Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a few repeats over the next week.
"Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology and incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" thread today.
> Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a > few repeats over the next week.
> "Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the > possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology and > incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and > natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
> Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my > morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" > thread today.
All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about dolphins.
What impresses me about animal thought is the ability of animals to deal with situations that they shouldn't be programmed for. What does a dog think of a car or truck? Does he think of it as a beast of burden which their master is riding inside (which I would think should be another alien concept for a dog). If so, why would they pee on it?
I would think that animals divide everything into a "dead thing" category (landscape, trees, rocks) and a "living thing" category (another animals, insects). Creatures evade detection by other creature by emulating "dead things". So I can't imagine where a motor vehicle would fit into an evolutionarily designed concept scheme.
The most interesting thing is that regardless of what environment you put an animal in, if it can survive it can react. There's always some thing the animal feels is the thing to do. Animals never seem to "overload" when faced with totally alien situations. The deer in the headlights seems to be an exception, but I would think that's more of a programmed response than a sensory overload for the simple fact that few animals do it.
-- Steve
You can throw a horse in a pond, but you can't make him swim.
>>Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my >>morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" >>thread today.
> All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in > real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different > about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, > such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about > dolphins.
OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental difference between their intelligence and ours. My wife and I like to take a lunch to the San Diego Zoo and watch the gorillas, chimps and orangutans watch us through the glass walls of their enclosures. Friday I saw an orang strip the leaves off a branch, carry it around for a while, then poke it in holes in an artificial termite mound. I know Jane Goodall first discovered tool use in chimps decades ago, and I heard recently of reports of tool use in orangs. A neighbor kid (in his 30's) works there and saw the late Ken Allen tie a knot once.
Hey, watch the show if you can. It isn't on tonight in my area.
> What impresses me about animal thought is the ability of animals to deal > with situations that they shouldn't be programmed for. What does a dog > think of a car or truck? Does he think of it as a beast of burden which > their master is riding inside (which I would think should be another alien > concept for a dog). If so, why would they pee on it?
> I would think that animals divide everything into a "dead thing" category > (landscape, trees, rocks) and a "living thing" category (another animals, > insects). Creatures evade detection by other creature by emulating "dead > things". So I can't imagine where a motor vehicle would fit into an > evolutionarily designed concept scheme.
> The most interesting thing is that regardless of what environment you put > an animal in, if it can survive it can react. There's always some thing the > animal feels is the thing to do. Animals never seem to "overload" when > faced with totally alien situations. The deer in the headlights seems to be > an exception, but I would think that's more of a programmed response than a > sensory overload for the simple fact that few animals do it.
> -- > Steve
> You can throw a horse in a pond, but you can't make him swim.
-- Richard Uhrich --- Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin
> >>Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my > >>morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" > >>thread today.
> > All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in > > real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different > > about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, > > such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about > > dolphins.
> OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental > difference between their intelligence and ours.
Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first 4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest Pentium 4.
Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it with a Web browser.
>>>>Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my >>>>morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" >>>>thread today.
>>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in >>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different >>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, >>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about >>>dolphins.
>>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental >>difference between their intelligence and ours.
> Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first > 4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest > Pentium 4.
> Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it > with a Web browser.
In article <pan.2003.06.01.18.36.41.225...@mail.utexas.edu>, bdbry...@mail.utexas.edu says...
> Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a > few repeats over the next week.
> "Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the > possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology and > incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and > natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
> Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my > morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" > thread today.
Cats are smart enough to let people do it for them.
> >>>>Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a > >>>>few repeats over the next week.
> >>>>"Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the > >>>>possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology
> >>>and
> >>>>incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and > >>>>natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
> >>>>Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my > >>>>morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" > >>>>thread today.
> >>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in > >>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different > >>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, > >>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about > >>>dolphins.
> >>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental > >>difference between their intelligence and ours.
> > Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first > > 4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest > > Pentium 4.
> > Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it > > with a Web browser.
> No fundamental difference; just scale of integration and speed.
The difference in the microprocessors is a good analogy to the difference in brains between humans and gorillas, chimps and orangutans. The processors are quite alike in that they use the same basic intruction set and have common subunits such as registers, instruction decoders, and ALU's. And yes, the two processors differ a great deal in scale of integration and speed. But the Pentium has a number of hardware features that the 4-bit'er doesn't have like intruction pipelines, memory prefetch, branch prediction units, cache memory, address translation tables for virtual memory, multiple floating point and integer arithmetic units, etc.
Thus the two processors not only differ in speed, but in structure as well. The same is possibly true of the difference in the brains between humans and the higher primates. Humans not only have more neurological mass to think with, but our brains contain special features that the apes don't have. Hence it appears that our general intelligence is of a different order of magnitude.
For dolphins, the analogy would be a specialized microprocessor called a DSP, or digital signal processor, found in most home audio equipment these days. This chip is extremely fast at carrying out the computations involved in audio signal processing, but isn't so good at general computing.
> Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a > few repeats over the next week.
> "Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the > possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology and > incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and > natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
It's not really a question of "if" they think, but what they perceive. Oddly, their perception must be much better than ours. When they see us coming, they flee.
They don't flee because we're more intelligent or because they've seen us catch them and eat them (a preditor), they flee because they perceive us to be freaking crazy. They are 100% correct. We are delusional (everything belongs to us). We are self-absorbed (I have to chop down the rain forests, I need toothpicks, pencils and other wood products). We are completely irresponsible (i.e., industrial polution, National Debt, SUVs, etc.). In a single glance, they perceive us very accurately (unpredictable wackos).
We measure intelligence by our standard. Animals aren't delusional enough, self-absorbed enough or irresponsible enough for us to consider them, intelligent. If, they became so, then we have to destroy them as a danger to us and/or the environment. A "double standard" is the perfect manifestation of human intelligence.
>>>>Steve B. wrote: >>>>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in >>>>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different >>>>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, >>>>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about >>>>>dolphins.
>>>>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental >>>>difference between their intelligence and ours.
>>>Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first >>>4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest >>>Pentium 4.
>>>Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it >>>with a Web browser.
>>No fundamental difference; just scale of integration and speed.
> The difference in the microprocessors is a good analogy to the > difference in brains between humans and gorillas, chimps and > orangutans. The processors are quite alike in that they use the same > basic intruction set and have common subunits such as registers, > instruction decoders, and ALU's. And yes, the two processors differ a > great deal in scale of integration and speed. But the Pentium has a > number of hardware features that the 4-bit'er doesn't have like > intruction pipelines, memory prefetch, branch prediction units, cache > memory, address translation tables for virtual memory, multiple > floating point and integer arithmetic units, etc.
> Thus the two processors not only differ in speed, but in structure as > well. The same is possibly true of the difference in the brains > between humans and the higher primates. Humans not only have more > neurological mass to think with, but our brains contain special > features that the apes don't have. Hence it appears that our general > intelligence is of a different order of magnitude.
> For dolphins, the analogy would be a specialized microprocessor called > a DSP, or digital signal processor, found in most home audio equipment > these days. This chip is extremely fast at carrying out the > computations involved in audio signal processing, but isn't so good at > general computing.
I like your analogy, but does it amount to Steve B's "something fundamentally different [about human intelligence] -- something that's not just a matter of degree, such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether"? You conclude both the newer CPUs and the human brain have "special features" which result in an "order of magnitude" improvement. I would argue that the anatomical and functional differences between a snail's brain and a mouse's far exceed the differences between a chimp and human. And I've worked in 8085 machine language and optimized C subroutines with 80x86 Assembly and see no *fundamental* difference. I would call the change from vacuum tubes and switches to solid state devices, especially integrated circuits (such as the Intel 4004), as truly *fundamental*. I fail to see a comparable leap in human brains from other apes.
-- Richard Uhrich --- Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin
> >>>>Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a > >>>>few repeats over the next week.
> >>>>"Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the > >>>>possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology
> >>>and
> >>>>incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and > >>>>natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
> >>>>Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my > >>>>morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" > >>>>thread today.
> >>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in > >>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different > >>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, > >>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about > >>>dolphins.
> >>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental > >>difference between their intelligence and ours.
> > Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first > > 4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest > > Pentium 4.
> > Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it > > with a Web browser.
> No fundamental difference; just scale of integration and speed.
The difference in the microprocessors is a good analogy to the difference in brains between humans and gorillas, chimps and orangutans. The processors are quite alike in that they use the same basic intruction set and have common subunits such as registers, instruction decoders, and ALU's. And yes, the two processors differ a great deal in scale of integration and speed. But the Pentium has a number of hardware features that the 4-bit'er doesn't have like intruction pipelines, memory prefetch, branch prediction units, cache memory, address translation tables for virtual memory, multiple floating point and integer arithmetic units, etc.
Thus the two processors not only differ in speed, but in structure as well. The same is possibly true of the difference in the brains between humans and the higher primates. Humans not only have more neurological mass to think with, but our brains contain special features that the apes don't have. Hence it appears that our general intelligence is of a different order of magnitude.
For dolphins, the analogy would be a specialized microprocessor called a DSP, or digital signal processor, found in most home audio equipment these days. This chip is extremely fast at carrying out the computations involved in audio signal processing, but isn't so good at general computing.
> >>>>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in > >>>>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different > >>>>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, > >>>>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about > >>>>>dolphins.
> >>>>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental > >>>>difference between their intelligence and ours.
> >>>Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first > >>>4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest > >>>Pentium 4.
> >>>Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it > >>>with a Web browser.
> >>No fundamental difference; just scale of integration and speed.
> > The difference in the microprocessors is a good analogy to the > > difference in brains between humans and gorillas, chimps and > > orangutans. The processors are quite alike in that they use the same > > basic intruction set and have common subunits such as registers, > > instruction decoders, and ALU's. And yes, the two processors differ a > > great deal in scale of integration and speed. But the Pentium has a > > number of hardware features that the 4-bit'er doesn't have like > > intruction pipelines, memory prefetch, branch prediction units, cache > > memory, address translation tables for virtual memory, multiple > > floating point and integer arithmetic units, etc.
> > Thus the two processors not only differ in speed, but in structure as > > well. The same is possibly true of the difference in the brains > > between humans and the higher primates. Humans not only have more > > neurological mass to think with, but our brains contain special > > features that the apes don't have. Hence it appears that our general > > intelligence is of a different order of magnitude.
> > For dolphins, the analogy would be a specialized microprocessor called > > a DSP, or digital signal processor, found in most home audio equipment > > these days. This chip is extremely fast at carrying out the > > computations involved in audio signal processing, but isn't so good at > > general computing.
> I like your analogy, but does it amount to Steve B's "something > fundamentally different [about human intelligence] -- something that's > not just a matter of degree, such as processing power, but more of a new > feature altogether"? You conclude both the newer CPUs and the human > brain have "special features" which result in an "order of magnitude" > improvement. I would argue that the anatomical and functional > differences between a snail's brain and a mouse's far exceed the > differences between a chimp and human. And I've worked in 8085 machine > language and optimized C subroutines with 80x86 Assembly and see no > *fundamental* difference. I would call the change from vacuum tubes and > switches to solid state devices, especially integrated circuits (such as > the Intel 4004), as truly *fundamental*. I fail to see a comparable leap > in human brains from other apes.
In your analogy you're dealing with a fundamental difference in *technology*, not function/feature. It seems that the function of processor speed can, in principle, be represented by a value and measured in all things with brains. Processor speed might be higher in humans than chimps, but is it responsible for the difference in intelligence? Is it only matters of degree in certain properties like processor speed that allow us to learn languages, remember social security numbers, invent schemes of deception, attribute thoughts to others, make plans, invent creative solutions, pursue art, and so forth?
If I was to try and locate a fundamental difference between animal and human intelligence, I would say projection is one. No other species has been observed with the ability to project a set of thoughts to other creatures. Sure they read emotional and social signals from others but that's different. That's different than calculating if certain original conceptional entites should be attributed to other animals. Projection seems to be representative of more basic properties. Those of memory retention and logical dexterity.
If you increase those two properties in chimps, you will probably get projecting chimps. Memory retention will give them the ability to store less important (?) informational structures such as "Bibbles ate all the bananas" for longer periods of time. Logical dexterity will give them the ability to cross-reference those concepts with concepts like "Gubgub is looking for the bananas" and make conclusions like "Gubgub will not find them". So at the moment, I can't think of anything that humans can do that could not result from an increase of an existing property in chimps.
But I'll keep thinking about it.
-- Steve
You can throw a horse in a pond, but you can't make him swim.
> In article <pan.2003.06.01.18.36.41.225...@mail.utexas.edu>, > bdbry...@mail.utexas.edu says...
> > Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a > > few repeats over the next week.
> > "Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the > > possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology and > > incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and > > natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
> > Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my > > morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" > > thread today.
> Cats are smart enough to let people do it for them.
Ain't smert 'nough to 'void my shutgun.
-- Steve
You can throw a horse in a pond, but you can't make him swim.
-- People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don't have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it's divine. And so it is with everything in the universe. --Hippocrates
"Steve B." <sburke_remove-...@heartland.net> wrote in message
> > >>>>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing > environment in > > >>>>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally > different > > >>>>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of > degree, > > >>>>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. > Think about > > >>>>>dolphins.
> > >>>>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental > > >>>>difference between their intelligence and ours.
> > >>>Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first > > >>>4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest > > >>>Pentium 4.
> > >>>Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it > > >>>with a Web browser.
> > >>No fundamental difference; just scale of integration and speed.
> > > The difference in the microprocessors is a good analogy to the > > > difference in brains between humans and gorillas, chimps and > > > orangutans. The processors are quite alike in that they use the same > > > basic intruction set and have common subunits such as registers, > > > instruction decoders, and ALU's. And yes, the two processors differ a > > > great deal in scale of integration and speed. But the Pentium has a > > > number of hardware features that the 4-bit'er doesn't have like > > > intruction pipelines, memory prefetch, branch prediction units, cache > > > memory, address translation tables for virtual memory, multiple > > > floating point and integer arithmetic units, etc.
> > > Thus the two processors not only differ in speed, but in structure as > > > well. The same is possibly true of the difference in the brains > > > between humans and the higher primates. Humans not only have more > > > neurological mass to think with, but our brains contain special > > > features that the apes don't have. Hence it appears that our general > > > intelligence is of a different order of magnitude.
> > > For dolphins, the analogy would be a specialized microprocessor called > > > a DSP, or digital signal processor, found in most home audio equipment > > > these days. This chip is extremely fast at carrying out the > > > computations involved in audio signal processing, but isn't so good at > > > general computing.
> > I like your analogy, but does it amount to Steve B's "something > > fundamentally different [about human intelligence] -- something that's > > not just a matter of degree, such as processing power, but more of a new > > feature altogether"? You conclude both the newer CPUs and the human > > brain have "special features" which result in an "order of magnitude" > > improvement. I would argue that the anatomical and functional > > differences between a snail's brain and a mouse's far exceed the > > differences between a chimp and human. And I've worked in 8085 machine > > language and optimized C subroutines with 80x86 Assembly and see no > > *fundamental* difference. I would call the change from vacuum tubes and > > switches to solid state devices, especially integrated circuits (such as > > the Intel 4004), as truly *fundamental*. I fail to see a comparable leap > > in human brains from other apes.
> In your analogy you're dealing with a fundamental difference in > *technology*, not function/feature. It seems that the function of processor > speed can, in principle, be represented by a value and measured in all > things with brains. Processor speed might be higher in humans than chimps, > but is it responsible for the difference in intelligence? Is it only > matters of degree in certain properties like processor speed that allow us > to learn languages, remember social security numbers, invent schemes of > deception, attribute thoughts to others, make plans, invent creative > solutions, pursue art, and so forth?
> If I was to try and locate a fundamental difference between animal and > human intelligence, I would say projection is one. No other species has > been observed with the ability to project a set of thoughts to other > creatures.
>>>>>>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing
> environment in
>>>>>>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally
> different
>>>>>>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of
> degree,
>>>>>>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether.
> Think about
>>>>>>>dolphins.
>>>>>>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental >>>>>>difference between their intelligence and ours.
>>>>>Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first >>>>>4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest >>>>>Pentium 4.
>>>>>Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it >>>>>with a Web browser.
>>>>No fundamental difference; just scale of integration and speed.
>>>The difference in the microprocessors is a good analogy to the >>>difference in brains between humans and gorillas, chimps and >>>orangutans. The processors are quite alike in that they use the same >>>basic intruction set and have common subunits such as registers, >>>instruction decoders, and ALU's. And yes, the two processors differ a >>>great deal in scale of integration and speed. But the Pentium has a >>>number of hardware features that the 4-bit'er doesn't have like >>>intruction pipelines, memory prefetch, branch prediction units, cache >>>memory, address translation tables for virtual memory, multiple >>>floating point and integer arithmetic units, etc.
>>>Thus the two processors not only differ in speed, but in structure as >>>well. The same is possibly true of the difference in the brains >>>between humans and the higher primates. Humans not only have more >>>neurological mass to think with, but our brains contain special >>>features that the apes don't have. Hence it appears that our general >>>intelligence is of a different order of magnitude.
>>>For dolphins, the analogy would be a specialized microprocessor called >>>a DSP, or digital signal processor, found in most home audio equipment >>>these days. This chip is extremely fast at carrying out the >>>computations involved in audio signal processing, but isn't so good at >>>general computing.
>>I like your analogy, but does it amount to Steve B's "something >>fundamentally different [about human intelligence] -- something that's >>not just a matter of degree, such as processing power, but more of a new >>feature altogether"? You conclude both the newer CPUs and the human >>brain have "special features" which result in an "order of magnitude" >>improvement. I would argue that the anatomical and functional >>differences between a snail's brain and a mouse's far exceed the >>differences between a chimp and human. And I've worked in 8085 machine >>language and optimized C subroutines with 80x86 Assembly and see no >>*fundamental* difference. I would call the change from vacuum tubes and >>switches to solid state devices, especially integrated circuits (such as >>the Intel 4004), as truly *fundamental*. I fail to see a comparable leap >>in human brains from other apes.
> In your analogy you're dealing with a fundamental difference in > *technology*, not function/feature. It seems that the function of processor > speed can, in principle, be represented by a value and measured in all > things with brains. Processor speed might be higher in humans than chimps, > but is it responsible for the difference in intelligence? Is it only > matters of degree in certain properties like processor speed that allow us > to learn languages, remember social security numbers, invent schemes of > deception, attribute thoughts to others, make plans, invent creative > solutions, pursue art, and so forth?
I'd say yes. All you can point to is differences in ability. Don't forget that animals *do* have rudimentary communication skills, can count and handle simple arithmetic, practice deception on one another, return to areas where food is about to ripen, fabricate simple tools, are fascinated with paints and cosmetics, and so forth.
> If I was to try and locate a fundamental difference between animal and > human intelligence, I would say projection is one. No other species has > been observed with the ability to project a set of thoughts to other > creatures. Sure they read emotional and social signals from others but > that's different. That's different than calculating if certain original > conceptional entites should be attributed to other animals. Projection > seems to be representative of more basic properties. Those of memory > retention and logical dexterity.
Even popular TV documentaries have shown chimps sneaking off to copulate when the alpha male is preoccupied. One even involved mating with the female hiding behind a fallen tree, the male looking over the tree at the dominant and looking totally innocent. Others have failed to give the typical food call, and tried to hog it all.
Have you read of the monkeys in northern Japan, where one female discovered how to wash sand off sweet potatoes and separate sand from rice by throwing it on a puddle? (The rice floats.) The others, except the older ones, began using these techniques, too.
Have you seen the footage of mother chimps teaching their young to crack nuts? The actual technique varies in different nearby chimp cultures.
> If you increase those two properties in chimps, you will probably get > projecting chimps. Memory retention will give them the ability to store > less important (?) informational structures such as "Bibbles ate all the > bananas" for longer periods of time. Logical dexterity will give them the > ability to cross-reference those concepts with concepts like "Gubgub is > looking for the bananas" and make conclusions like "Gubgub will not find > them". So at the moment, I can't think of anything that humans can do that > could not result from an increase of an existing property in chimps.
Agreed. In fact, they already project and have good memories. You should watch the documentary.
> But I'll keep thinking about it.
> -- > Steve
> You can throw a horse in a pond, but you can't make him swim.
-- Richard Uhrich --- Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin
>>>>>>Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a >>>>>>few repeats over the next week.
>>>>>>"Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the >>>>>>possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology
>>>>>and
>>>>>>incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and >>>>>>natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
>>>>>>Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my >>>>>>morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" >>>>>>thread today.
>>>>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing environment in >>>>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally different >>>>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of degree, >>>>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether. Think about >>>>>dolphins.
>>>>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental >>>>difference between their intelligence and ours.
>>>Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first >>>4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest >>>Pentium 4.
>>>Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it >>>with a Web browser.
>>No fundamental difference; just scale of integration and speed.
> The difference in the microprocessors is a good analogy to the > difference in brains between humans and gorillas, chimps and > orangutans. The processors are quite alike in that they use the same > basic intruction set and have common subunits such as registers, > instruction decoders, and ALU's. And yes, the two processors differ a > great deal in scale of integration and speed. But the Pentium has a > number of hardware features that the 4-bit'er doesn't have like > intruction pipelines, memory prefetch, branch prediction units, cache > memory, address translation tables for virtual memory, multiple > floating point and integer arithmetic units, etc.
> Thus the two processors not only differ in speed, but in structure as > well. The same is possibly true of the difference in the brains > between humans and the higher primates. Humans not only have more > neurological mass to think with, but our brains contain special > features that the apes don't have. Hence it appears that our general > intelligence is of a different order of magnitude.
> For dolphins, the analogy would be a specialized microprocessor called > a DSP, or digital signal processor, found in most home audio equipment > these days. This chip is extremely fast at carrying out the > computations involved in audio signal processing, but isn't so good at > general computing.
Again, I like the analogy, but don't think it is Steve B's *fundamental* difference. In fact, it could be argued that dolphins and bats, with their DSPs, are fundamentally different from us apes.
-- Richard Uhrich --- Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin
> > > I like your analogy, but does it amount to Steve B's "something > > > fundamentally different [about human intelligence] -- something that's > > > not just a matter of degree, such as processing power, but more of a new > > > feature altogether"? You conclude both the newer CPUs and the human > > > brain have "special features" which result in an "order of magnitude" > > > improvement. I would argue that the anatomical and functional > > > differences between a snail's brain and a mouse's far exceed the > > > differences between a chimp and human. And I've worked in 8085 machine > > > language and optimized C subroutines with 80x86 Assembly and see no > > > *fundamental* difference. I would call the change from vacuum tubes and > > > switches to solid state devices, especially integrated circuits (such as > > > the Intel 4004), as truly *fundamental*. I fail to see a comparable leap > > > in human brains from other apes.
> > In your analogy you're dealing with a fundamental difference in > > *technology*, not function/feature. It seems that the function of > processor > > speed can, in principle, be represented by a value and measured in all > > things with brains. Processor speed might be higher in humans than chimps, > > but is it responsible for the difference in intelligence? Is it only > > matters of degree in certain properties like processor speed that allow us > > to learn languages, remember social security numbers, invent schemes of > > deception, attribute thoughts to others, make plans, invent creative > > solutions, pursue art, and so forth?
> > If I was to try and locate a fundamental difference between animal and > > human intelligence, I would say projection is one. No other species has > > been observed with the ability to project a set of thoughts to other > > creatures.
> >>>>>>>All animals obviously have to deal with their ever changing
> > environment in
> >>>>>>>real-time, but one has to think there is something fundamentally
> > different
> >>>>>>>about human intelligence -- something that's not just a matter of
> > degree,
> >>>>>>>such as processing power, but more of a new feature altogether.
> > Think about
> >>>>>>>dolphins.
> >>>>>>OK, I thought about them, and I concluded there is *no* fundamental > >>>>>>difference between their intelligence and ours.
> >>>>>Sure, just like there's no fundamental difference between the first > >>>>>4-bit microprocessor Intel invented back in the 70's and the latest > >>>>>Pentium 4.
> >>>>>Just don't try to do any image processing with the 4-bit'er or use it > >>>>>with a Web browser.
> >>>>No fundamental difference; just scale of integration and speed.
> >>>The difference in the microprocessors is a good analogy to the > >>>difference in brains between humans and gorillas, chimps and > >>>orangutans. The processors are quite alike in that they use the same > >>>basic intruction set and have common subunits such as registers, > >>>instruction decoders, and ALU's. And yes, the two processors differ a > >>>great deal in scale of integration and speed. But the Pentium has a > >>>number of hardware features that the 4-bit'er doesn't have like > >>>intruction pipelines, memory prefetch, branch prediction units, cache > >>>memory, address translation tables for virtual memory, multiple > >>>floating point and integer arithmetic units, etc.
> >>>Thus the two processors not only differ in speed, but in structure as > >>>well. The same is possibly true of the difference in the brains > >>>between humans and the higher primates. Humans not only have more > >>>neurological mass to think with, but our brains contain special > >>>features that the apes don't have. Hence it appears that our general > >>>intelligence is of a different order of magnitude.
> >>>For dolphins, the analogy would be a specialized microprocessor called > >>>a DSP, or digital signal processor, found in most home audio equipment > >>>these days. This chip is extremely fast at carrying out the > >>>computations involved in audio signal processing, but isn't so good at > >>>general computing.
> >>I like your analogy, but does it amount to Steve B's "something > >>fundamentally different [about human intelligence] -- something that's > >>not just a matter of degree, such as processing power, but more of a new > >>feature altogether"? You conclude both the newer CPUs and the human > >>brain have "special features" which result in an "order of magnitude" > >>improvement. I would argue that the anatomical and functional > >>differences between a snail's brain and a mouse's far exceed the > >>differences between a chimp and human. And I've worked in 8085 machine > >>language and optimized C subroutines with 80x86 Assembly and see no > >>*fundamental* difference. I would call the change from vacuum tubes and > >>switches to solid state devices, especially integrated circuits (such as > >>the Intel 4004), as truly *fundamental*. I fail to see a comparable leap > >>in human brains from other apes.
> > In your analogy you're dealing with a fundamental difference in > > *technology*, not function/feature. It seems that the function of processor > > speed can, in principle, be represented by a value and measured in all > > things with brains. Processor speed might be higher in humans than chimps, > > but is it responsible for the difference in intelligence? Is it only > > matters of degree in certain properties like processor speed that allow us > > to learn languages, remember social security numbers, invent schemes of > > deception, attribute thoughts to others, make plans, invent creative > > solutions, pursue art, and so forth?
> I'd say yes. All you can point to is differences in ability. Don't > forget that animals *do* have rudimentary communication skills, can > count and handle simple arithmetic, practice deception on one another, > return to areas where food is about to ripen, fabricate simple tools, > are fascinated with paints and cosmetics, and so forth.
> > If I was to try and locate a fundamental difference between animal and > > human intelligence, I would say projection is one. No other species has > > been observed with the ability to project a set of thoughts to other > > creatures. Sure they read emotional and social signals from others but > > that's different. That's different than calculating if certain original > > conceptional entites should be attributed to other animals. Projection > > seems to be representative of more basic properties. Those of memory > > retention and logical dexterity.
> Even popular TV documentaries have shown chimps sneaking off to copulate > when the alpha male is preoccupied. One even involved mating with the > female hiding behind a fallen tree, the male looking over the tree at > the dominant and looking totally innocent. Others have failed to give > the typical food call, and tried to hog it all.
> Have you read of the monkeys in northern Japan, where one female > discovered how to wash sand off sweet potatoes and separate sand from > rice by throwing it on a puddle? (The rice floats.) The others, except > the older ones, began using these techniques, too.
> Have you seen the footage of mother chimps teaching their young to crack > nuts? The actual technique varies in different nearby chimp cultures.
I find the rice thing hard to believe, but I'll take your word for it. The nut thing is pretty interesting too.
> > If you increase those two properties in chimps, you will probably get > > projecting chimps. Memory retention will give them the ability to store > > less important (?) informational structures such as "Bibbles ate all the > > bananas" for longer periods of time. Logical dexterity will give them the > > ability to cross-reference those concepts with concepts like "Gubgub is > > looking for the bananas" and make conclusions like "Gubgub will not find > > them". So at the moment, I can't think of anything that humans can do that > > could not result from an increase of an existing property in chimps.
> Agreed. In fact, they already project and have good memories. You should > watch the documentary.
-- Steve
You can throw a horse in a pond, but you can't make him swim.
On Mon, 02 Jun 2003 18:47:37 +0000, Steve B. wrote: > If I was to try and locate a fundamental difference between animal and > human intelligence, I would say projection is one. No other species has > been observed with the ability to project a set of thoughts to other > creatures. Sure they read emotional and social signals from others but > that's different. That's different than calculating if certain original > conceptional entites should be attributed to other animals. Projection > seems to be representative of more basic properties. Those of memory > retention and logical dexterity.
> If you increase those two properties in chimps, you will probably get > projecting chimps. Memory retention will give them the ability to store > less important (?) informational structures such as "Bibbles ate all the > bananas" for longer periods of time. Logical dexterity will give them > the ability to cross-reference those concepts with concepts like "Gubgub > is looking for the bananas" and make conclusions like "Gubgub will not > find them". So at the moment, I can't think of anything that humans can > do that could not result from an increase of an existing property in > chimps.
> But I'll keep thinking about it.
FWIW, I have long held a conjecture that the difference in human and chimpanzine ability to process complex sentences arises in the amount of working memory available to keep track of the loose ends of the sentence as it is being formed or received.
Notice that many linguists work with the idealization that grammars support unboundedly deep recursive embeddings of structures such as relative clauses, but in reality humans can only deal with sentences a few layers deep without counting on their fingers or writing the sentence down. That's what makes me think that working memory is absolutely critical as a linguistic resource, and that the amount of WM available will show up as a bound on linguistic competence.
>>Have you read of the monkeys in northern Japan, where one female >>discovered how to wash sand off sweet potatoes and separate sand from >>rice by throwing it on a puddle? (The rice floats.) The others, except >>the older ones, began using these techniques, too.
>>Have you seen the footage of mother chimps teaching their young to crack >>nuts? The actual technique varies in different nearby chimp cultures.
> I find the rice thing hard to believe, but I'll take your word for it. The > nut thing is pretty interesting too.
The Primates: Life in the Trees From the series "Life on Earth" With David Attenborough
<quote> The Japanese macaque has dense fur to get through Japan's harsh winters. They don't hibernate, so need food every day. Sometimes the only thing to do is to burrow through snow to get to it. One group uses volcanic hot springs to keep warm. Macaques live all over Japan. Take the macaques on Koshima- it's an offshore island, so they're isolated and are therefore different than the mainland macaques. Scientists wanted to study them. To entice them out, the scientists began offering them sweet potatoes. One female began to take them to a pool and wash them. Then her close family began doing it, and now all the monkeys on the island wash their sweet potatoes. Then they all began to wash them in the sea, even when they were already clean. Only the old didn't do this new behavior; The young learned from their mothers while clinging to their backs, but the old didn't pick it up. The scientists really wanted to study the monkeys, but every time they gave them sweet potatoes, the monkeys ran off to wash them. So, they offered rice, figuring the monkeys would take a while to pick it up off the sand, but the same girl grabbed big handfuls of rice and sand and took it down to the water. When she threw it in the water, the rice floated and the sand sank, and she skimmed the rice off the surface of the water. Soon all the other ones began to do it too. Although usually a term reserved for human societies, this is a shared culture. </quote> -- Richard Uhrich --- Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin
> Sorry for the short notice -- this runs at 7pm in my viewing area, with a > few repeats over the next week.
> "Can animals think? Do they have feelings? This series explores the > possibilities of the animal mind, drawing upon a revolution in biology and > incorporating science, pet owners, circus trainers, movie clips, and > natural history in an exploration of animal thought and animal welfare."
> Funnily enough, after watching a cat stalk a bird when I was out for my > morning walk I was tempted to start a "don't tell me cats don't think" > thread today.
MR. LINDEN: Well, I got interested in the question of cognition and language when I heard about the ape language experiments nearly 30 years ago. And I thought, gee, that?s interesting. Chimps aren?t supposed to be able to do that. And one single anecdote sort of led me to do this book, The Parrot?s Lament, when I heard about an orangutan who had escaped from a zoo in Omaha way back in the 1960s, at about the time that the apes were doing the language experiment. This orang was hiding a wire between its lip and gum, using the wire to pick a lock, get out of its cage, and then hiding the wire again. And it did this three times, at least, before it was caught and they discovered how it was getting out, and where it was hiding the wire. And that involved tool use and tool making, you know, keen powers of observation to understand how the locking mechanism worked, deception, a whole suite of higher mental abilities, and it was doing it despite the best attempts of its keepers to keep it in the cage. So there was no possibility of queuing or imitation.
Another excerpt:
MR. WATTENBERG: And Lisa Stevens was telling me, when we talked to her at the zoo, about the deceptive qualities of the macaque monkeys, and told of an incident when the alpha male wasn?t looking one of the subordinate males went off with one of the females behind a screen for the purpose of copulation, and the female purposefully didn?t make her normal mating sounds lest they be discovered. Obviously, I couldn?t let this program go by without repeating that sort of an incident. But that?s pretty intricate behavior, a) you?re sort of sneaking off and b) you?re not only sneaking off, but you?re kind of covering up. Again, it sounds like Washington.
>> Even popular TV documentaries have shown chimps sneaking off to copulate >> when the alpha male is preoccupied. One even involved mating with the >> female hiding behind a fallen tree, the male looking over the tree at >> the dominant and looking totally innocent. Others have failed to give >> the typical food call, and tried to hog it all.
>> Have you read of the monkeys in northern Japan, where one female >> discovered how to wash sand off sweet potatoes and separate sand from >> rice by throwing it on a puddle? (The rice floats.) The others, except >> the older ones, began using these techniques, too.
>> Have you seen the footage of mother chimps teaching their young to crack >> nuts? The actual technique varies in different nearby chimp cultures.
>I find the rice thing hard to believe, but I'll take your word for it. The >nut thing is pretty interesting too.
I don't know if this is directly relevant, but it is the single most wonderful fact I have come across in as long as I can remember. Chimps, not all chimps just some tribes, dance in the rain. Think of that, some chimps have developed a particular cultural attribute of celebrating rainfall.
We are not alone.
[snip]
--
Matt Silberstein TBC HRL OMM
We are not here to judge other people, we are just here to be better than they are.
>>>Even popular TV documentaries have shown chimps sneaking off to copulate >>>when the alpha male is preoccupied. One even involved mating with the >>>female hiding behind a fallen tree, the male looking over the tree at >>>the dominant and looking totally innocent. Others have failed to give >>>the typical food call, and tried to hog it all.
>>>Have you read of the monkeys in northern Japan, where one female >>>discovered how to wash sand off sweet potatoes and separate sand from >>>rice by throwing it on a puddle? (The rice floats.) The others, except >>>the older ones, began using these techniques, too.
>>>Have you seen the footage of mother chimps teaching their young to crack >>>nuts? The actual technique varies in different nearby chimp cultures.
>>I find the rice thing hard to believe, but I'll take your word for it. The >>nut thing is pretty interesting too.
> I don't know if this is directly relevant, but it is the single > most wonderful fact I have come across in as long as I can > remember. Chimps, not all chimps just some tribes, dance in the > rain. Think of that, some chimps have developed a particular > cultural attribute of celebrating rainfall.
> We are not alone.
> [snip]
I've seen that on TV. I've wondered if it's a religious rite.
-- Richard Uhrich --- Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin
>>>>Even popular TV documentaries have shown chimps sneaking off to copulate >>>>when the alpha male is preoccupied. One even involved mating with the >>>>female hiding behind a fallen tree, the male looking over the tree at >>>>the dominant and looking totally innocent. Others have failed to give >>>>the typical food call, and tried to hog it all.
>>>>Have you read of the monkeys in northern Japan, where one female >>>>discovered how to wash sand off sweet potatoes and separate sand from >>>>rice by throwing it on a puddle? (The rice floats.) The others, except >>>>the older ones, began using these techniques, too.
>>>>Have you seen the footage of mother chimps teaching their young to crack >>>>nuts? The actual technique varies in different nearby chimp cultures.
>>>I find the rice thing hard to believe, but I'll take your word for it. The >>>nut thing is pretty interesting too.
>> I don't know if this is directly relevant, but it is the single >> most wonderful fact I have come across in as long as I can >> remember. Chimps, not all chimps just some tribes, dance in the >> rain. Think of that, some chimps have developed a particular >> cultural attribute of celebrating rainfall.
>> We are not alone.
>> [snip]
>I've seen that on TV.
Lucky you. I have not. Do they look happy?
>I've wondered if it's a religious rite.
I hope so.
--
Matt Silberstein TBC HRL OMM
We are not here to judge other people, we are just here to be better than they are.
> products). We are completely irresponsible (i.e., industrial polution, > National Debt, SUVs, etc.). In a single glance, they perceive us very > accurately (unpredictable wackos).
Indeed, humans are crazy. They think animals know anything about debt, polution, etc. etc. Socks
