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Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

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Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#141

Post by Fricken »

sosuke wrote: post #61
mywittyname wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder if this kind of stalking is the reason behind the association of ravens with war? Many cultures have mythologies of ravens protecting warriors in battle. Maybe they literally followed armies in the past, scavenging food, and attacking the foes of the army. I understand that they eat carrion, hence their association with the dead. But that wouldn't explain the stories like this: > According to leg…

Easy food off corpses is my thought. Humans are very soft and tender if they aren't swinging at you. I've seen several media instances of crows eating the dead.

Trail running one winter I would often see a coyote and a crow hanging out and sometimes playing together. Crows sometimes will team up with larger predators to hunt. The crow can survey a larger area to spot prey, and the larger predator has the ability to kill it.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#142

Post by [deleted] »

Eyas wrote: post #100
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".

That's uncomfortably close to Eurocentric claims of superiority that point to their colonization and exploitation of other countries in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century. I don't necessarily buy it. A pacifist civilization might be "dominated" by a violent civilization, but they might still choose death over becoming violent themselves.

[deleted]

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#143

Post by nicoburns »

aeternum wrote: post #119
nicoburns wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that we assume that because other animals don't have this kind of engineering ability, we assume that they don't have capabilities like self-awareness or higher-level thought. But we can't see into their minds, so we don't actually have direct evidence of that. What we do see in more intelligent animals such as orcas, orang-utans, elephants, parrots, crows, octopuses, even cats and dogs, etc is s…

Language seems incredibly important, it may actually be the basis for our ability to build abstract concepts, not to mention share knowledge.

Agreed. I wouldn't like to assume that other animals don't have language though. Dolphins/Whales in particular seem pretty likely to have true language that we just can't understand.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#144

Post by [deleted] »

fao_ wrote: post #110
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".

Aha, so when an interstellar empire comes around and fucks up our planet -- if not outright just sending an asteroid our way, it's justified because we are of a lower technological level? The humans and proto-humans of the past weren't 'stupid'. And even if they were comparatively, 'stupidity' isn't a justification for committing harmful actions, degrading, or otherwise treating the recipient as lesser. This sounds l…

[deleted]

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#145

Post by IggleSniggle »

Eyas wrote: post #100
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".

That's uncomfortably close to Eurocentric claims of superiority that point to their colonization and exploitation of other countries in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century. I don't necessarily buy it. A pacifist civilization might be "dominated" by a violent civilization, but they might still choose death over becoming violent themselves.

Where did anyone say anything about superiority? If anything, the implication is that the humans are stupid for not mucking about and having a good time, and that even though the dolphins may be “superior” in this regard, it’s a race to the bottom since the more violent species wipes out the fun-loving one.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#146

Post by treeman79 »

cercatrova wrote: post #105
jbotz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't come to rule the world with our intelligence... we came to rule it with fire. Fire, control over it and the ability to make it, is the one thing humans have that no other animal has. We may (or not) be more intelligent, have a more complex capacity for language, etc., but those are differences of degree. Only fire is truly a difference of kind. We are the animal that makes fire. Fire is literally what made…

I really do wonder how humans would've adapted had we been aquatic animals. Energy usage via fire is not possible, and it seems other energy usage under water is much harder than simply creating fire, so we could still have the same level of intelligence as now, yet be so far behind technologically than we are now.

Water is crazy competitive. Octopi ate probably pushing the limits on useful intelligence.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#147

Post by jmull »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #79
derg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily completely disagree here, but I'm always thinking of the Douglas Adams quote in Hitchhiker's Guide on this: "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had alw…

But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".

Well, species success is measured in periods of time orders of magnitude larger than recorded human history.

It’s an open question whether our aggressive strategy will be successful past anything but the very short term. (Currently it’s not looking that good.)

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#148

Post by wombatmobile »

Smoosh wrote: post #39
wombatmobile wrote: post #15

The capability attributed to crows is that they think about (analyse) their own thinking. The article arrives at that conclusion using two methods: 1. Behavioural analysis. 2. Reverse engineering neural circuitry. Is "thinking about thinking" rare, or remarkable? Is it the defining trait that elevates humans above all other animals? The article tells us that the trait isn't unique to humans, because crows have it too…

I'm a total layman in this field, so these are just unsupported thoughts. It seems to me that a brain going meta - thinking about thinking - could be what leads to a sense of self and thus consciousness. So, do these results imply those things about corvids? This has implications for AI, I believe.

Yes, that’s what “consciousness” is. Self awareness.

All living organisms have it, including unicellular.

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#149

Post by groby_b »

minitoar wrote: post #138
groby_b wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for Australian Hawks, who use wildfire to flush out smaller animals.

Do the hawks create or aid the spread of fire? One could say Redwood trees are similar for having evolved to take advantage of fire.

IIRC, Australian hawks intentionally spread fires by dropping burning pieces of wood. They do this cooperatively, too. (Don't piss off Australian Hawks, I guess ;)

https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-ethnobiology/volume-3...

Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute

#150

Post by quickthrower2 »

novok wrote: post #20
cassalian wrote: post #7

> crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds, a manifestation of higher intelligence and analytical thought long believed the sole province of humans and a few other higher mammals. I've always found the common thought that only humans and a select few of other animals are the only ones that posses higher intelligence to be incredibly arrogant of our species. Why wouldn't they have higher…

Humans were effective in their intelligence and rule the world with it, no other animal has shown anything approaching something like that. You judge them by their results.

Cockroaches, ants and plankton rule the world, depending on your definition.

Or sourdough: https://xkcd.com/2296/

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