Crows are even smarter than we thought • Hacker News Board

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#161

Post by card_zero » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:32 AM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #158

theamk wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People started searching for the structure of the atom in like 400 BC and didn't make any progress until they knew how. We know why perpetual motion isn't going to be found, so there's no reason to look for it in the first place. This isn't a relevant argument.

Searching for animal intelligence certainly feels like an exhaustive search of all possible perpetual motion machines, and similarly, people keep on enthusiastically nearly finding it. And of course this is plagued by a lack of a good definition, and crows unlocking puzzles and other animals doing other scraps of smart stuff.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#162

Post by mangeshbankar21 » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:38 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#163

Post by saghm » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:38 AM UTC

evanmoran wrote: post #98

tetrisgm wrote: post #33

We'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…

Speaking in sentences and learning chess moves seems more due to having the physical capacity for speech (and therefore conversation) than something attributable to raw intelligence, and picking up a stool and moving it requires the ability to pick up and carry a stool, which would be pretty hard for crows or dolphins. I feel like any test of raw intelligence would need to be independent of physiology/ability to understand instructions, which is pretty hard to do.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#164

Post by colordrops » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:40 AM UTC

tetrisgm wrote: post #33

We'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 don't understand how we could possibly think we are at the top. There are, what, several million species of animal we are aware of, so statistically, we are likely at the middle of the curve. We just aren't aware (or barely aware) of the millions of species more advanced than us, similar to how ants and mosquitos have no idea of our existence.

This idea of the universe and the round earth must be an extremely narrow view of reality similar to the entire universe of pond water some microbe lives in. More advanced beings perhaps live in higher dimensional spaces far more complex than our experience. Maybe this is what people encounter when they smoke DMT.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#165

Post by anonyfox » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:42 AM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #9

naikrovek wrote: post #3

I don’t know why these things are surprising. To me, the assumption that animals can’t do things we later discovered they could do is the surprising thing. Such arrogance we humans have.

I think it is at least a bit surprising. There is clearly something different between humans and all other animals.

Biological Jackpot advantages, or: sheer luck.

1. we do not live underwater, so lots of tools and stuff possible (iE: fire).

2. we have usable hands with thumbs. This allows much better tooling. Ravens only have their beak and are comparatively handicapped in technical developments.

3. we do not die during/after reproduction. This allows for accumulation of knowledge instead of every generation starting to learn from scratch. That’s octopus handicap.

4. we have reasonably enough raw strength and compensate weaknesses with social groups and tools/weapons to eliminate basically all competition where we lived. And managed to increase food production for exponential population growth, again some way of tooling ultimately.

… so it for me boils down to the fact that we, among several intelligent species, have been the lucky ones to leverage tooling in the most efficient way.

And especially ravens/crows are absolutely in the ballpark of humans when it comes to intelligence. They have actual language to communicate facts to others, they have social structures/rituals similar to ours, they make tools to accomplish goals, even with multi-step-plans. Heck, they even „use“ other animals like wolves: since they are not capable of opening a fresh deer corpse to get to the meat, they search for the nearest wolf and guide him to the corpse for win-win food sharing… some wolf packs have even been seen essentially protecting raven flocks/eggs, so ravens literally can have kinda dogs.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#166

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:45 AM UTC

evanmoran wrote: post #98

tetrisgm wrote: post #33

We'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…

I taught the kids to dive bomb crows.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#167

Post by omnee » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:46 AM UTC

We have come a long way from Descartes argument that animals are no more than automata. Which supported our unabashed exploitation of countless species.

It is now abundantly clear that animals have their own phenomenological experience of the world, and their intelligence is part of a continuum, shaped mostly to survive in their niches. And some species demonstrate a higher level of general intelligence - something in which we are quite easily the best.

Although, it's worth noting that some cultures (Buddhists or Jain's for example) did give animals their due with respect to their lives and intelligence.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#168

Post by guerrilla » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:48 AM UTC

card_zero wrote: post #161

guerrilla wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People started searching for the structure of the atom in like 400 BC and didn't make any progress until they knew how. We know why perpetual motion isn't going to be found, so there's no reason to look for it in the first place. This isn't a relevant argument.

Searching for animal intelligence certainly feels like an exhaustive search of all possible perpetual motion machines, and similarly, people keep on enthusiastically nearly finding it. And of course this is plagued by a lack of a good definition, and crows unlocking puzzles and other animals doing other scraps of smart stuff.

It seems like nonsense to be searching for things without perfectly clear criteria. Don't look for things if you don't know what you're looking for, or at least don't call it "looking for", just call it what it is: "poking around and brainstorming."

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#169

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:52 AM UTC

natmaka wrote: post #76

tux1968 wrote: post #27

Have 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…

We should establish that the crow would only 'attack' any human living in this flat (and neglect any other human walking by this back alley).

About 6 eagles live nearby. I often see them circling overhead hunting wabbits. (Occasionally they'll bag a small aircraft.) One day, I was out for a walk and one of them was gliding at eye level and passed me. I could have touched its wingtip it was so close.

My gawd, what a magnificent bird. I then understood why combat pilots would paint them on the sides of their fighters. It was much bigger than I realized, and the size of those talons - I was not going to get it mad at me!

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#170

Post by hashmal » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 7:52 AM UTC

natmaka wrote: post #76

tux1968 wrote: post #27

Have 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…

We should establish that the crow would only 'attack' any human living in this flat (and neglect any other human walking by this back alley).

It has been established already that crows remember human faces for years, that they mourn, and that they attack people they associate with the death of their mates (while being quite friendly with other people they know well).