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Bird brains (2023)

dhanishsemar.com

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Re: Bird brains (2023)

#111

Post by ticulatedspline »

data-ottawa wrote: post #105
ticulatedspline wrote: post #103

Makes me think of our current quest with creating AGI, that the metrics for measuring animal brains don't necessarily correlate nicely with "intelligence" or capability. I imagine an alternate world filled only with intelligent robots that are trying to create "biological-agi" from scratch and are supremely frustrated at the results, throwing neuron count and density at the problem without understanding the fundament…

It’s always amazed me how much capability baby animals have right when they’re born, when they have near zero experience with their muscles and balance and senses. Or even just the instinct of a cat to chase a string is universal. There’s something intrinsic to the structure of brains that seems to pre-encode a lot of evolutionarily useful content without a training phase. I’d love to take a course on just this topic…

What's also fun to think about is the compression ratio of that data. the human genome is in the 725MB range.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#112

Post by tombert »

awsanswers wrote: post #69

If you're in tune with animals and spend time around a parrot, it's obvious there is a lot going on in their minds. They have incredible memories and their own understanding of their world. It looks simple to us but they are not simple creatures. That being said, I don't know how a bird lover can keep a bird in a cage.

That's kind of how I feel about most pets.

I've thought about getting a pet turtle or tortoise [1] because they are my favorite animal, but I found out that in order for them to be happy and healthy they need a lot more room than I could easily fit in my house. Either a very large aquarium or a very large area for them to walk around depending on the species, neither of which I can easily have in my house.

And I think a lot of animals are like that. Ultimately a lot of these animals evolved in areas that really aren't that "confined" in any meaningful sense, and forcing confines seems kind of cruel.

[1] To be clear, ethically, not one of those shady endangered black market things that you can find.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#113

Post by atmosx »

justonceokay wrote: post #82
deaddodo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decently sized apartment is fine for most cats, psychologically. I don't know where you get "torture" from. What's most important is stimuli such as scratching posts, toys, etc. Otherwise, they're insanely copacetic to the point many "house" cats don't want to leave the home even when being dragged out. Now, putting a dog in an apartment, especially when you're unable to give them constant exercise and attention. T…

If you’ve ever had a cat that is adamant about trying to escape you might feel differently.

Have you? I never came across a cat that prefers rain and cold over dry and cold (and pillows and food). But the most cats in houses or apartments I have seen come in and out as they please through specially built doors in roofs, doors or windows.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#115

Post by DiffTheEnder »

bradley13 wrote: post #98

Birds are highly optimized. For example, all cells contain a full genome. The genomes in birds are a lot smaller - less trash DNA - which saves them weight and generally makes the cells more efficient.

This is interesting because I wonder if it compounds. Smaller genome, smaller cells, more neurons in the same volume... and now those neurons are individually more efficient too. The density numbers already seemed hard to explain just from spatial optimisation -- this might be the missing piece? Wonder what research exists here

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#116

Post by renewiltord »

data-ottawa wrote: post #105
ticulatedspline wrote: post #103

Makes me think of our current quest with creating AGI, that the metrics for measuring animal brains don't necessarily correlate nicely with "intelligence" or capability. I imagine an alternate world filled only with intelligent robots that are trying to create "biological-agi" from scratch and are supremely frustrated at the results, throwing neuron count and density at the problem without understanding the fundament…

It’s always amazed me how much capability baby animals have right when they’re born, when they have near zero experience with their muscles and balance and senses. Or even just the instinct of a cat to chase a string is universal. There’s something intrinsic to the structure of brains that seems to pre-encode a lot of evolutionarily useful content without a training phase. I’d love to take a course on just this topic…

Also illustrates an adaptability-ability trade-off. A human baby is supplied a SOTA brain and sensors and actuators it can make sense of given time. A deer baby is preprogrammed to handle its sensors and actuators. In time, the human baby surpasses the deer baby in general ability.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#117

Post by DiffTheEnder »

Nevermark wrote: post #24
pcthrowaway wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting... I would have thought Octopi have more total neurons than dogs, given their problem-solving capabilities. Now I wonder if the decentralized organization / hub and spoke model octopi alone exhibit offers some advantage when it comes to problem-solving

Something interesting about the octopus is that it is independent and learning from the time it is tiny. It continually learns from the real world, as more and more neurons accumulate. This layered learning may be an advantage in terms of compact representations. No doubt, the human fetus brain learns much earlier than birth, or even from emergence of first neurons. But it isn't learning from the environment directly…

The zero parenting thing is what gets me. Pretty much every other animal we'd call intelligent leans hard on social learning -- crows, primates, parrots all spend ages learning from adults. Octopuses hatch alone, figure everything out solo in 1-2 years, and then die. That's the wild part. If they had even a 5 year lifespan with overlapping generations, honestly no idea where the ceiling would be. Maybe the octopi in captivity could be taught to parent and produce genius octopi?

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#118

Post by data-ottawa »

embedding-shape wrote: post #107
data-ottawa wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s always amazed me how much capability baby animals have right when they’re born, when they have near zero experience with their muscles and balance and senses. Or even just the instinct of a cat to chase a string is universal. There’s something intrinsic to the structure of brains that seems to pre-encode a lot of evolutionarily useful content without a training phase. I’d love to take a course on just this topic…

To be fair, it's not like the baby animals pop into existence at birth, starting from scratch at that moment, but instead they've been growing/incubating for quite some time. Who knows, maybe that's the actual "training phase" for the animals, as what you say is true, they seem to have a lot of instincts already at birth, while human babies seem to almost "popped into existence at birth" with not a whole lot of insti…

You’re right on that.

They’ll have heard noises, experienced gyroscopic forces and gravity. But a calf being born and standing up within minutes to an hour is pretty neat. Same with vision, going from no sensory input to seeing.

Apparently piglets have full motor control in 8 hours after birth.

As I said, I would love to have the time and go back to school to learn way more about all of this. Nature and evolution are pretty amazing.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#119

Post by colordrops »

tombert wrote: post #112
awsanswers wrote: post #69

If you're in tune with animals and spend time around a parrot, it's obvious there is a lot going on in their minds. They have incredible memories and their own understanding of their world. It looks simple to us but they are not simple creatures. That being said, I don't know how a bird lover can keep a bird in a cage.

That's kind of how I feel about most pets. I've thought about getting a pet turtle or tortoise [1] because they are my favorite animal, but I found out that in order for them to be happy and healthy they need a lot more room than I could easily fit in my house. Either a very large aquarium or a very large area for them to walk around depending on the species, neither of which I can easily have in my house. And I thin…

We adopted three kittens that were found locked into a suitcase and thrown into the trash. Our house is in hills with coyotes so these cats would not survive for any length of time outside. They'd probably also be sent to the pound if we didn't adopt them. I feel bad for confining them in our house but I don't know if there would have been a better outcome for them.

Totally agree on more rare/exotic animals though - they shouldn't be subject to unnatural conditions like this.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#120

Post by CalRobert »

justonceokay wrote: post #73
awsanswers wrote: post #69

If you're in tune with animals and spend time around a parrot, it's obvious there is a lot going on in their minds. They have incredible memories and their own understanding of their world. It looks simple to us but they are not simple creatures. That being said, I don't know how a bird lover can keep a bird in a cage.

I feel similarly about cats. I absolutely love cats but I didn’t have one for five years because I refuse to own one in an apartment. It seems like people torture animals to make sure that they have some attention when they get home

It’s for the best, house cats torture the birds and frogs around here and I hate it. I never knew frogs could scream.
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