I have always loved crows. I used to carry a bag of unshelled peanuts in my car to feed to them if I saw them. One day I was pulled over and saw a lone crow. So I threw a peanut and watched him open it easily with his beak and eat the nuts. Then I threw 2 peanuts and he picked up both in it's mouth and flew a short distance away and ate them. I always new crows could fit 2 peanuts but not 3 so I thought what would you do if I throw 3? So I do and for a moment he tries to fit all of them in his mouth but can not. So he flies about 15 feet away to a cement path walkway and on the side of it I watched him bury one of the peanuts. Smart I thought. Then he immediately flew back and grab the other nuts. I have always been impressed by that moment.
Crows are even smarter than we thought
141–150 of 304 posts
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#142We're not the only intelligent life on earth. We cant even define intelligence or measure it meaningfully. If we accept that human children are smart, then we must accept that species at equivalent levels of cognition are as well. Elephants, crows, dolphins, octopi, chimps, orang utan are all clearly very smart, and more intelligent than a human child. Besides being biologically irrelevant, the separation between hum…
I like the sentiment, but human children who are 2 completely dominate all known animal intelligence. They can speak in sentences and use tools in complex ways. There may be studies that show a raven might use a stick to help it find food. Well, a two year old will carry a stool halfway across the house to reach the scissors that will open a bag of veggie straws :) At 3 they can recognize letters _easily_ and start l…
Difference being that the 2 year old human would not survive in the wild whereas most other species would easily after 2 years of age
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#143Have posted this before, but it really left an impression about crows, and the bond between their mates: Years ago I was putting out the garbage in the back alley behind our building where I lived on the 8th floor. A crow attacked me out of the blue. Distracted by the attack, the back door slammed shut behind me. Since my key was only good for the front door, I had to walk around the building. That damn crow followed…
Corvids can recognise faces and they are territorial and know the humans in their territory.
My dad always told a story about a guy at work who spotted a crow nest not too far up a tree and decided he would steal the baby crow and raise it. The crows attacked him as he did it and in the end the baby crow died in his care. Sad. But at least after that my dad said every single day he would pull up to work and if any crows were there they would dive bomb him. Only him. My dad said this carried on for years.
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#144Sometimes I wonder whether we're being watched by a super intelligent species beyond our current detection that occasionally places objects in certain configurations in front of the smarter of our species throughout history, and writes articles based on their observations titled things like, "homo sapiens smarter than previously known: demonstrates understanding of unified theory of electromagnetic waves through RF s…
We’ve come full circle. Meet the Tuatha de Danann.
There is a movie coming out teasing a little at the idea called The Watchers.
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corvids can recognise faces and they are territorial and know the humans in their territory.
> Corvids can recognise faces They can also "share that knowledge of dangerous humans with other crows". [1] [1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/grudge-holding...
I always chuckle at this study - "Ah shit, they've got the masks on again."
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#146We consider this smart and intelligent, but many people don't want to admit that LLMs are intelligent?
There’s no CEOs excitedly talking about how crows will take over all the work that they’re currently paying humans to do, and how it is absolutely imperative that we allow them to ignore the fact that “shoveling all the data they can find into a for-profit turbo-autocomplete made up of trained crows” may be within the letter of fair use laws, but sure feels well outside the spirit of them.
How do CEOs talking anything relate to an intelligence of a thing?
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the time it took me to learn a new programming language, my kid learned how to be a whole entire human being. Including free thought and autocorrect mode. I don’t know what makes us special in the animal kingdom, but watching that happen certainly feels special. Do whales feel the same way about their young?
Whales almost certainly do not feel the same way. They feel like whales about their young. That's not to discount whales: that feeling may be profound and emotional for them. But it's probably alien to the human experience.
I’m sure their sensory experience is different from ours, but is the feeling truly alien? We share enough genetics to share the same brain chemicals, for one
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is my long thought: People have been trying to talk to animals for thousands (tens of thousands?) of years, and no "animal myths" were discovered. Some researchers have dedicated their live trying to understand the animals (story mentions one of them), but still got nothing useful. I think it's fair to assume there is nothing to find there at all. And alien life is not special in that regard - if we are able to…
> but still got nothing useful. I think it's fair to assume there is nothing to find there at all. It's a good thing people who accomplish great things don't think like that or we'd have no science at all, because for millions of years we didn't. If they did, they would have had to conclude it isn't possible to predict the future. Yet here we are, knowing why apples fall (or whatever.)
Some people searched for structure of the atom, and found great things. Other searched for perpetuum mobile, and found nothing. We know that they will never find anything, but it does not stop them, there are still youtube videos being made today.
It's important to tell former from latter. Unexplored things are not the same as things that have been explored and found false.
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the time it took me to learn a new programming language, my kid learned how to be a whole entire human being. Including free thought and autocorrect mode. I don’t know what makes us special in the animal kingdom, but watching that happen certainly feels special. Do whales feel the same way about their young?
Whales almost certainly do not feel the same way. They feel like whales about their young. That's not to discount whales: that feeling may be profound and emotional for them. But it's probably alien to the human experience.
Why probably?
Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought
#150We're not the only intelligent life on earth. We cant even define intelligence or measure it meaningfully. If we accept that human children are smart, then we must accept that species at equivalent levels of cognition are as well. Elephants, crows, dolphins, octopi, chimps, orang utan are all clearly very smart, and more intelligent than a human child. Besides being biologically irrelevant, the separation between hum…
I like the sentiment, but human children who are 2 completely dominate all known animal intelligence. They can speak in sentences and use tools in complex ways. There may be studies that show a raven might use a stick to help it find food. Well, a two year old will carry a stool halfway across the house to reach the scissors that will open a bag of veggie straws :) At 3 they can recognize letters _easily_ and start l…
A quick search on youtube shows that crows are much smarter than just getting food with a stick. Also isn’t the general agreement/stereotype about dogs having 5 years old int stat?