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Spiders are much smarter than you think

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Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#111

Post by loonster »

lux wrote: post #85
bryans wrote: post #18

A couple years ago I had an experience with a spider that entirely changed my perspective on them and most insects, and now I make a conscious effort to help them as much as possible, instead of kill or even repel them. This particular spider kept running back and forth between my monitor and a window, and when it'd get to my monitor, it would wave its front legs at me. If I moved to the left, it would run across to…

I had a similar experience with a spider who had made an egg sack in a precarious spot along our back door that was definitely in hazard's way. I got a stick and a leaf and tried to detach and move her setup to a nearby spot that would be safer. She did not like that. At one point in the move, she got left behind and I ended up with just the egg sack to move. You could feel the panic and protective instinct in her mo…

>I watched her there for a while in her new location, and there is absolutely more than just instinct at play.

One could also conclude the opposite. What we perceive as concious thought or emotion is just instinct.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#112

Post by fsloth »

loonster wrote: post #111
lux wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience with a spider who had made an egg sack in a precarious spot along our back door that was definitely in hazard's way. I got a stick and a leaf and tried to detach and move her setup to a nearby spot that would be safer. She did not like that. At one point in the move, she got left behind and I ended up with just the egg sack to move. You could feel the panic and protective instinct in her mo…

>I watched her there for a while in her new location, and there is absolutely more than just instinct at play. One could also conclude the opposite. What we perceive as concious thought or emotion is just instinct.

As a parent I can say that a lot of urges in parenting come from somewhere deep and intuitive, rather than as a result of some higher level erudition on the situation.

Still, the urge for care ones young, while not necessarily very - cerebral? - at least creates a feeling of familiarity and connection - ie. empathy. When this empathy comes across from an arthropod to a higher mammal it's still humbling and awe inspiring, even though it might tell more of our autonomous nature than the intellect of the arhtropod.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#113

Post by crehn »

pvaldes wrote: post #47
vector_spaces wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have extreme arachnophobia, like strip-naked-run-screaming-if-I-found-a-spider-on-me level arachnophobia. A long time ago I was prescribed propranolol for PTSD by a psychiatrist specializing in trauma. I hadn't even mentioned my arachnophobia to her or any clinician I had seen at that point. It helped me a lot of social situations, but the effect was pretty subtle. Anyway, one day, I was hiking with friends…

People with arachnophobia should remember that 95% of the extant spiders are totally unable to pierce the human skin. Fangs too weak or short to reach blood capillaries and made any real damage, even if they would be poisonous doesn't matter. Those that coevolved with spider-eating monkeys are the problematic ones.

I couldn’t care less whether the spider is dangerous or not.

It’s more the erratic, jittery movements of spiders and their multitude of fast legs that’s off-putting.

Especially when you’re taking a dump in a dimly-lit outdoor toilet and notice there’s a hand-sized huntsman spider a few inches from your knees. I have never sprinted so fast.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#115

Post by cmsefton »

bryans wrote: post #31
tomerv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to let spiders live freely in my house, until one time I wanted to go to bed at night and noticed dozens of black spots on the bed cover. I looked up and saw hundreds of tiny spider babies on the ceiling. From then on, whenever I see a spider in the house I get rid of it. Sorry...

Don't get me wrong, I still find families of baby spiders to be absolutely terrifying in every way, and it takes every bit of my willpower to fight the urge to remove them from existence. But at the end of the day, the key word is family. It's a group of living things, with parents that apparently have the emotional capacity to care about them. Hopefully when you say "get rid of it," that means gently coaxing them in…

It's worth mentioning to check the species first before putting them back out. Some spiders are house spiders, and can't really survive outdoors. I generally put them into my garden shed or, if possible, into the loft instead, but most of the time, I just leave them alone.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#116

Post by Cybiote »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #99
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human social interaction is also something built into their neural networks through thousands of years of evolution too. They have a neural network that reacts to certain input with this output that evolution created as well. Of course, biological neural networks are self learning too, so the output gets tuned and optimized in situ just a little. But there's really no difference in that sense. Sure: you shouldn't ant…

Yeah, agreed, but I think one of the highest differentiations for whether someone or something is intelligent is how it learns about new unseen concepts and can use intelligence to adapt to a completely new environment. E.g. if that spider species was put to a completely different environment and during its lifetime it could learn to adapt to some new species mating ritual and fake out their female as well. This woul…

Portia spiders do demonstrate trial and error learning, quoting the abstract of [1]:

> All species from the jumping spider genus Portia appear to be predators that specialize at preying on other spiders by invading webs and, through aggressive mimicry gaining dynamic fine control over the resident spider’s behavior. There is evidence that P. fimbriata, P. labiata and P. schultzi derive signals by trial and error. Here, we demonstrate that P. africana is another species that uses a trial and error, or generate and test, algorithm when deriving the aggressive-mimicry signals that will be appropriate in different predator–prey encounters.

It turns out that the species with more variation in encountered prey types are more likely to rely on search, varying over possible patterns until a response is received. Other papers show their ability to learn generalizes beyond mimicry of vibrational patterns. They are also capable of deriving and maintaining situation specific attack routes and plans.

I'll also argue that a fully instinctual repertoire, even without learning, should count as intelligence if flexibly deployed. Consider: despite an inability to learn or adjust, a Nash equilibrium approximating poker bot or an Alpha Zero neural network can be described as encompassing a deep instinct of the game that enables intelligent action selection.

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10164-010-0258-5

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#117

Post by logicchains »

poisonarena wrote: post #39
bryans wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, I still find families of baby spiders to be absolutely terrifying in every way, and it takes every bit of my willpower to fight the urge to remove them from existence. But at the end of the day, the key word is family. It's a group of living things, with parents that apparently have the emotional capacity to care about them. Hopefully when you say "get rid of it," that means gently coaxing them in…

You are assuming very human or even mammalian qualities and constructs like "parents/family/emotion" to invertebrates that have no problem cannibalizing their offspring and mates. If they were big enough they would kill you and your family without any hesitation or emotion.

Humans in desperate situations will do similar things, sacrificing their children for resources: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/01/asia/afghanistan-child-ma...

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#118

Post by whatshisface »

bryans wrote: post #100
lux wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience with a spider who had made an egg sack in a precarious spot along our back door that was definitely in hazard's way. I got a stick and a leaf and tried to detach and move her setup to a nearby spot that would be safer. She did not like that. At one point in the move, she got left behind and I ended up with just the egg sack to move. You could feel the panic and protective instinct in her mo…

I had to do the exact same thing once -- the mother ran off as I tried to gather her and the sac into a box -- and you could see both the panic as she watched the sac being taken away, and the relief when she was reunited.

As a counterpoint, how could you possibly see panic on a spider's "face?"

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#119

Post by iab »

2ion wrote: post #109
bryans wrote: post #18

A couple years ago I had an experience with a spider that entirely changed my perspective on them and most insects, and now I make a conscious effort to help them as much as possible, instead of kill or even repel them. This particular spider kept running back and forth between my monitor and a window, and when it'd get to my monitor, it would wave its front legs at me. If I moved to the left, it would run across to…

This is a bit more elaborate behaviour than what I have observed from our (small) spiders here, but as a general rule, I don't do anything to spiders in my apartment as well. They keep their territory clean of other insects and do not get into my way, so I like keeping them. Unless the spider is really large, aggressive or poisonous, I do not get why so many people are afraid of them either. Perhaps that the Australi…

Just don’t eat them, you should be good

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#120

Post by peatmoss »

sylens wrote: post #35
Klaster_1 wrote: post #4

Talking about Portias, I recommend reading "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky, it's about the process of uplifting spiders and how humans re-establish contacts with them. Another great book about smart "spiders" is "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge, my favorite in the "Zones of Thought" series.

Children of Time is fantastic, a really unique take on sci-fi

I saw it as a really fantastic riff on David Brin’s “uplift” series. In fact, Tchaikovsky calls this out explicitly in naming one of the (IIRC) habitat orbiters Brin.
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