"Intelligence of animals" Topic
59 Posts
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| just visiting | 06 Aug 2012 9:06 a.m. PST |
Yes, I am sure. Separating sapience from intelligence is akin to separating mammals from lower animal orders, and calling what goes on in mammal brains "intelligence", but what occurs in the brains of lower orders something else. Sapience is simply the highest order of intelligence we know of; it happens to be unique in us. Knowledge is a shared trait; it can come both through instinct ("genetic memory") and experience. At some as yet undetermined level of intelligence, there is instinct-only and no experience learning at all: will we separate those rudimentary brains that are instinct-only into a class "not intelligent"? Neither should sapience be separated because it can demonstrate "wisdom", and does most of its thinking from an experienced-based paradigm…. |
| gweirda | 06 Aug 2012 9:56 a.m. PST |
"Sapience is simply the highest order of intelligence we know of…" Highest? Highest how? What measurement is being used? This sounds like my dice-rolling post above: I (by chance/luck) roll a 12 on 2d6 and declare myself the winner (because I made the game and get to -ex post facto- decide the rules).
"… it happens to be unique in us."
That's (possibly*) correct: It's just different – that doesn't make it any 'better' or 'more special' or (more fantastically) a tool with which to define the universe. It's just a '12'. It may be rare (but no moreso than a '2') but that doesn't make it 'better' than a (much more common -and arguably more successful?) '7'.
*only so far as we know, which is really a very short distance, after all. Claiming otherwise smacks of the sort of hubris that gets one turned into a spider! ; )
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| just visiting | 06 Aug 2012 5:35 p.m. PST |
What measurement is being used? Products of intelligence. We homo sapiens produce an endless "record" of surviving artifacts of our intelligence: all other animals leave comparatively nothing to show theirs. We keep records of what we learn and know; all other animals rely on "genetic memory", for lack of a better term, to pass on what their young require to know in order to survive; it never changes within observable time: evolution is too slow. We, on the other hand, have evolved in our knowledge and power to invent and produce tools astronomically since our species first left artifacts of our sapience lying about: the evolution of the level of sophistication of the artifacts of our intelligence, in geological/evolutionary terms, is not even so long as the blink of an eye. If these things are not "better" than remaining in the trees happy as clams, then I don't know what your definition of "better" is. Our sapience has evolved so rapidly that it is virtually instantaneous. As we also seem capable of dealing with each other, instead of destroying the planet, I think you underrate our chances with your cynicism…. |
| Bowman | 06 Aug 2012 6:35 p.m. PST |
Ya Gweirda, so for all those thousands of generations when we, or our forefathers, spoke, communicated, told jokes, perhaps made rhymes and poetry, perhaps made metaphors, told jokes, sang songs, retold stories of the hunt, etc., etc., we weren't intelligent, or even sapient. And why? Because Doug doesn't see any "products of intelligence" Science is so simple!! |
| Bowman | 07 Aug 2012 3:08 a.m. PST |
……all other animals rely on "genetic memory", for lack of a better term, to pass on what their young require to know in order to survive…… Wow, so you are saying that a modern mammal, like an ape, comes genetically pre-programmed with everything it has to know in order to survive, just like an insect? They don't learn through mimicry and learned social behaviour? So when a primitive Homo Sapien uses a rock to crack a fire charred long bone to access the marrow, he is being intelligent and sapient. We know that because there is a mass of evidence for this behaviour. (Defined according to Doug) When a chimp uses a similar rock to crack nuts, it is because he has a "crack the nuts with a rock" gene? Any idea what chromosome that gene is on? And since we share 98% of the chimps genetic make up, did we lose that gene when we became sapient? Like I said, science is so easy. No need for larnin'. That's stoopid! |
Gunfreak  | 07 Aug 2012 4:05 a.m. PST |
Elephants, caetations and great apes all have long childhood, from 8 years for some apes to 14/15 for chimps and elephants, this is becasue they are not born with any skills, the baby chimp or elephant spends the next 15ish years to learn how to survive, first then, will they be grown enough to live on their own(not that they really do that, female elehpants lives in the same family group their entire life, with their aunts, mothers, sisters, grandmothers anc cousins. male elephants leave the family group after about 15 years, tho this seems to be a new behavore, that they started to do because the the massive hunting, since the males were the ones that were most pouched, they learned that they coulc protect the females if they left. So some 100-200 years ago, the males also problebly lived most of their lives with their family, only leaving to find a non family female to mate with. And ofcourse chimps lives in groups their entire life, learing from brothers, sisters, monthers and fathers. A bee probebly have genetic memory that dictates thier life, but chimps defenatly do not, or they have genetic memory, but it's not what controls them, even humans have this, when children are very young, they will automaticaly hold their breath under water. |
| Bowman | 07 Aug 2012 5:57 a.m. PST |
Gunfreak, you and I know that. For some, they have to see elephants programming their Blackberries before they'll admit that elephants show some intelligence. For example, let's assume that a Royalist Cavalry charges a Parliamentarian musketeer foot unit, during the English Civil war. As would happen, the musketeers slink in between the ranks of their pike armed colleagues. The horses now will refuse to charge the Pikes. Is that because the horses are smart enough not to charge a tightly packed group of pointy sticks, or are they blindly reacting to the dictates of a "don't charge Pikes" gene? Who would seriously think it is the latter? |
| just visiting | 07 Aug 2012 9:12 a.m. PST |
Are you guys bored or what? Talk about rhetorical response! And inaccurate. And partial. And distorted. I said that intelligence cannot be separated out into something else, like you have tried to do with sapience. Instinct only, "genetic memory", is in all intelligent lifeforms. I did not assign a level of intelligence where genetic memory takes over; in fact I specifically said that the level of intelligence where "instinct-only" operates is "UNDETERMINED". Yet you enjoy throwing facile examples of what I meant around. I meant no such thing. But sapience seems to be the quality of intelligence that makes us far less instinct-based than any other animals, even the most intelligent such as elephants and apes. Similarities of social groups to humans, notwithstanding, the other highest intelligent animals leave virtually no artifacts of sapience around. Our species has been leaving such artifacts of sapience around for c. 200K years or more (allowing cracked bones as artifacts, along with the simple tools that were used). From the "moment" in geologic time when artifacts show metaphysical thought, to now, is far less time than the record first showing artifacts of any sapience, to the time that the first metaphysical artifacts appear. From less than 100K BCE to now is not even an "eyeblink"; yet the number and sophistication of our artifacts is a virtual explosion. Meanwhile, ALL other species either have gone extinct or evolved imperceptibly: and none of them exhibit more than the most rudimentary artifacts of sapience, most of which can be assigned to contact with human "contamination". Will that continued "contamination" give the most intelligent animals ever higher sapience? "Planet of the Apes" enjoyed assuming so. At which point in becoming more sapient, does a species finally have to divest itself of sapience as part of its intelligence?… |
| Bowman | 07 Aug 2012 1:54 p.m. PST |
As the kids say, "whatever". Ok, then: 1) Animals are intelligent (not as much as us)
2) Humans were intelligent waaaaay before there were "products" of our intelligence.
3)"genetic memory" directly implies genes. Simple enough for you? |
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paints some fast cats.