Why do dogs seem to ‘understand’ us to an extent but we struggle to understand dogs?
We struggle to understand each other. We conduct wars, need religion and the like to keep some order, etc.
Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
21–30 of 148 posts
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I think dogs have better social skills since they (well, wolves) evolved to form packs and help each other out. This can make them seem more intelligent. Cats are worse at communication as they evolved to be more solitary.
Cats are solitary hunters but they form colonies, and these colonies have social dominance hierarchies. They have sophisticated vocalization and body language that's perfectly comprehensible -- if you're a cat.
They are not as well domesticated as dogs, so humans cannot read them as well as they can dogs without training themselves in cat communication. Domestication has altered the dog on the physiological level to communicate with humans. Among other things, dogs have extra eye muscles that allow them to emote in ways humans instinctually understand.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#23Seems quite relevant to the recent discussion about current AI sentience [1] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31716639
Had the same thought. I think one other major difference between biological brains and computers, beyond the fact of having a body vs not, is that biology is analog and not digital. A signal going from cell to cell in a brain or up a spinal cord isn't just "on" or "off", but in any number of infinite states. No matter how many bits you manage to pack into a digital "brain," that's a fundamental difference. Now I can'…
Yeah if we hadn't go digital and built something equivalent to modern computers with super-dense analog circuits then it would've gain intelligence.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#24I 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…
I feel like most people are like one or two a-ha insights away from veganism. Intelligence and awareness definitely has a spectrum across the animal kingdom but I’m not so sure about sentience itself. Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, but as we we climb up the kingdom to vertebrates and especially mammals and birds, it’s clear to me that we share more in common than otherwise.
Most people love to share outrage over abuse of conventional pets or bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviour of eating dogs yet feel nothing to the slaughter of a pig. It is my opinion that most people ignore and switch “off” at these discussions as a way to maintain plausible deniability. Like people get mad at PETA showing videos on the street of slaughterhouses in a “how dare you” sort of way but really I’m of the attitude of how dare they.
Cows are very intelligent, have long term memories, and feel desolation when their calves are taken away from them. Cats as well. The whole cats vs dogs argument is just mega weird to me and like you say really emphasizes the cognitive dissonance at play in most people who consider themselves kind to animals yet eat meat.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#25I 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…
My cat spent the first year or so of his time with us plotting a Mission: Impossible style ingress into my home office. The tricky bit has been finding a way to the exposed ventilation pipe in our loft, from which he could hop through the high-up, paneless window into my office. He attempted literally climbing the walls, and investigated the possibility of hopping on the blades of the ceiling fan to reach the pipe. (Thankfully, he never hopped on said blades, only stared at them and attempted to trace a path back to a perch he could reach.)
I'm fairly certain he knows one could simply use the door handle. It's only a question of height and weight. He can reach it with his paws now, and it's only a matter of time before he figures out how to shift his weight to pop that door open...
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Uhuh. They have more neurons. This does say exactly nothing about "smart". There's also the small matter that while dogs have more neurons than cats in general, they have significantly less neurons allocated to their cortex. The study you likely refer to talks about total brain matter. It is, in short, a dog lovers argument.
I don't really have a dog in this fight, no pun intended, but you would be wrong. The only modern study that looked at neurons of carnivorous animals including cats/dogs found that dogs have nearly twice the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex, and the ratio of cortical neurons to overall neurons is also higher (~20% vs ~23%).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnana.2017.0011...
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#27I 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…
Famously, jazz musician Charles Mingus trained his cat to poop in a toilet. He even authored a pamphlet about it. Not that I'm advocating that people to do that of course. I'm just noting how intelligent cats are.
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I feel like most people are like one or two a-ha insights away from veganism. Intelligence and awareness definitely has a spectrum across the animal kingdom but I’m not so sure about sentience itself. Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, but as we we climb up the kingdom to vertebrates and especially mammal…
Your line of thinking follows that of Peter Singer. I'd imagine that his brand of philosophy would appeal to you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I feel like most people are like one or two a-ha insights away from veganism. Intelligence and awareness definitely has a spectrum across the animal kingdom but I’m not so sure about sentience itself. Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, but as we we climb up the kingdom to vertebrates and especially mammal…
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Re: Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans
#30I was surprised by the intelligence of a little spider I encountered the other day. As I was looking for my keys to enter the house, this little jumping spider was on the front door. As I approached the door he moved almost with anticipation. As I turned the keys, he got closer to the door edge. As I opened the door, he swung himself around the door and into the house ahead of me! At that point I decided if got this…
Heh Heh Heh. If you're into Science Fiction, then Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time" might be your kind of thing:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316452505
It's really, really good. :)