Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 148 posts

Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

#41

Post by theplumber »

Barrin92 wrote: post #35
meristem wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your friend confused intelligence with obedience + desire to please.

I was about to say, we host and feed cats in every corner of the globe yet they have us run around to fetch their stuff and both the ancient Egyptians as well as modern day internet user revere them like gods. If that's not intelligence I don't know what is.

>> If that's not intelligence I don't know what is.

Maybe it's just luck. If they were to taste good their faith could be different.

Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

#43

Post by wolverine876 »

theplumber wrote: post #39
epgui wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find myself shocked by how little regard people have for the intelligence of other animals. This observation can be generalized quite far: humans in general have abysmally poor empathy skills and generally have very little respect for everything outside their in-group. Other humans in the out-group are similarly less intelligent or less worthy. And yet despite this, humans also think overly highly of themselves.

Maybe this is part of the evolution. A kind of decentralisations of the human species in smaller groups. If we would be one big world governed by the same policies we could all die by the same mistake. Not to mention that too much empaty would be highly detrimental to any innovation and even survival. You would never fire someone and would use all the reasources to "help the poor" instead to invest into high risk hig…

> Not to mention that too much empaty would be highly detrimental to any innovation and even survival. You would never fire someone and would use all the reasources to "help the poor" instead to invest into high risk high reward projects(i.e computers, space exploration). You would die of starvation instead to slaughter the cow because you are too empathic.

This is a fantasy of objectivism, reactionaryism, and the like, a transparent attempt at justification for their selfishness. Empathy makes you care about the people you will feed with the beef, including yourself (empathy starts with yourself) - it doesn't turn you into an idiot, except in the imaginary strawperson fantasies of the aformentioned groups.

> "help the poor"

Why is that in scare quotes? Also, if you invest in people, many more will eventually invent high-reward things.

Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

#44

Post by wolverine876 »

shsysuzhzbb wrote: post #36
eointierney wrote: post #17

Anthropomorphism is the curse of our intelligence

Everyone always says this, but why? I hear how it is 'dangerous' to anthropomorphize animals by people like Joe Rogan constantly. Can you explain what is 'dangerous' about it? Or why we have to be 'careful' doing so? Genuinely interested. To me, the only downside is we might have to face the atrocities we commit in our daily life.

> I hear how it is 'dangerous' to anthropomorphize animals by people like Joe Rogan constantly.

They find some odd things to worry about.

Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

#45

Post by mcswell »

boplicity wrote: post #14
cpsns wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find myself shocked by how little regard people have for the intelligence of other animals. If people readily accepted the intelligence of many mammals, much less other animals, they would have to confront some very serious cognitive dissonance and moral dilemmas. That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps part of the problem is…

> many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. assessment of intelligence is often based on comparing animal intelligence to human intelligence. Dogs are adept at communicating in ways that humans understand. Cats, on the other hand, have an unhuman mind, and don't seek empathy the way dogs do. They do it in a cat way. To understand the intelligence of animals, tru…

From a sermon I heard years ago: A dog looks at how its master cares for it, feeds it, takes it on walks, gives it treats, and generally loves it, and says "How my master loves me! My master must be God."

A cat sees its master do the same things, and says "How my master loves me! I must be God."

Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

#46

Post by kinghtown »

theplumber wrote: post #37
ianai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegan here, too. It’s totally duh-level obvious that nonhumans are plenty smart to feel emotions that we shouldn’t inflict. I don’t have such optimism towards people. Look at how poorly we treat each other. If we actually had some strong empathetic tendencies as a species we wouldn’t kill each other. There are many species which don’t. Instead I’ve got a coworker who’s gladly told me about killing his cows calves in…

I wonder if a psychopaths would make better soldiers. I always thought that people are just different and their path (i.e serial climinal or great soldier or good manager) depends on the environment. That being said slaughtering cows doesn't seem that bad. After all there are such jobs at slaugherhouses. Perhaps he was just teasing you making it more dramatic.

Yeah no people like you say that yet shelter children from seeing graphic images of where meat comes from. It’s it ain’t so bad then you’d think there would be more pride in it.

But animal cruelty is actually one of the weaker arguments for becoming vegan because it requires, as I said earlier, an a-ha realization that animals are aware, intelligent, feel pain and sadness, deserve more from us as the stewards of this world.

Like people can high five over loving bacon and what have you, but honestly the eating habits of most people are deplorable and selfish and they can numbly read about ecological devastation caused by industrialized animal farming and the rampant use of antibiotics which in turn is creating super bacteria immune to it (let us not forget covid came from a meat market as well as the seasonal avian and bovine “flus” which manifest constantly).. you guys can cry in carnivore all you want but the worst thing of the situation is that eating meat or drinking dairy is not necessary: it is all done for pleasure. It’s just pathetic that people can look at all that and reply “.. but cheese”.

Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

#47

Post by mcswell »

bitwize wrote: post #25
shakes_mcjunkie wrote: post #2

I had a conversation recently with a friend about the classic cats vs. dogs, which species is more intelligent. It was surprising to me how dismissive he was about cat intelligence and adamant that they were nowhere near dogs' intelligence, mostly based on the ability to train dogs. I've clicker trained my cats to sit and also to follow my finger. Searching around the net and YouTube you can find cats learning all ki…

My cat spent the first year or so of his time with us plotting a Mission: Impossible style ingress into my home office. The tricky bit has been finding a way to the exposed ventilation pipe in our loft, from which he could hop through the high-up, paneless window into my office. He attempted literally climbing the walls, and investigated the possibility of hopping on the blades of the ceiling fan to reach the pipe. (…

My daughter had me replace the lever-style doorknob on her bedroom with a round doorknob, since her cat had figured out how to open the door.

Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

#49

Post by hetspookjee »

kinghtown wrote: post #24
cpsns wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find myself shocked by how little regard people have for the intelligence of other animals. If people readily accepted the intelligence of many mammals, much less other animals, they would have to confront some very serious cognitive dissonance and moral dilemmas. That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps part of the problem is…

I feel like most people are like one or two a-ha insights away from veganism. Intelligence and awareness definitely has a spectrum across the animal kingdom but I’m not so sure about sentience itself. Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, but as we we climb up the kingdom to vertebrates and especially mammal…

There are vegan hunters around, too. People that hate the bio Industry yet still feel it’s allright to eat meat. Given that an animal has lived a good and free life and the death is swift.

Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans

#50

Post by trhway »

>To grant animals “minds” in any meaningful sense was to indulge a crude anthropomorphism that had no place in science.

Actually it hasn't been about violating supposed science principles. It has always been about going against the deeply entrenched even today religion dogma of "only humans have soul".

Post reply on HN