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Spiders are much smarter than you think

knowablemagazine.org

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Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#71

Post by elcomet »

pvaldes wrote: post #47
vector_spaces wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have extreme arachnophobia, like strip-naked-run-screaming-if-I-found-a-spider-on-me level arachnophobia. A long time ago I was prescribed propranolol for PTSD by a psychiatrist specializing in trauma. I hadn't even mentioned my arachnophobia to her or any clinician I had seen at that point. It helped me a lot of social situations, but the effect was pretty subtle. Anyway, one day, I was hiking with friends…

People with arachnophobia should remember that 95% of the extant spiders are totally unable to pierce the human skin. Fangs too weak or short to reach blood capillaries and made any real damage, even if they would be poisonous doesn't matter. Those that coevolved with spider-eating monkeys are the problematic ones.

So there's still 5% of spiders that can pierce your skin and inject stuff? That's not very reassuring

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#72

Post by pjmlp »

falsaberN1 wrote: post #57
pjmlp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that we have millions of evolution for living beings, and even us in 2021 aren't the same that were running from Dinosaurs, so it is only natural that other species also enjoy some kind of intelligence, naturally they aren't writing books, however it is a scale from DNA programmed behaviours to some level of self conscience, ability to learn or even develop some kind of culture that is passed across gene…

We never ran from dinousaurs, but it'd have been kind of cool.

Right, was more to put it perspective actually.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#73

Post by Valmar »

ravenstine wrote: post #41

As soon as I opened that article, I pressed CTRL+F and searched for "jumping spider". I knew it had to be about them! I'm not sure I would consider them "smart", but they are definitely exhibit an awareness of their surroundings that is not as obvious in other arachnids or arthropods. It's fun to watch them explore their terrain, stalk and catch prey much larger than they are, and of course jump relatively large dist…

They're relatively smart in that they can quite intelligently navigate their environment to best get at prey that might otherwise kill them.

Really, all animals are relatively smart (ignoring individual differences in a species), in that they have specific skills and abilities that allow them to be most effective for their biological makeup, and purpose in their respective ecosystems.

We humans are no different in that regard ~ we are relatively smart, in that our biological makeups grant us leanings towards skills and abilities that other animals don't have.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#74

Post by whalesalad »

bryans wrote: post #18

A couple years ago I had an experience with a spider that entirely changed my perspective on them and most insects, and now I make a conscious effort to help them as much as possible, instead of kill or even repel them. This particular spider kept running back and forth between my monitor and a window, and when it'd get to my monitor, it would wave its front legs at me. If I moved to the left, it would run across to…

It’s SO cool when you have one of these experiences with a wild animal. A tiny little moment of true connection and communication. Thanks for the story.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#75

Post by mym1990 »

bryans wrote: post #31
tomerv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to let spiders live freely in my house, until one time I wanted to go to bed at night and noticed dozens of black spots on the bed cover. I looked up and saw hundreds of tiny spider babies on the ceiling. From then on, whenever I see a spider in the house I get rid of it. Sorry...

Don't get me wrong, I still find families of baby spiders to be absolutely terrifying in every way, and it takes every bit of my willpower to fight the urge to remove them from existence. But at the end of the day, the key word is family. It's a group of living things, with parents that apparently have the emotional capacity to care about them. Hopefully when you say "get rid of it," that means gently coaxing them in…

You’re Vin Diesel’s kinda person.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#76

Post by swayvil »

AwaAwa wrote: post #59
Levitz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. Animals don't even have the empathy to outright kill a prey before eating it and will have it dismembered, bleeding out and alive no problem. Nature is beautiful but let's not pretend it's caring or loving. Cats play with their food. Spiders liquefy their preys, melting them from the inside out. Crabs eat their newborn offspring. Do any of these feel bad at all about it? No. Find me an animal who went vega…

Human industrial slaughter where animals are trussed up and dismembered and skinned while still conscious (granted due to failures in the stun mechanism, but there isn't much push to monitor assembly line failures) would beg to differ. Or how about male chicks being liquefied and fed back to the chickens? Add to that the kosher/halal slaughter. This idea that all humanity is 'above' base animal behavior is as ridicul…

Forget the actual slaughter. They live their entire life in a torture cage, smeared in excrement, ears filled with the screams of their suffering family.

We are clearly demons.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#77

Post by TacticalCoder »

Levitz wrote: post #50
birksherty wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No species can come even close to humans in killing others without any hesitation. Have you even seen the documentary Earthlings? http://www.nationearth.com/

Oh please. Animals don't even have the empathy to outright kill a prey before eating it and will have it dismembered, bleeding out and alive no problem. Nature is beautiful but let's not pretend it's caring or loving. Cats play with their food. Spiders liquefy their preys, melting them from the inside out. Crabs eat their newborn offspring. Do any of these feel bad at all about it? No. Find me an animal who went vega…

> Cats play with their food

oh my cat don't even eat the animals it brings back inside the house. Birds, baby rabbits (these ones survives for it can catch them but not kill them), lizards by the metric ton, spiders, mice...

It brings them back to me and let them in the living room.

Sometimes I get two animals a day.

I don't know: maybe the cat understood we do the cooking and somehow thinks we're going to cook all it brings back.

I remember an old blog where some coder who also had a relentless cat (I'd say at least 10 years ago) set up face a webcam and face recognition for its cat inside the pet door and wouldn't let the door open if the cat had something in its mouse.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#78

Post by swayvil »

nickpeterson wrote: post #53
birksherty wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No species can come even close to humans in killing others without any hesitation. Have you even seen the documentary Earthlings? http://www.nationearth.com/

I think the horrifying thing about humans is we do understand what we’re doing and choose to do it anyways. Spiders kill things to eat them to survive. Humans do it for much more complicated or arbitrary reasons.

Our whole intellectual/scientific/technological culture is founded upon our ability to focus our attention.

And the flipside of focus is blindness. Ignorance.

One thing is focused upon, seen and controlled with vast depth and clarity. While 1000 other things are obliviated away.

That obliviated part. There's a lot of bad stuff going on there. (And a lot of good stuff too, no doubt)

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#79

Post by Kim_Bruning »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #37

What do we consider smarts? For example, with some examples there, like pretending to do a mating ritual for another group of spiders in order to lure the female out, this seems like it's something built in to their neural networks through thousands of years of evolution. It doesn't seem significantly smarter than the other group of species doing mating rituals themselves. They just have a neural network that reacts…

Human social interaction is also something built into their neural networks through thousands of years of evolution too. They have a neural network that reacts to certain input with this output that evolution created as well.

Of course, biological neural networks are self learning too, so the output gets tuned and optimized in situ just a little. But there's really no difference in that sense.

Sure: you shouldn't anthropomorphize lest you end up drawing completely wrong conclusions; this was drilled into me as well.

However, a strictly mechanistic view of something that is clearly software++ (biological neuroplasticity) might be overcompensating a bit too far in the other direction again.

I guess what I'm trying to say is try to treat each organism as their own thing. Don't overestimate or anthropomorphize; but don't take an over-linearized super-mechanistic view either, since that can lead you astray just as much.

Re: Spiders are much smarter than you think

#80

Post by marcosdumay »

poisonarena wrote: post #39
bryans wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, I still find families of baby spiders to be absolutely terrifying in every way, and it takes every bit of my willpower to fight the urge to remove them from existence. But at the end of the day, the key word is family. It's a group of living things, with parents that apparently have the emotional capacity to care about them. Hopefully when you say "get rid of it," that means gently coaxing them in…

You are assuming very human or even mammalian qualities and constructs like "parents/family/emotion" to invertebrates that have no problem cannibalizing their offspring and mates. If they were big enough they would kill you and your family without any hesitation or emotion.

> If they were big enough they would kill you and your family without any hesitation or emotion.

That's how predators act. Yet, we have no lack of love for birds and cats.

Anyway, don't group spiders on the "have no problem cannibalizing their offspring and mates". They are much more complex than that. Besides some vertebrates also have no problem doing that.

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