6 ms·

But, like the parent said, the scientists aren't assuming nothing, they're assuming the natural world is dumb. Edit: I'm not sure why this is so controversial.

But, like the parent said, the scientists aren't assuming nothing, they're assuming the natural world is dumb. Edit: I'm not sure why this is so controversial. The essence is: every experiment starts with an assumption.

Majestic121 5y ago
It's the opposite : you assume that the natural world is smart, but they don't assume anything, they just test the hypothesis that dogs are smart, and in this way validate part of your assumption. I think it's a better way to deal with things, as your assumption might not hold scrutiny very well : what is natural world ? Are worms part of it ? What about rocks ? Can we deduce from there that worms and rocks are able to distinguish intentional from non intentional actions ?
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  If you have ever written a game KI or something alike: the most simple algorithms (few lines of code) can perceive the observer into thinking there is advanced KI at work. Same might be the case with natural intelligence.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    What does KI mean?
    - lwkl 5y ago
      It means AI in German (Künstliche Intelligenz).
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        I never made that art / artificial connection before, but in retrospect it's obvious.
        hutzlibu 5y ago
        Finding wordroots is fun and sometimes illuminating.
Rexxar 5y ago
The first sentence of the abstract is "When dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions" They don't assume they are dumb, they just don't assume anything, as they should.
juanani 5y ago
It's called projecting. They are dumb, so they assume the outside world is dumb. Imagine if we had intelligent people in science today..
IAmGraydon 5y ago
Really? Because it seems to me that they suspected the opposite - that animals are intelligent - and they designed an experiment to attempt to prove it.
avianlyric 5y ago
What other assumption can you start with? Assuming the natural world is dumb is simple, consistent, and easy to explain. If you start with the assumption the natural world is “smart”, what does that even mean? Does it mean that we should assume dog can do calculus, but choose not to? Or that dogs are capable of complex communication, but also choose not to? Saying the natural world is “smart” is a pretty meaningless statement. How smart is “smart”, everyone will have a different opinion, so you can’t use it as the basis for discovery or discussion. However everyone understands what the natural world being dumb means. From there you can start the journey of proving step-by-step where the smarts are.
- nerbert 5y ago
  I don’t think that the assumption is that the natural world is dumb. The scientific discovery process aims to highlight new insights to help us make a better and useful description of the world. Implying that the starting point is "dumb" is incorrect. The starting point is a blank page, that will be filled by the research, whatever they find out.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    I understand what your trying to say. But I don’t agree with words you’ve used. We don’t assume nothing, that’s clearly not true. A basic assumption we make is that the natural world is capable of perceiving us and responding to our actions. The question we’re normally testing is how complex the process between perception and response is. As general rule we assume that process is extremely simple (“dumb”), and work to understand how complex (“smart”) it actually is. For example, in this paper the scientists didn’t start by proving the dogs were capable of observing the humans and responding to their actions. That was a given. What was tested was how complex the dogs perception and decision making process was. Using words like “dumb” and “smart” are extremely crude. But it’s the words used by GP and OP.

Majestic121 5y ago

It's the opposite : you assume that the natural world is smart, but they don't assume anything, they just test the hypothesis that dogs are smart, and in this way validate part of your assumption. I think it's a better way to deal with things, as your assumption might not hold scrutiny very well : what is natural world ? Are worms part of it ? What about rocks ? Can we deduce from there that worms and rocks are able to distinguish intentional from non intentional actions ?

hutzlibu 5y ago
If you have ever written a game KI or something alike: the most simple algorithms (few lines of code) can perceive the observer into thinking there is advanced KI at work. Same might be the case with natural intelligence.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  What does KI mean?
  - lwkl 5y ago
    It means AI in German (Künstliche Intelligenz).
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      I never made that art / artificial connection before, but in retrospect it's obvious.
      - hutzlibu 5y ago
        Finding wordroots is fun and sometimes illuminating.

Rexxar 5y ago

The first sentence of the abstract is "When dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions" They don't assume they are dumb, they just don't assume anything, as they should.

juanani 5y ago

It's called projecting. They are dumb, so they assume the outside world is dumb. Imagine if we had intelligent people in science today..

IAmGraydon 5y ago

Really? Because it seems to me that they suspected the opposite - that animals are intelligent - and they designed an experiment to attempt to prove it.

avianlyric 5y ago

What other assumption can you start with? Assuming the natural world is dumb is simple, consistent, and easy to explain. If you start with the assumption the natural world is “smart”, what does that even mean? Does it mean that we should assume dog can do calculus, but choose not to? Or that dogs are capable of complex communication, but also choose not to? Saying the natural world is “smart” is a pretty meaningless statement. How smart is “smart”, everyone will have a different opinion, so you can’t use it as the basis for discovery or discussion. However everyone understands what the natural world being dumb means. From there you can start the journey of proving step-by-step where the smarts are.

nerbert 5y ago
I don’t think that the assumption is that the natural world is dumb. The scientific discovery process aims to highlight new insights to help us make a better and useful description of the world. Implying that the starting point is "dumb" is incorrect. The starting point is a blank page, that will be filled by the research, whatever they find out.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  I understand what your trying to say. But I don’t agree with words you’ve used. We don’t assume nothing, that’s clearly not true. A basic assumption we make is that the natural world is capable of perceiving us and responding to our actions. The question we’re normally testing is how complex the process between perception and response is. As general rule we assume that process is extremely simple (“dumb”), and work to understand how complex (“smart”) it actually is. For example, in this paper the scientists didn’t start by proving the dogs were capable of observing the humans and responding to their actions. That was a given. What was tested was how complex the dogs perception and decision making process was. Using words like “dumb” and “smart” are extremely crude. But it’s the words used by GP and OP.