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Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

#71

Post by zaidhaan »

goto11 wrote: post #67
zaidhaan wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why I got downvoted. If my assumption is wrong then I'd be really curious to hear from someone that knows better.

It is unclear what your complaint is. As the second quote states, you only need a sample size of one to prove that a certain ability can exist. You just cant say much about how widespread the ability is.

Thanks for the clarification. That seems fair, I suppose the title of the article gave me the impression that they were claiming such an ability would be widespread in all crows (despite the study being done on two carrion crows), when in fact it seems the intention was to state that the ability can exist in any crow given that they proved it exists for those two specific crows.

Re: Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

#72

Post by [deleted] »

voidz wrote: post #37
carapace wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crows are companions-to-hunters (wolves and humans mostly.) They interpret your behavior through that "lens". If you set out food and then watch them that means (in crow) that you are a hunter, and a lousy one, and you're trying to hunt them . Toss out some food and "forget" it and they'll think you're such a successful hunter that you don't even need to every scrap. Someone worth knowing. In the old days, crows woul…

I love this. Can you earn their trust, as in, become pals with them? Or is this more of a human desire. It's probably mostly food based priorities to them.

[deleted]

Re: Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

#74

Post by hairofadog »

onos wrote: post #68
hairofadog wrote: post #17

I feed the crows cashews as I walk the dog, and I find their behavior fascinating. They "commute to work" each day. Crows all live in a community that they go home to each night, and then each morning they all come back to their specific areas, usually in pairs. If you're in a place where you see crows every day, it's almost certainly the same pair of crows you’re seeing each day. Each pair has a strict territory. I…

Which is it peanuts or cashews?

They prefer cashews but until the economy gets a little better it’s peanuts.

Re: Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

#75

Post by carapace »

voidz wrote: post #37
carapace wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crows are companions-to-hunters (wolves and humans mostly.) They interpret your behavior through that "lens". If you set out food and then watch them that means (in crow) that you are a hunter, and a lousy one, and you're trying to hunt them . Toss out some food and "forget" it and they'll think you're such a successful hunter that you don't even need to every scrap. Someone worth knowing. In the old days, crows woul…

I love this. Can you earn their trust, as in, become pals with them? Or is this more of a human desire. It's probably mostly food based priorities to them.

> Can you earn their trust, as in, become pals with them?

It's a very human question.

All living things are friends (except sometimes at mealtime) because we are all part of one singular organism. The separateness and individuality of multicellular organisms is a perceptual illusion.

(This sound metaphysical, and perhaps it is, but it's very literal: all cells use the same chemical language, the same bio-molecular machinery of thought. Cf. Michael Levin's lab's work. Also "wood-wide web", etc. The way I sometimes put it is "We are Solaris". but that only makes sense if you've read the book or seen the movies...)

Anyway, all animals already trust each other. When you can understand how that's true and share that trust then you can "talk" with animals. Like Dr. Doolittle or some fairy tale princess, they will come up and hang out with you.

> It's probably mostly food based priorities to them.

Yeah, but that's the same for everybody? Don't you and your friends spend a lot of time discussing food? Cooking and eating together? "Com-pan-ions" are literally those who eat bread together: "com" is community, etc. and "pan" is bread.

Live long and prosper.

Re: Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

#77

Post by whatevertrevor »

mannykannot wrote: post #29
hairofadog wrote: post #17

I feed the crows cashews as I walk the dog, and I find their behavior fascinating. They "commute to work" each day. Crows all live in a community that they go home to each night, and then each morning they all come back to their specific areas, usually in pairs. If you're in a place where you see crows every day, it's almost certainly the same pair of crows you’re seeing each day. Each pair has a strict territory. I…

Around where I live (southern New York), the crows seem to gather in groups of twenty or so as sunset approaches, and appear to be socializing (and making quite a lot of noise in the process.) There does not seem to be any fixed location where this happens, and it seems different from when they are mobbing a raptor, where the target of their ire can quickly be seen from the way the crows are directing their attention…

I've observed a daily rollcall at evenings in our neighborhood. They don't necessarily gather together, but they sit atop tall trees and then caw to tally everyone up in a radius of a few blocks without fail at sunset.

Re: Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

#78

Post by shmageggy »

bmitc wrote: post #61
ren_engineer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you look at all those groups you can kind of see what each lacks compared to humans to get runaway intelligence benefits that basically create a continuous selective effect for more intelligence. humans have a solid combination of dexterity, life span, and verbal communication. Dexterity allows for manipulation that allows intelligence to be used to maximum effect in an environment, life span allows for time to le…

I am not convinced dexterity has much to do with intelligence. It is more an enabler of technology development and not raw intelligence.

The idea is that the ability to create technology creates an evolutionary gradient whereby increased intelligence yields better tools yields increased survivability

Re: Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

#79

Post by bmitc »

shmageggy wrote: post #78
bmitc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not convinced dexterity has much to do with intelligence. It is more an enabler of technology development and not raw intelligence.

The idea is that the ability to create technology creates an evolutionary gradient whereby increased intelligence yields better tools yields increased survivability

> increased intelligence

Is there a source for that? Because I think you mean knowledge there and not intelligence. I'm not aware of anything that says modern humans are any more intelligent than the oldest archaic humans (homo sapiens). Modern humans just have more accumulated technology and knowledge, something very distinct from intelligence.

Re: Crows are capable of recursion, scientists claim

#80

Post by jacurtis »

hairofadog wrote: post #74
onos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is it peanuts or cashews?

They prefer cashews but until the economy gets a little better it’s peanuts.

Do the crowd demonstrate a preference or behavior difference when fed the different nut varieties?
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