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

Crows are even smarter than we thought

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 304 posts

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#271

Post by smcnally »

cyberax wrote: post #262

I have crows nesting in a tree just outside my house. Crows are monogamous, so I see the same pair flying together all the time. Several months ago, they started to look a bit frazzled, they have chicks growing up. So I started giving them bits of food (meats and thawed mice). They are now bringing me pieces of colored glass :) They also caw if I wave at them. They are also keeping pigeons and seaguls away.

> Crows are monogamous, so I see the same pair flying together all the time.

We see hundreds of crows every morning and dusk. Even close up, I’m hard pressed to distinguish most of them from one another. Perhaps ours in Southern California are more uniform than yours? Or perhaps you’re viewing them with binoculars?

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#272

Post by cyberax »

smcnally wrote: post #271
cyberax wrote: post #262

I have crows nesting in a tree just outside my house. Crows are monogamous, so I see the same pair flying together all the time. Several months ago, they started to look a bit frazzled, they have chicks growing up. So I started giving them bits of food (meats and thawed mice). They are now bringing me pieces of colored glass :) They also caw if I wave at them. They are also keeping pigeons and seaguls away.

> Crows are monogamous, so I see the same pair flying together all the time. We see hundreds of crows every morning and dusk. Even close up, I’m hard pressed to distinguish most of them from one another. Perhaps ours in Southern California are more uniform than yours? Or perhaps you’re viewing them with binoculars?

Their nest is about 15 meters from my window, and they often sit on a fence about 5 meters from my window. And because it's always the same pair, you learn how they look after a while.

I probably won't be able to distinguish them in a big flock, but we only have a few crows that regularly fly around my area.

Recently, their chicks also started flying around, so I also keep seeing them. They are slightly smaller, with really nice glossy "baby" feathers.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#273

Post by tetrisgm »

speedchess wrote: post #236
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…

> We're not the only intelligent life on earth. We cant even define intelligence or measure it meaningfully. If we can't define or measure intelligence meaningfully, how can you even claim we are 'intelligent' to begin with? > Elephants, crows, dolphins, octopi, chimps, orang utan are all clearly very smart The have levels of intelligence, but they are clearly not very smart. You couldn't even teach them the multipli…

I think your statements are written in a very confident manner that comes across as trying to win, but this is a nuanced question.

> how can you even claim we are 'intelligent' to begin with?

because I can claim it. You're focusing on semantics and attacking the fact that a set definitions can't be done. I think debating the nature of whether semantics maps to a valid conceptualization is probably not very productive.

> they are clearly not very smart

Maybe in your opinion. They seem to surprise experts. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2120078/Nata...

> The claim is we are the most intelligent

No one in this thread has introduced this notion or tried to debate it.

> probably the only creatures intelligent enough to ponder about death

I would invite you to draw your own conclusions from this video, taken from Spy in the Wild. It shows monkeys processing the death of another monkey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaIH5tLmC8U

> After all, they are 'very smart' according to you

Why the dismissiveness? It comes across as just trying to win rather than having a genuine discussion. The question is a valid thing to contemplate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10093641/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7471122/

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#274

Post by theamk »

filoeleven wrote: post #238
tetrisgm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that we don't frame animal intelligence as something comparable with humans or somewhat close. I'm not trying to create a leaderboard of intelligence. I think we should consider other species as capable of intelligence, and treat it with the same dignity we give to children.

In (at least) one of Iain Banks’ Culture books, he says that technological progress is not a ladder, but a rock face. The tech which a species develops depends a lot on the conditions of their evolution, and encountering wildly different techs that seem miraculous or incomprehensible to one’s own species is fairly common. I think of “intelligence” in a similar vein. We can recognize it when it’s close enough in proxi…

Sure, alien high tech is alien... you cannot appreciate ICs without microscopes, nor custom-designed organisms without solid understanding of biology, nor poetry without language and culture.

But I think some things are always common - such as not dying from hunger, predators or bad weather. If something as simple as bad weather can cause species to die, _and_ we know there a really simple workaround (houses), and yet there is no sign of it and species just keep dying, can we really call them "intelligent"?

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#275

Post by octopoc »

ackbar03 wrote: post #191
beejiu wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilariously, during WW2 there was also a research project to build guided missiles using pigeons in the nose cone. "The nose cone of the missile would be split into three compartments, with a lens projecting an image of the intended target onto a screen at the front. A pigeon in each compartment, trained by operant conditioning to recognise the target, would peck at it continually." https://www.military-history.org/f…

Worms still use them as homing missiles for their Armageddon battles

Hi! What planet are you from?

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#276

Post by mptest »

snet0 wrote: post #244
milleramp wrote: post #111

When I was little I had a small bb gun and would shoot cans in the backyard. A couple times i shot a crow and it would bounce off their strong chest and they would fly off seemingly unfazed. One time by pure chance I hit a crow in the neck and it died instantly, crashing down into my neighbor's yard. It was very shocking because I had not killed anything like that before. Immediately crows started circling my parents…

This is a hard way to learn it, but I think the recognition of non-human animals as being alive in the same way we are is quite a profound moment. Just that realisation of this thing that was previously just a robotic, animated part of "the natural world", like a blade of grass that can move, suddenly being - in its own way - related to itself and others of its species. People find this easy with pets, I guess, but I…

Most I've met don't gain that reverence/insight til their first shroom trip lol. Or they read a 'Silent Spring' type book.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#277

Post by 14 »

qup wrote: post #249
14 wrote: post #141

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 yo…

Sounds like they were shelled

Yes shelled I screwed up by saying unshelled

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#278

Post by natmaka »

jmull wrote: post #214
natmaka wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> Not just the back alley

The idea is that we already are sure they attack there, and therefore limiting the experiment to this back alley may be sufficient: there is no immediate need to extend the perimeter to the whole zone around building, however if the experiment fails it may be considered.

> it's pretty well established

IMHO an experiment gets better with each neglected assumption.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#279

Post by natmaka »

gmd63 wrote: post #137
natmaka wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Should also establish that the crow on the balcony is the same one that attacked after line of sight was broken during the trip back upstairs.

Not sure it is necessary as the captive crow may communicate it status (croaking "I'm trapped" or "I'm free") with this one, but it would be an insight.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#280

Post by Aerroon »

Intralexical wrote: post #124
Aerroon wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm unskilled with CTMU theory, what you mentioned could be considered a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics, right? Intelligence might decrease entropy locally, but they always increase entropy globally to do so. Ie we accelerate the natural process of increasing entropy.

That's the second law.

You're right. I thought I corrected it, but I guess I only had the thought.
Post reply on HN