10 ms·

Giant tortoises show surprising cognitive powers

114 points by EndXA 7y ago

lagilogi 7y ago
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.
- sojmq 7y ago
  Intelligence is a sliding scale and, until someone proves us wrong, we are the most intelligent life form on this planet. Emotional... well that's something else.
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    You're assuming it (edit: non-emotional intelligence) is one single unified thing. I'd say there are many kinds of intelligence, and many things that feed into intelligence that, if modified, could affect it (very simple example, anxious people may freeze up during exams which makes them look less good).
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    I'm more intelligent than someone with Downs Syndrome, but that doesn't mean their life is less valuable does it? Let me guess: they get a pass because they are human. That's what it comes down to really: things that are like me deserve rights and respect and things that aren't don't. That all humans happen to fit into the "like me" category is a relatively recent concept.
    - sojmq 7y ago
      >I'm more intelligent than someone with Downs Syndrome, but that doesn't mean their life is less valuable does it? That depends on who you ask, actually.
      - Consultant32452 7y ago
        It's a mentality of abundance. In times when resources are extremely limited, we see exactly whose lives are "more valuable."
    - username90 7y ago
      They get a pass because it makes our rules simpler and they are so few. You'd see us quickly value their lives less if there were billions of people with Downs Syndrome, but currently they aren't a problem so it is fine.
      - Scipio_Afri 7y ago
        >I'd see us quickly value their lives less if there were billions of people with Downs Syndrome, but currently they aren't a problem so it is fine. Oh you mean like many of those who are homeless, who also happen to have mental health issues, yet we don't provide shelter, health care or food for?
    - imgabe 7y ago
      Valuable in what sense? People talk about value like there is some absolute objective value. There's not. Things hold different values to different people and even the same people in different circumstances.
    - larnmar 7y ago
      > I'm more intelligent than someone with Downs Syndrome, but that doesn't mean their life is less valuable does it? Doesn’t it? It’s something we don’t say, because it’s horrendously impolite, and I wouldn’t say it myself outside the context of this conversation, but yes, the life of an intelligent person is worth less than that of a person with Down’s syndrome. Don’t take my word for it though, look at revealed preferences. How many parents abort their unborn Down’s Syndrome babies?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - bobajeff 7y ago
        >It’s something we don’t say, because it’s horrendously impolite, and I wouldn’t say it myself outside the context of this conversation, but yes, the life of an intelligent person is worth less than that of a person with Down’s syndrome. That is controversial but probably not in the way that you originally meant.
  - ModernMech 7y ago
    You've really got to define "intelligence" here. I imagine one may point to all the technology we have developed and say "Look how intelligent humans are". At the same time, that very technology is causing a climate crisis that threatens our species. So, how smart are we really? You want to look at smart, look at house cats. They've got it figured out.
- truckerbill 7y ago
  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.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostmsu 7y ago
    They are sentient, alright. But quite dumb. So we grow and eat them.
    - edgyquant 7y ago
      Define: dumb.
      - username90 7y ago
        We have been able to teach them to do trivial tricks on demand, but we can't teach them to be productive members of society. We haven't even been able to teach a single other species to do factory work, which is the simplest work imaginable for humans.
        ianai 7y ago
        Dogsledding? Horse riding? People routinely being carried by their horse to help after being incapacitated. Dogs herding all sorts of livestock. I read recently of tool use outside of the apes. I’ve seen blue jays bury and hide things and later recollect. The list goes on and with better examples. Service dogs definitely add value to society.
        username90 7y ago
        Animals works well as tools, but they don't work independently. In all of the situations you described there are humans present to direct the work and life of the animal, something you don't need with humans. I'm not sure why we can't get them to work independently, I guess they lack the attention span or the ability to associate the work with the rewards.
- jacob019 7y ago
  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.
- sysbin 7y ago
  I think it has to do with religion.
  - _underfl0w_ 7y ago
    Wouldn't surprise me if this comment gets shadow-banned (i.e. grayed out or whatever its called) or lots of downvotes given how contentious this topic can be, but I think this is actually an important, non-negligible social factor in human decision making for a large portion of the globe. A central tenant of many organized religions is that humans were somehow "created" differently from animals - e.g. in the "image of god" or similar. It helps eschew that cognitive bias and assure the practitioners that they're in the right, given their (clearly limited) understanding of the situation.
- thomastjeffery 7y ago
  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 7y ago
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.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  Pretty much all mammals engage in play. Play is practice for important life skills. Eg tickling is learning to protect vulnerable spots on the body
- username90 7y ago
  > 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 see it like this: Every time I pay for beef I create demand for more cows, thus I help fund little calves playing in the fields. Their lives might be a little shorter than usual, but I don't see why a short life wouldn't be worth living.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    Would you pay 2x so you could know they had fields and beach balls? Or 1x for industrial cow-cubicles? Be honest now..
    - 7y ago
rpmisms 7y ago
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."
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > 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.
  - gerbilly 7y ago
    Just use this: https://bitboost.com/pawsense/ https://bitboost.com/pawsense/ (PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats.)
djsumdog 7y ago
They're still reptiles though. They can't show signs of empathy or affection like many mammals. Most reptile training is pretty basic, and this experiment fits into those expectations: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NnwIlM6SmiQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NnwIlM6SmiQ
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  I know several human mammals that behave like reptiles.
- astrodust 7y ago
  They do show signs of affection and empathy, but it's different, a lot more nuanced and subtle. 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.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
Why surprising? If they move so slow they must have some other advantage that enables them to persist. Humans really need to get over themselves as the only species that possesses intelligence.
wanderfowl 7y ago
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'.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  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.
  - clairity 7y ago
    that's neat. i talk to my dog all the time. she (a rescue) came to me already knowing "do you wanna go out?" but had a really hard time teaching me when she had anxiety diarrhea and needed to go out. i really needed a button for that (she's mostly over it now though).
Nasrudith 7y ago
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.

114 points by EndXA 7y ago

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.

sojmq 7y ago
Intelligence is a sliding scale and, until someone proves us wrong, we are the most intelligent life form on this planet. Emotional... well that's something else.
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  You're assuming it (edit: non-emotional intelligence) is one single unified thing. I'd say there are many kinds of intelligence, and many things that feed into intelligence that, if modified, could affect it (very simple example, anxious people may freeze up during exams which makes them look less good).
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  I'm more intelligent than someone with Downs Syndrome, but that doesn't mean their life is less valuable does it? Let me guess: they get a pass because they are human. That's what it comes down to really: things that are like me deserve rights and respect and things that aren't don't. That all humans happen to fit into the "like me" category is a relatively recent concept.
  - sojmq 7y ago
    >I'm more intelligent than someone with Downs Syndrome, but that doesn't mean their life is less valuable does it? That depends on who you ask, actually.
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      It's a mentality of abundance. In times when resources are extremely limited, we see exactly whose lives are "more valuable."
  - username90 7y ago
    They get a pass because it makes our rules simpler and they are so few. You'd see us quickly value their lives less if there were billions of people with Downs Syndrome, but currently they aren't a problem so it is fine.
    - Scipio_Afri 7y ago
      >I'd see us quickly value their lives less if there were billions of people with Downs Syndrome, but currently they aren't a problem so it is fine. Oh you mean like many of those who are homeless, who also happen to have mental health issues, yet we don't provide shelter, health care or food for?
  - imgabe 7y ago
    Valuable in what sense? People talk about value like there is some absolute objective value. There's not. Things hold different values to different people and even the same people in different circumstances.
  - larnmar 7y ago
    > I'm more intelligent than someone with Downs Syndrome, but that doesn't mean their life is less valuable does it? Doesn’t it? It’s something we don’t say, because it’s horrendously impolite, and I wouldn’t say it myself outside the context of this conversation, but yes, the life of an intelligent person is worth less than that of a person with Down’s syndrome. Don’t take my word for it though, look at revealed preferences. How many parents abort their unborn Down’s Syndrome babies?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - bobajeff 7y ago
      >It’s something we don’t say, because it’s horrendously impolite, and I wouldn’t say it myself outside the context of this conversation, but yes, the life of an intelligent person is worth less than that of a person with Down’s syndrome. That is controversial but probably not in the way that you originally meant.
- ModernMech 7y ago
  You've really got to define "intelligence" here. I imagine one may point to all the technology we have developed and say "Look how intelligent humans are". At the same time, that very technology is causing a climate crisis that threatens our species. So, how smart are we really? You want to look at smart, look at house cats. They've got it figured out.
truckerbill 7y ago
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.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lostmsu 7y ago
  They are sentient, alright. But quite dumb. So we grow and eat them.
  - edgyquant 7y ago
    Define: dumb.
    - username90 7y ago
      We have been able to teach them to do trivial tricks on demand, but we can't teach them to be productive members of society. We haven't even been able to teach a single other species to do factory work, which is the simplest work imaginable for humans.
      - ianai 7y ago
        Dogsledding? Horse riding? People routinely being carried by their horse to help after being incapacitated. Dogs herding all sorts of livestock. I read recently of tool use outside of the apes. I’ve seen blue jays bury and hide things and later recollect. The list goes on and with better examples. Service dogs definitely add value to society.
        username90 7y ago
        Animals works well as tools, but they don't work independently. In all of the situations you described there are humans present to direct the work and life of the animal, something you don't need with humans. I'm not sure why we can't get them to work independently, I guess they lack the attention span or the ability to associate the work with the rewards.
jacob019 7y ago
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.
sysbin 7y ago
I think it has to do with religion.
- _underfl0w_ 7y ago
  Wouldn't surprise me if this comment gets shadow-banned (i.e. grayed out or whatever its called) or lots of downvotes given how contentious this topic can be, but I think this is actually an important, non-negligible social factor in human decision making for a large portion of the globe. A central tenant of many organized religions is that humans were somehow "created" differently from animals - e.g. in the "image of god" or similar. It helps eschew that cognitive bias and assure the practitioners that they're in the right, given their (clearly limited) understanding of the situation.
thomastjeffery 7y ago
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 7y ago

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.

throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
Pretty much all mammals engage in play. Play is practice for important life skills. Eg tickling is learning to protect vulnerable spots on the body
username90 7y ago
> 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 see it like this: Every time I pay for beef I create demand for more cows, thus I help fund little calves playing in the fields. Their lives might be a little shorter than usual, but I don't see why a short life wouldn't be worth living.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Would you pay 2x so you could know they had fields and beach balls? Or 1x for industrial cow-cubicles? Be honest now..
  - 7y ago

rpmisms 7y ago

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."

WalterBright 7y ago
> 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.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  Just use this: https://bitboost.com/pawsense/ https://bitboost.com/pawsense/ (PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats.)

djsumdog 7y ago

They're still reptiles though. They can't show signs of empathy or affection like many mammals. Most reptile training is pretty basic, and this experiment fits into those expectations: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NnwIlM6SmiQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NnwIlM6SmiQ

dillonmckay 7y ago
I know several human mammals that behave like reptiles.
astrodust 7y ago
They do show signs of affection and empathy, but it's different, a lot more nuanced and subtle. 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.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

Why surprising? If they move so slow they must have some other advantage that enables them to persist. Humans really need to get over themselves as the only species that possesses intelligence.

wanderfowl 7y ago

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'.

friendlybus 7y ago
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.
- clairity 7y ago
  that's neat. i talk to my dog all the time. she (a rescue) came to me already knowing "do you wanna go out?" but had a really hard time teaching me when she had anxiety diarrhea and needed to go out. i really needed a button for that (she's mostly over it now though).

Nasrudith 7y ago

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.