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Many animals aren't under strong pressure to increase efficiency of their brains, because these brain are small and majority of metabolism is put into very basa

by Ginden 5y ago

Many animals aren't under strong pressure to increase efficiency of their brains, because these brain are small and majority of metabolism is put into very basal structures like brainstem. Birds for example were under such evolutionary pressure and look where it got them - Corvidae have 15g brain and they are much smarter than 22g squirell or 30g cat. Moreover, such choices have tradeoffs, improving efficiency often requires more precise regulation that can be nondesirable for small species.

podgaj 5y ago
I do not understand this obsession people have with ranking the "smartness" of animals. Each animals has the intelligence it needs to survive in the niche it lives in. Each is as smart as it needs to be. You say a Corvidae is smarter than a squirrel, but why do you think that matters? Each species survives just fine. Would it benefit the squirrel species survival if they were "smarter"? Or would there just be more of them and then overpopulation and pollution and...oh, I see I am talking about humanity now. ;) You know, the human experiment is far from over, but everyone seems to have our evolutionary survival mapped out like some sci-fi movie that ends up having us colonize the universe.
- Ginden 5y ago
  > Each is as smart as it needs to be. Petter Watts formulated it in different manner - "all animals are under stringent selection pressure to be as stupid as they can get away with". > Would it benefit the squirrel species survival if they were "smarter"? Probably yes, but this benefit doesn't necessarily outweight greater metabolic cost of sustaining brain. But I was talking about efficiency. Birds achieve much higher intelligence from the same volume of brain than mammals.
  - podgaj 5y ago
    > "all animals are under stringent selection pressure to be as stupid as they can get away with". Thanks for that quote. So maybe that is what humanity is doing by offloading our intelligence to machines, making ourselves stupid? >Birds achieve much higher intelligence from the same volume of brain than mammals. I just have a hard time supposing what "intelligence" means since human intelligence might be much different than bird intelligence. Not higher or lower, but different for different needs.

by Ginden 5y ago

podgaj 5y ago

I do not understand this obsession people have with ranking the "smartness" of animals. Each animals has the intelligence it needs to survive in the niche it lives in. Each is as smart as it needs to be. You say a Corvidae is smarter than a squirrel, but why do you think that matters? Each species survives just fine. Would it benefit the squirrel species survival if they were "smarter"? Or would there just be more of them and then overpopulation and pollution and...oh, I see I am talking about humanity now. ;) You know, the human experiment is far from over, but everyone seems to have our evolutionary survival mapped out like some sci-fi movie that ends up having us colonize the universe.

Ginden 5y ago
> Each is as smart as it needs to be. Petter Watts formulated it in different manner - "all animals are under stringent selection pressure to be as stupid as they can get away with". > Would it benefit the squirrel species survival if they were "smarter"? Probably yes, but this benefit doesn't necessarily outweight greater metabolic cost of sustaining brain. But I was talking about efficiency. Birds achieve much higher intelligence from the same volume of brain than mammals.
- podgaj 5y ago
  > "all animals are under stringent selection pressure to be as stupid as they can get away with". Thanks for that quote. So maybe that is what humanity is doing by offloading our intelligence to machines, making ourselves stupid? >Birds achieve much higher intelligence from the same volume of brain than mammals. I just have a hard time supposing what "intelligence" means since human intelligence might be much different than bird intelligence. Not higher or lower, but different for different needs.