When I worked in Central Illinois recently, the home my wife and I rented bordered a field where young cows were raised. The small cows seemed to play some sort of game, running around each other like run after the leader. We thought they were playing. Later my wife found stuff on the web about cows being given beach balls to play with and with each other. Uncomfortable truth for people who selfishly help environmentally destroy our planet with their meat addictions? I would say yes.
My small Meyers Parrot similarly plays games, remembers things for months but does eventually seem to forget things he has learned. His neocortex is probably only one square inch.
My personal belief is that in life in the universe (with about 400 billion galaxies times about 100 billion stars per galaxy) is wide spread, if rare. I think there is also some pressure for life to develop different types of intelligence based on their biology and environment.
Anyway, I am in strong agreement with the people here saying that it is difficult to recognize non-human intelligence as intelligence.
> people who selfishly help environmentally destroy our planet with their meat addictions? I would say yes.
You know you're not the only dog owner to say stuff like this, which I've always found odd. I think it's a kind of American exceptionalism writ large into vegetarian(?) thinking, where people see themselves as separate from the circle of life, instead of as someone in a relationship with nature. (Where they consider their pets "separate" and "part of nature" so its OK when they consume meat.)
Pretty much everyone in farming communities knows that animals are intelligent, its the people who are extremely separated that find the odd epiphany. I recommend talking to the farmers next time you're in Central Illinois.
My grandmother (she died 5 years ago and I still miss her, she died at the venerable age 99) used to train calves to peform and win medals in festivals when she was a young girl. According to her they are one of the most intelligent mammals. Yet when they aged and fatten she participated in the butchery and preparation of the meat and everyone in tbe family still eat beef. I forgot was was my point, I apologize and miss my grandmom.
> some pressure for life to develop different types of intelligence based on their biology and environment.
I always wonder what was the pressure for humans to develop recursive language, and the cultural explosion about 70,000 years ago.
And in the millions of years before that, the pressure to rapidly dwvelop larger brains. Other animals didn't seem to do that (though, we probanly haven't tracked the development of other animals brain-sizes over such time spans as assiduously as our own).
Any farm kid can tell you that animals are smart, especially if they've gotten into a battle of wits with a goat.
As Mark Twain said (and I am paraphrasing), "the only distinction between man and the lesser animals is that the lesser animals don't sit around and talk about what makes them different from us."
> the lesser animals is that the lesser animals don't sit around and talk about what makes them different from us.
Yes, they do. I won't let my cat near the computer, as she'll use it to log onto catnet and plot the cataclysm with the other cats. I've also caught her leafing through my electronics parts catalogs. I'm not sure how worried I should be.
Teaching about language in a university setting, we often talk about various forms of evidence for language-like communication among animals.
As I tell students, I would bet that within our lifetimes, as research continues and our instrumentation becomes better at detecting non-human communication means, we'll finally be able to detect and decode 'language' in a non-human animal which is sophisticated and rich enough as to be impossible to handwave away.
But what I keep to myself is that this kind of discovery, and the cross-species conversations it would prompt, has the potential to change the course of the dialogue on animal rights and what it means to be 'human'. But I suspect it will wind up being largely buried outside of certain academic and spiritual communities, mostly because I don't think parts of our society could handle learning the bovine words for 'slaughterhouse' or 'mourning'.
Christina Hunger has the ability to ask her dog questions and it goes to press a button that represents the idea it wants to reply with. That button plays an English word through a speaker for Christina. She's a speech pathologist on Instagram and has a website for it. The dog learns word association in the same way babies do.
Those videos are on Instagram, not buried. I'm fairly sure any breakthroughs will make it to a Planet Earth documentary and we'll feel sad about it for a while then go buy beef from the shops anyway.
There is still some evolutionary chauvinism when it comes to assumptions of animal intelligence as "distance from humanity" as other counterexamples prove them wrong already.
Reptilian brain crap which seems based on superficial shape when we really should know better now given evidence sitting in front of us.
It doesn't really hold. Sheep are infamously too dumb to live unassisted perhaps owing to overbreeding for docility.
Meanwhile cephalopods are capable of opening jars and get up to mischief like getting out of their tank and shorting out light fixtures when bored and I have observed hermit crabs transmitting behavior socially ("punching" instead of pinching with their larger claw) and figuring out how to rotate an improperly secured lid on its axis.
I keep getting surprised at the inability (refusal) of humans that we are not the only intelligent (and emotional) life form on this planet. It is extremely annoying.
I think it's a subconscious act of self-preservation. Truly accepting the sentience of animals would be conferring upon them a much more expansive (and expensive) set of rights, which in turn would make the our society seem all the more immoral through how we treat other species. Too much cognitive dissonance.
We have a tendency to measure intelligence as the ability to communicate well with humans. Our pets are "smart" because they have been practicing for millennia. Our children are smart when they show empathy and strong verbal skills. I'm not sure that we are equipped to measure intelligence in other animals, and I doubt we would even recognize intelligent alien life.
It isn't that we don't believe animals are intelligent. It is that that doesn't define our behavior in the way you apparently to expect it to.
Humans (on the whole) aren't even particularly good to other humans, yet some people seem to have the expectation that humans be particularly good to animals.
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|6 years ago|reply
My small Meyers Parrot similarly plays games, remembers things for months but does eventually seem to forget things he has learned. His neocortex is probably only one square inch.
My personal belief is that in life in the universe (with about 400 billion galaxies times about 100 billion stars per galaxy) is wide spread, if rare. I think there is also some pressure for life to develop different types of intelligence based on their biology and environment.
Anyway, I am in strong agreement with the people here saying that it is difficult to recognize non-human intelligence as intelligence.
[+] [-] simonsarris|6 years ago|reply
You know you're not the only dog owner to say stuff like this, which I've always found odd. I think it's a kind of American exceptionalism writ large into vegetarian(?) thinking, where people see themselves as separate from the circle of life, instead of as someone in a relationship with nature. (Where they consider their pets "separate" and "part of nature" so its OK when they consume meat.)
Pretty much everyone in farming communities knows that animals are intelligent, its the people who are extremely separated that find the odd epiphany. I recommend talking to the farmers next time you're in Central Illinois.
By the way, pasture is good for the environment.
[+] [-] nick_mt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperpallium|6 years ago|reply
I always wonder what was the pressure for humans to develop recursive language, and the cultural explosion about 70,000 years ago.
And in the millions of years before that, the pressure to rapidly dwvelop larger brains. Other animals didn't seem to do that (though, we probanly haven't tracked the development of other animals brain-sizes over such time spans as assiduously as our own).
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawayhhakdl|6 years ago|reply
Eg tickling is learning to protect vulnerable spots on the body
[+] [-] username90|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] l1g2d5|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rpmisms|6 years ago|reply
As Mark Twain said (and I am paraphrasing), "the only distinction between man and the lesser animals is that the lesser animals don't sit around and talk about what makes them different from us."
[+] [-] WalterBright|6 years ago|reply
Yes, they do. I won't let my cat near the computer, as she'll use it to log onto catnet and plot the cataclysm with the other cats. I've also caught her leafing through my electronics parts catalogs. I'm not sure how worried I should be.
[+] [-] wanderfowl|6 years ago|reply
As I tell students, I would bet that within our lifetimes, as research continues and our instrumentation becomes better at detecting non-human communication means, we'll finally be able to detect and decode 'language' in a non-human animal which is sophisticated and rich enough as to be impossible to handwave away.
But what I keep to myself is that this kind of discovery, and the cross-species conversations it would prompt, has the potential to change the course of the dialogue on animal rights and what it means to be 'human'. But I suspect it will wind up being largely buried outside of certain academic and spiritual communities, mostly because I don't think parts of our society could handle learning the bovine words for 'slaughterhouse' or 'mourning'.
[+] [-] friendlybus|6 years ago|reply
Those videos are on Instagram, not buried. I'm fairly sure any breakthroughs will make it to a Planet Earth documentary and we'll feel sad about it for a while then go buy beef from the shops anyway.
[+] [-] Nasrudith|6 years ago|reply
Reptilian brain crap which seems based on superficial shape when we really should know better now given evidence sitting in front of us.
It doesn't really hold. Sheep are infamously too dumb to live unassisted perhaps owing to overbreeding for docility.
Meanwhile cephalopods are capable of opening jars and get up to mischief like getting out of their tank and shorting out light fixtures when bored and I have observed hermit crabs transmitting behavior socially ("punching" instead of pinching with their larger claw) and figuring out how to rotate an improperly secured lid on its axis.
[+] [-] djsumdog|6 years ago|reply
Most reptile training is pretty basic, and this experiment fits into those expectations:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NnwIlM6SmiQ
[+] [-] astrodust|6 years ago|reply
If you're comparing them to dogs, which are pack animals where those skills are critical, it's not fair. They project their feelings.
Introverted animals have a lot in common with reptiles.
[+] [-] dillonmckay|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|6 years ago|reply
Humans really need to get over themselves as the only species that possesses intelligence.
[+] [-] lagilogi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] truckerbill|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacob019|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|6 years ago|reply
Humans (on the whole) aren't even particularly good to other humans, yet some people seem to have the expectation that humans be particularly good to animals.
[+] [-] sojmq|6 years ago|reply
Emotional... well that's something else.
[+] [-] sysbin|6 years ago|reply