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Crows are even smarter than we thought

nautil.us

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Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#211

Post by shafouzzz »

azemetre wrote: post #87
meowface wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably have rich social lives. I wonder how fine-grained their communication signals are.

Probably very good. They've been known to communicate highly specific dangers to other crows and supposedly understand recursion: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-perform-yet... I haven't read it yet but there's also a sci-fi book about intelligent society of crows (Children of Time series): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Memory_(novel)

the first book in the series is amazing. Unfortunately it goes down from there. Could not finish the third one ( Crow one )

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#212

Post by andylynch »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #177
nirav72 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m surprised no one has attempted to train crows for use in asymmetrical warfare. At least before the advent of cheap drones.

They'd still be better than cheap drones at remote pick-pocketing - if you could train them to spot and snatch coins and bills. I was wondering about the opposite too. Could you train a crow to watch you throw a marker, say a pebble of specific color, and then fly to the location it landed to perform specific action? Say, if we go for personal mischief instead of warfare: - red marker = find whatever interesting obje…

Thinking about markers, the falconer at a railway station I frequent paints the pigeons he wants his bird to pursue with a green laser.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#213

Post by running101 »

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…

Maybe it was because you were A human, not the fact it was specifically you.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#214

Post by jmull »

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).

> and neglect any other human walking by this back alley

Not just the back alley. The back alley itself has nothing specifically to do with it. The test would have to be something like the crow attacks this person but not anyone else around the building generally. That doesn't really make a lot of sense from the crows perspective either though... it's concerned with the plight of its mate, so why focus instead on a random person who's a decent distance away unless it can perceive a specific connection, e.g., by recognizing them.

It's moot anyway. I think it's pretty well established crows can recognize human faces.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#215

Post by AlbertCory »

gnz11 wrote: post #206
AlbertCory wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear. I really believe that, when people ask if some organism is "intelligent" or "conscious" (answer is usually No), they're just asking how similar it is to a human. Intelligence or consciousness is not a Thing; it's just a set of behaviors that have proven adaptive to some species. Crows have somewhat more of those behaviors than we'd thought. By way of example, many animals have much better smell than we do becau…

> Intelligence or consciousness is not a Thing; it's just a set of behaviors that have proven adaptive to some species This just reduces consciousness down to the "easy problem" and ignores the "hard problem" though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousnes...

let's see: I've met exactly one of those (Dennett) so I'll go with him. How's that for insight?

> The existence of the hard problem is disputed. It has been accepted by some philosophers of mind such as Joseph Levine,[10] Colin McGinn,[11] and Ned Block[12] and cognitive neuroscientists such as Francisco Varela,[13] Giulio Tononi,[14][15] and Christof Koch.[14][15] On the other hand, its existence is denied by other philosophers of mind, such as Daniel Dennett,[16] Massimo Pigliucci,[17] Thomas Metzinger, Patricia Churchland,[18] and Keith Frankish,[19] and by cognitive neuroscientists such as Stanislas Dehaene,[20] Bernard Baars,[21] Anil Seth,[22] and Antonio Damasio.[23]

Generally if you solve the easy problem you have a better idea of what's left and whether it's worth effort. So let's just go with that for now.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#217

Post by Cupertino95014 »

card_zero wrote: post #159
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.

Though perpetual motion is reasoned to be false, rather than declared false because statistically we never had any luck trying, or by an exhaustive search of all possible perpetual motion machines.

It isn't just statistics and bad luck for PM inventors. There are physical reasons arguing strongly that it's impossible.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#218

Post by guerrilla »

Cupertino95014 wrote: post #217
card_zero wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though perpetual motion is reasoned to be false, rather than declared false because statistically we never had any luck trying, or by an exhaustive search of all possible perpetual motion machines.

It isn't just statistics and bad luck for PM inventors. There are physical reasons arguing strongly that it's impossible.

That is what the person you're responding to meant.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#219

Post by nkrisc »

anonyfox wrote: post #165
nkrisc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree, it’s likely many subtle, accumulated factors.

I think the interesting question, that we may never be able to answer, is whether crow intelligence is such that they could have developed on our trajectory as well, had things been different. Or is our intelligence, while similar to crows and other animals in many ways, fundamentally different in some way? Or was early hominid intelligence middle of the pack and it was just the other factors you mentioned that gave it the edge it needed?

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#220

Post by stanac »

shafouzzz wrote: post #211
azemetre wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably very good. They've been known to communicate highly specific dangers to other crows and supposedly understand recursion: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-perform-yet... I haven't read it yet but there's also a sci-fi book about intelligent society of crows (Children of Time series): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Memory_(novel)

the first book in the series is amazing. Unfortunately it goes down from there. Could not finish the third one ( Crow one )

Third one was interesting but out of place. It didn't move the story forward. Maybe a little bit (I don't want to spoil the ending).
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