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Crows are even smarter than we thought

nautil.us

291–300 of 304 posts

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#291
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should also establish that the crow on the balcony is the same one that attacked after line of sight was broken during the trip back upstairs.

Not sure it is necessary as the captive crow may communicate it status (croaking "I'm trapped" or "I'm free") with this one, but it would be an insight.

I'm not sure I understand. I'm referring to the assailant crow that allegedly flew around the building and up to the balcony while the original poster was indoors ascending to the eighth floor. I'm not sure how it can be known, given the details in the post, that the assailing crow wasn't a third crow other than the two on the balcony.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#292

When I was little I had a small bb gun and would shoot cans in the backyard. A couple times i shot a crow and it would bounce off their strong chest and they would fly off seemingly unfazed. One time by pure chance I hit a crow in the neck and it died instantly, crashing down into my neighbor's yard. It was very shocking because I had not killed anything like that before. Immediately crows started circling my parents…

Your parents should have told you not to harm animals for no reason to begin with, and the fact that this isn't the takeaway from this story is frankly very concerning.

There is nothing concerning about his message, and you’re clearly not a parent. Let it go.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#293
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another someone with aphantasia, I remember what something looks like, so I draw what I remember. That memory is not an image, it's knowledge of what something looks like. For simple things, that's enough. For complicated things, I sketch out what I remember of the overall appearance, look at it and gauge how far off it is and what is off, and add in details to gradually reduce the difference. I'm not a very good…

> is not an image, it's knowledge of what something looks like Is this similar to calling an .svg "not an image" if it's viewed in a text editor rather than on a canvas?

Somewhat? But I think it might lead you slightly astray. With SVG text, there's an interpretation step to get to the image. If you ask a question about the image represented by the SVG, you'd probably do SVG --> image --> result. With my memory of what something looks like, I don't really process it into an intermediate image form, even if I'm drawing something out. For the above example, it's more like memory --> result. More similar to a regular person's image --> result than something like memory --> visual representation --> result. In all cases, some sort of processing happens on the --> lines.

My knowledge of what a square looks like includes the right angles at the corners, the equal length of the sides, the alignment with one side at the bottom (not part of the mathematical definition, note), some sense I can't describe of the overall shape, the closed shape, the straight sides, etc. Some of it corresponds directly to mathematical notions, some of it is the feel, some of it is associations with how they work in practice or where they've shown up. When drawing it, I rely mostly on the straight sides, the 90° angles, and the closed shape. I'm not logically figuring out what those together imply, I just start with drawing a straight line segment and then close it off with 3 more segments at right angles to each other, and confirm that it looks right at the end. If you ask me what part would be most painful to bump into, I do something very close to visualizing the pointy corners, but I don't picture them so much as retrieve my association with their sharpness.

Dunno if this makes sense or how generalizable this is to other people, I'm just kind of laying out my stream of consciousness impressions of my brain's workings.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#294
post #244

When I was little I had a small bb gun and would shoot cans in the backyard. A couple times i shot a crow and it would bounce off their strong chest and they would fly off seemingly unfazed. One time by pure chance I hit a crow in the neck and it died instantly, crashing down into my neighbor's yard. It was very shocking because I had not killed anything like that before. Immediately crows started circling my parents…

This is a hard way to learn it, but I think the recognition of non-human animals as being alive in the same way we are is quite a profound moment. Just that realisation of this thing that was previously just a robotic, animated part of "the natural world", like a blade of grass that can move, suddenly being - in its own way - related to itself and others of its species. People find this easy with pets, I guess, but I…

I've never felt the desire to kill anything larger than a mosquito or fly and never have. Wanting to kill something is definitely not a feeling everyone experiences as a kid.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#295
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your parents should have told you not to harm animals for no reason to begin with, and the fact that this isn't the takeaway from this story is frankly very concerning.

There is nothing concerning about his message, and you’re clearly not a parent. Let it go.

Ah yes, because only parents know how to parent. It's not a qualification.

And his behaviour is certainly different from my experience as a kid of never wanting to and never actually harming anything beyond flies and mosquitos.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#296
post #106

I think I've come to an inevitable conclusion that there appears to be at least two "sources" of intelligence, genetic, and (I guess for lack of a better word), "learned". Learned could mean all kinds of things, the capacity measurement of IQ, the effort by parents to fill that capacity, social normative steering, whatever. But genetic really means "instinct" in the way that a day old deer can stand, run, graze (I li…

Yeah there's definitely instinctual and then "lived/learnt" intelligence. Not sure about the biological mechanism for the latter becoming the former.

I was thinking about this the other day actually, how all of our advanced behaviours and emotions and society are really just formed on the foundation of basic biological principles/evolution. Every supposedly complex behavior can be explained by this.

The ultimate meaning of life is to live long enough to pass on genes if you're fit enough to make this happen, then you age and for all your learned experience you will become slow and eventually be the gazelle at the rear of the herd that the lions catch, saving the younger newer generations. With the possibility of one of those younger gazelle also dying beside you, if it wasn't aware or fast enough - preventing it from passing on genes.

Even complex and strong emotions were evolved for a purpose, those that could empathise and work together did better, same with language. Then we get side effects like depression etc in the same way that you can physically injure ourself, our minds can be injured as well.

Basically spent a couple hours thinking about the future of machine learning.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#298

When I was little I had a small bb gun and would shoot cans in the backyard. A couple times i shot a crow and it would bounce off their strong chest and they would fly off seemingly unfazed. One time by pure chance I hit a crow in the neck and it died instantly, crashing down into my neighbor's yard. It was very shocking because I had not killed anything like that before. Immediately crows started circling my parents…

Angry, dive bombing birds are so horrible. I'm sure they awaken something deep within me. I once passed under a crow's nest and they warned me but apparently I didn't pass it quickly enough, and as I looked up, one had spread its wings right above me and flew right over my head! Aaaah! I didn't know how scary that was until it happened to me. And I definitely didn't expect them to look huge like that with the wingspan + surprise effect.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#299

I've posted this comment before but I grew up in Florida on a decent amount of land for a curious child. One day I was feeding the crows some stale cuban bread, there were probably 5 of them sitting on the fence watching me throw the bread. Each one would fly down and take a piece. One of them flew down and tumbled, his friends started laughing something fierce. His friends then all took turns mimicking his tumble in…

I guess more social fun than this crow using a plastic lid as a sled! https://youtu.be/L9mrTdYhOHg

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#300
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your parents should have told you not to harm animals for no reason to begin with, and the fact that this isn't the takeaway from this story is frankly very concerning.

> The coordination and the intentional effort they made to disrupt and stop me was something I have never forgotten. This had a big effect on me, I thought of it's family, and how they were trying to protect it. Needless to say I have not shot another bird since. That was the takeaway.

The takeaway was about birds specifically. That's the worrying thing here.
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