Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so?
They're extremely small, the photo in the article is misleading: the prose explains they're ~1 mm in size
They're from 1 to 2.5 cm in size, at least the ones in the article are - Portia.
Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
161–170 of 197 posts
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#162previously: science fiction author Peter Watts' 2009 post musing about spider intelligence vs Turing machines: https://rifters.com/real/2009/01/iterating-towards-bethlehem... > Here's the thumbnail sketch: we have here a spider who eats other spiders, who changes her foraging strategy on the fly, who resorts to trial and error techniques to lure prey into range. She will brave a full frontal assault against prey carr…
> Blindsight > It carries a crew of five cutting-edge transhuman hyper-specialists, of whom one is a genetically reincarnated vampire who acts as the nominal mission commander. Space vampire eh?
Yes. Yet it is diamond-hard sci-fi.
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's so sad. I'm pretty militantly anti-spider but jumping spiders, despite seeming like they were sent from hell to terrify us, are just little furry big-eyed arthro-bros
They even kill insects for us
When I learned that they compete for territory with centipedes I decided to stop killing them. I'd much rather share my home with a tiny 8-legged cat than with a venomous centipede.
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alan Watts used to say, it's ok to eat plants and animals, as long as when you cook them, you make something beautiful out of them to respect their sacrifice. It's the least you can do. I feel there is some truth to this. Eventually, your body will be consumed by insects.
I don't think those beings that were killed care about that.
Well it's an inescapable fact that anything alive is going to die, and likely be eaten.
Basically all animals, and even plants (living creatures too) are going to die horrible deaths, being ripped apart by predators etc. We too, will likely be food for worms.
The point he is trying to make is to celebrate the life of whatever you're eating by at least making something special out of it an enjoying it rather than turning it into fast food junk which pointlessly ends up in the trash after 10 minutes in the burger warmer or whatever.
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
A thought I've sometimes had is that if we had evolved to be as tiny as something like these spiders, but still at our current level of intelligence and society, chimps or elephants or whales would still be almost insurmountable threats to us even with today's level of technology. It'd take entire nations years of effort to build a gun or rocket that could even hurt something that much bigger than us.
I wonder if anyone has calculated a range of body sizes which maximise intelligence and the ability to exploit resources of their planet. Could a spider-sized human intelligence build a rocket to go to the moon? Would it have been easier to develop our civilization if we had been as large as a whale? Maybe the universe is teeming with life a little too large or too small to build an ultra-technologic culture, or spac…
> Could a spider-sized human intelligence build a rocket to go to the moon?
I suspect without doing the maths that their rockets would still be similar in size to ours, because of the fuel required to achieve escape velocity, and the good old rocket equation. But they would certainly be able to fit a lot more spidernauts in.
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exposure therapy can help squashing irrational fears, which is what I would suggest in the case of small creatures triggering a fear response.
I'm unbelievably scared of syringes and especially giving blood samples. To the point where I get hot and feel sick when people around me talk about it. Don't even want to imagine what exposure therapy would be like for this :D
Completely understandable. But just know it can be overcome, albeit gradually. You'll start small and decide the pace your comfortable with.
As an aside, at a younger age I shared your aversion to syringes. It wasn't the adminstering per se, but the perceived lack of control. What helped me was realising that 23 hours, 59 minutes and 55 seconds out of the day, I am in control -- those 5 seconds of needling (if that) pale in comparison.
Each time became easier after that. I hope you are able to overcome your aversion.
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#167That must be the dumbest title I've read in a longer while.
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
If anything it's moral justification for not doing that. I was pointing out how I kill living things in order to remain alive, even though I think they are unique individual people and it's troubling and confusing to me (because in order to live, another thing has to die).
Unsolicited, but I just abstract it to energy. I'm an energy well. They are an energy well. I can't hold off the march of entropy if I don't bring in more energy. So I absorb their well into mine. Until we figure out how to integrate photosynthesis / photovoltaics into our bodies its not worth stressing out over the necessary survival process of killing other living things.
Well it is worth thinking about if one energy well suffers and the other one does not.
We have very little reason to believe that a bean plant is sentient and experiences suffering to a comparable level like a factory-farmed chicken. It actually seems absurd.
(I eat meat, this is not a holy war for me.)
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think those beings that were killed care about that.
Well it's an inescapable fact that anything alive is going to die, and likely be eaten. Basically all animals, and even plants (living creatures too) are going to die horrible deaths, being ripped apart by predators etc. We too, will likely be food for worms. The point he is trying to make is to celebrate the life of whatever you're eating by at least making something special out of it an enjoying it rather than turn…
It's a weird way to celebrate a life when you do it after killing it for your own pleasure. We should aim at minimizing pain, not at creating feel-good rituals for our meals.
Re: Researchers find signs of intelligence among jumping spiders
#170I was bitten by a jumping spider when I was a child. I used to play with them, never had a problem and then one day for no reason, I got bitten.
i do not believe it is possible to be bitten by a jumping spider (and most other spiders) - they are just too small.
Can confirm. I cornered one in a windowsill as a child and was bitten.