Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
theguardian.com
Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
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Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#2I had a conversation recently with a friend about the classic cats vs. dogs, which species is more intelligent. It was surprising to me how dismissive he was about cat intelligence and adamant that they were nowhere near dogs' intelligence, mostly based on the ability to train dogs. I've clicker trained my cats to sit and also to follow my finger. Searching around the net and YouTube you can find cats learning all kinds of more complex behaviors. Also, watching the cats interact with each other and their interactions with us, they clearly have complex inner thoughts about the world around them.
I guess all that to say, I find myself shocked by how little regard people have for the intelligence of other animals.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#3How do we understand an intelligence based on an olfactory sense?
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#4I had a conversation recently with a friend about the classic cats vs. dogs, which species is more intelligent. It was surprising to me how dismissive he was about cat intelligence and adamant that they were nowhere near dogs' intelligence, mostly based on the ability to train dogs. I've clicker trained my cats to sit and also to follow my finger. Searching around the net and YouTube you can find cats learning all ki…
Your friend confused intelligence with obedience + desire to please.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#5How do we understand an intelligence based on an olfactory sense?
One way is to simulate the experience of that with psychedelics or transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#6Seems quite relevant to the recent discussion about current AI sentience [1]
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#7> But what makes a pig optimistic? In 2010, researchers at Newcastle University showed that pigs reared in a pleasant, stimulating environment, with room to roam, plenty of straw, and “pig toys” to explore, show the optimistic response to the squeak significantly more often than pigs raised in a small, bleak, boring enclosure.
That... is dumb. They just chose whatever definition of "optimistic" was convenient for their experimental hypothesis and then used it to confirm their hypothesis. "What's an optimist pig? It's one that reacts to squeaks more often. How do we know a pig is optimistic? Because it reacts to squeaks more often!". Not only dumb, but also circular. Circularly dumb.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#8How do we understand an intelligence based on an olfactory sense?
One way is to simulate the experience of that with psychedelics or transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Genuine question: how would you go about simulating it in that manner? Are you suggesting that we might visualize or otherwise cognize an olfactory intelligence using those techniques?
It seems to me that much of human "intelligence" is our superior ability to perceive patterns in visual and auditory sensory input, and then to process those perceived patterns in some manner. In that light, what might an olfactory "pattern" actually represent?
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#9I had a conversation recently with a friend about the classic cats vs. dogs, which species is more intelligent. It was surprising to me how dismissive he was about cat intelligence and adamant that they were nowhere near dogs' intelligence, mostly based on the ability to train dogs. I've clicker trained my cats to sit and also to follow my finger. Searching around the net and YouTube you can find cats learning all ki…
> I find myself shocked by how little regard people have for the intelligence of other animals.
If people readily accepted the intelligence of many mammals, much less other animals, they would have to confront some very serious cognitive dissonance and moral dilemmas.
That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps part of the problem is the sheer stubbornness of cats, you can't force them to do anything if they decide they don't want to do it.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#10I had a conversation recently with a friend about the classic cats vs. dogs, which species is more intelligent. It was surprising to me how dismissive he was about cat intelligence and adamant that they were nowhere near dogs' intelligence, mostly based on the ability to train dogs. I've clicker trained my cats to sit and also to follow my finger. Searching around the net and YouTube you can find cats learning all ki…
I agree with your friend. Dogs have around twice as many cortical neurons as cats, and it shows.
Interestingly, raccoons, which are the size of cats, have a comparable number of neurons in the cortex as dogs. And act like it as well.
Which isn't to say cats are like, dumb creatures, and it's fine you like them more. Dogs are smarter though, according to me, your buddy, and zoologists, who unlike the three of us know what they're talking about.