4 ms·

Birds watch everything. That's a huge part of the advantage of flight; you can roost high up and get an overview of any situation. Crows are extremely intellige

by titzer 5y ago

Birds watch everything. That's a huge part of the advantage of flight; you can roost high up and get an overview of any situation. Crows are extremely intelligent and have developed a heightened ability to do "systems thinking"--working out the elements of any situation, how they interact, what causality there is, etc. It's great that they keep finding these new behaviors, but this shouldn't be surprising when you work out the implications of having a good brain, a high perch, and a lot of time and curiosity (a crow's lifespan could be 30 years or more). Add social learning aspects and an as-yet-undeciphered language of calls, and there's a lot of intelligence there.

dmos62 5y ago
> this shouldn't be surprising when you work out the implications of having a good brain, a high perch, and a lot of time and curiosity Under what circumstances do those things have poorer implications?
- monocasa 5y ago
  "Curiosity killed the cat"
  - dmos62 5y ago
    Isn't curiosity a synonym for adventurous stupidity in this idiom?
    - monocasa 5y ago
      > "Curiosity killed the cat" is an idiom-proverb used to warn of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. It also implies that being curious can sometimes lead to danger or misfortune. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_killed_the_cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_killed_the_cat
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - howaboutnope 5y ago
    "Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat."
    - monocasa 5y ago
      There's something to be said for a healthy respect for what you don't understand yet, particularly dangerous situations.
      - taneq 5y ago
        The thing about unknown unknowns is that they're unknown. By definition we can't reason about them.
imilk 5y ago
Even more amazing to me is that crows can communicate what someone looks like to another crow. Then that other crow will be able to identify that person without ever having seen them before.
- ksml 5y ago
  Whoa. Do you have any links I can read about this? That sounds incredible
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    Check out this video starting at the 4:06 mark. https://youtu.be/LF77qpbvkxo?t=4m6s https://youtu.be/LF77qpbvkxo?t=4m6s They talk about crows passing knowledge from one generation to the next, and they show an experiment that they performed on some crows. While the young crows are still in their eggs, the scientists wear masks and capture the adult crows, teaching the adult crows that this mask means danger. What they then find out is whether the adult crows pass the knowledge of the dangerous mask on to their young. However, in this video the young are learning about the dangerous mask because they get to see the adults react directly to it. I don’t know anything similar where the adults communicate this kind of thing without the masked person being present. It is possible that the young ones in turn taught the next generation without the masked individual being present. But I don’t remember and am not going to watch the whole video again right now.
- taneq 5y ago
  Do they actually communicate semantic information enabling another crow to identify a person? Or do they just communicate "that's him, that's the guy that threw a rock at Bobby Crow!"?
taneq 5y ago
I find it fascinating how many deeply embedded tactical considerations that we just take for granted come from the fact that our ecosystem lives in a gravity well. I wonder how differently an alien that had evolved for millennia in zero G would think?
- jstanley 5y ago
  It's pretty likely that most life arises in gravity wells, simply because life requires a concentration of matter somewhat higher than that in empty space (otherwise what is it made out of?), and a concentration of matter is equal to a gravity well.
  - milansm 5y ago
    Life as we know it.
    - burundi_coffee 5y ago
      Surely you're not implying there might ever be such a thing as life not made out of matter, are you?
      - Ygg2 5y ago
        There was a fun little episode of PBS SpaceTime that wondered what if there is life inside a sun? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNK5oahmw3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNK5oahmw3I
- delecti 5y ago
  Practically speaking, aquatic life moves around pretty freely in three dimensions. It's not perfectly equivalent to zero G, but it's at least illustrative.
  - cunthorpe 5y ago
    People often forget how insanely varied life on earth is. Often we see anthropomorphic aliens depicted in media while it’d be so easy to look into the ocean to find any possible shape or life that doesn’t resemble humans in the least.
MiddleEndian 5y ago
>you can roost high up and get an overview of any situation. Crows are extremely intelligent and have developed a heightened ability to do "systems thinking"--working out the elements of any situation, how they interact, what causality there is, etc. Humans have a similar advantage in obtaining overviews (besides raw brain power). Because of bipedalism, humans are probably the tallest land predators among mammals. Polar bears come closest with a max shoulder height of about 1.6m.

by titzer 5y ago

dmos62 5y ago

> this shouldn't be surprising when you work out the implications of having a good brain, a high perch, and a lot of time and curiosity Under what circumstances do those things have poorer implications?

monocasa 5y ago
"Curiosity killed the cat"
- dmos62 5y ago
  Isn't curiosity a synonym for adventurous stupidity in this idiom?
  - monocasa 5y ago
    > "Curiosity killed the cat" is an idiom-proverb used to warn of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. It also implies that being curious can sometimes lead to danger or misfortune. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_killed_the_cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_killed_the_cat
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- howaboutnope 5y ago
  "Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat."
  - monocasa 5y ago
    There's something to be said for a healthy respect for what you don't understand yet, particularly dangerous situations.
    - taneq 5y ago
      The thing about unknown unknowns is that they're unknown. By definition we can't reason about them.

imilk 5y ago

Even more amazing to me is that crows can communicate what someone looks like to another crow. Then that other crow will be able to identify that person without ever having seen them before.

ksml 5y ago
Whoa. Do you have any links I can read about this? That sounds incredible
- codetrotter 5y ago
  Check out this video starting at the 4:06 mark. https://youtu.be/LF77qpbvkxo?t=4m6s https://youtu.be/LF77qpbvkxo?t=4m6s They talk about crows passing knowledge from one generation to the next, and they show an experiment that they performed on some crows. While the young crows are still in their eggs, the scientists wear masks and capture the adult crows, teaching the adult crows that this mask means danger. What they then find out is whether the adult crows pass the knowledge of the dangerous mask on to their young. However, in this video the young are learning about the dangerous mask because they get to see the adults react directly to it. I don’t know anything similar where the adults communicate this kind of thing without the masked person being present. It is possible that the young ones in turn taught the next generation without the masked individual being present. But I don’t remember and am not going to watch the whole video again right now.
taneq 5y ago
Do they actually communicate semantic information enabling another crow to identify a person? Or do they just communicate "that's him, that's the guy that threw a rock at Bobby Crow!"?

taneq 5y ago

I find it fascinating how many deeply embedded tactical considerations that we just take for granted come from the fact that our ecosystem lives in a gravity well. I wonder how differently an alien that had evolved for millennia in zero G would think?

jstanley 5y ago
It's pretty likely that most life arises in gravity wells, simply because life requires a concentration of matter somewhat higher than that in empty space (otherwise what is it made out of?), and a concentration of matter is equal to a gravity well.
- milansm 5y ago
  Life as we know it.
  - burundi_coffee 5y ago
    Surely you're not implying there might ever be such a thing as life not made out of matter, are you?
    - Ygg2 5y ago
      There was a fun little episode of PBS SpaceTime that wondered what if there is life inside a sun? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNK5oahmw3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNK5oahmw3I
delecti 5y ago
Practically speaking, aquatic life moves around pretty freely in three dimensions. It's not perfectly equivalent to zero G, but it's at least illustrative.
- cunthorpe 5y ago
  People often forget how insanely varied life on earth is. Often we see anthropomorphic aliens depicted in media while it’d be so easy to look into the ocean to find any possible shape or life that doesn’t resemble humans in the least.

MiddleEndian 5y ago

>you can roost high up and get an overview of any situation. Crows are extremely intelligent and have developed a heightened ability to do "systems thinking"--working out the elements of any situation, how they interact, what causality there is, etc. Humans have a similar advantage in obtaining overviews (besides raw brain power). Because of bipedalism, humans are probably the tallest land predators among mammals. Polar bears come closest with a max shoulder height of about 1.6m.