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How would we determine whether an animal understands something? Presumably you could do experiments which test whether they can predict what will happen — eg if

How would we determine whether an animal understands something? Presumably you could do experiments which test whether they can predict what will happen — eg if a thirsty monkey collects ice, expecting it to melt. (Although you can obtain water by licking ice, so maybe that’s not a good example.) Anyway my prediction would be that many colder-climate animals have some intuitive grasp of the ice to water transition specifically because it’s so important to their lives. I would not expect them to understand water to steam since it’s not something they’re likely to encounter — even those who live near geysers have no reason to know that steam is actually water, they just need to know they should stay away from it. Many animals would understand the relationship between clouds and rain, though. I wouldn’t expect them to understand phase changes in any material other than water, since it’s hard to think of examples where phase changes actually occur in animals’ natural habitats.

yesenadam 7y ago
> How would we determine whether an animal understands something? Alison Gopnik's The Philosophical Baby is full of remarkable experiments to determine what babies understand. (At least, I assume it is! I haven't read it - just saw her give a talk about the book and her research when the book came out, and she talked about lots of different experiments.) Stuff like showing babies white and black balls going in a container, then when one is picked out, the babies look longer at it if they're surprised, if it's an unlikely event. They have much better models of probability younger than anyone thought. Or they show them animations of dots shaped like Momma dot and baby dot, and see how the babies react when various things happen to the baby dot.. Totally ingenious. A lot of them, or something similar, could be done with animals; I wonder how much has.

yesenadam 7y ago

> How would we determine whether an animal understands something? Alison Gopnik's The Philosophical Baby is full of remarkable experiments to determine what babies understand. (At least, I assume it is! I haven't read it - just saw her give a talk about the book and her research when the book came out, and she talked about lots of different experiments.) Stuff like showing babies white and black balls going in a container, then when one is picked out, the babies look longer at it if they're surprised, if it's an unlikely event. They have much better models of probability younger than anyone thought. Or they show them animations of dots shaped like Momma dot and baby dot, and see how the babies react when various things happen to the baby dot.. Totally ingenious. A lot of them, or something similar, could be done with animals; I wonder how much has.