his part of backyard, so the dog not only learnt to open the gate to the rest of the backyard (lifting a wire loop over the fence and pulling it just right), but also to shut it slightly to fool the cat. He would lie there pretending the gate is still closed, not reacting to the cat. Cat would climb the tree and then the dog would stop pretending, open the gate, go under the tree and bark at the cat till we come and free him. If we weren't home that could take hours - neighbors weren't too pleased.

Other example is dogs burying and re-burying treats when they see each other watching them bury it. That requires at least rudimentary theory of mind.

As for crows - I've personally seen them doing this trick (on a parking lot not on a pedestrian crossing, but same thing - they understood where the traffic is just right to be used for nut-cracking).

They are also huge assholes to other animals, bullying them in very creative ways.

I don't doubt crows are smart, just don't think that experiment was that impressive.