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Crows possess higher intelligence, thought a primarily human attribute (2020)
- bmitc 5y agoIt continues to surprise me that humans are surprised at other animals having deep intelligence and emotions and thoughts. As if the fact that animals don't speak English or whatever else human language is somehow a negative reflection upon them.
- kyaghmour 5y agoWhen I was younger, I read many books by Henri Laborit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Laborit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Laborit) -- his work is predominantly in French. As a surgeon and neurobiologist, he wrote a lot about the biology of behaviour. I can't find the interview anymore, but during an interview (also in French) with a Canadian journalist he quipped this: "L'homme est un animal, le problème c'est qu'il parle." (roughly: "Man is an animal, the problem is that he uses language.") And, so, I agree with the essence of your position. But maybe the problem isn't that humans are surprised that other animals feeling/thinking. Rather the problem might be that humans think they actually aren't animals to begin with.
- tigen 5y agoWell, 1 out of 2 people has below-average intelligence. And the comments you see online vastly amplify the opinions of a small few. Heck, not long ago you'd find a lot of humans saying this about other humans.
- TallonRain 5y agoSame here. As someone who has spent his life around many animals, either as pets or in the wild or other contexts, it’s very plain that humans are surrounded by respectably sentient creatures. It always floors me whenever people are shocked at the complex thoughts, emotions, behavior and planning capabilities of non-human animals. It really just seems fundamentally obvious if you bother to interact with other creatures long enough. Heck, I’ve run into way too many people who refuse to even acknowledge that we humans are animals as well and I feel this innate arrogance persists to our detriment.
- weq 5y agoHuman are there own folley thinking that they are the definition of intelligence. In years to come, we will realise how simple our physiology is, compared to the other creatures. Brain included.
- encryptluks2 5y agoI think a lot of it has to do with the fact that a lot of people eat animals and so it makes them feel better ethically to see them as not having feelings or intelligence. Sometimes the animals they eat may actually be more intelligent than domesticated animals.
- omegaworks 5y agoIt really shouldn't surprise you given the amount of humans that treat other humans like they lack deep intelligence, emotions and thoughts if they don't speak English.
- jodrellblank 5y ago"As if they are inferior because they don't speak English" is a pretty cheap shot; cows eat grass, what reason do they have for deep intelligence and thoughts, why would you expect a-priori that they must have such? It's sometimes suggested that human intelligence rose quite quickly from trying to outwit other humans; do cows try to outwit each other and slaughter other cow tribes to take control of their fields? Another point is, other animals do dumb things - like videos of ducks walking over drains and the ducklings fall down the drain, or creature stuck in plastic sheet until it dies. Or creature does nothing while humans approach, kill, and eat it. It's hard to see examples like that and think "deep intelligence". Emotions, yes - a lot of fear, pain, excitement, skittishness, visible in a lot of animal behviours. But examples of planning ahead, cooperation, tool using, they're so rare they make headlines like this article when observed.
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- thereare5lights 5y ago> cows eat grass, what reason do they have for deep intelligence and thoughts This line of argument doesn't make much sense given that pigs are very intelligent and you'd probably say "pigs roll in the mud, what reason do they have for deep intelligence and thoughts" > other animals do dumb things - like videos of ducks walking over drains and the ducklings fall down the drain, or creature stuck in plastic sheet until it dies. Or creature does nothing while humans approach, kill, and eat it. It's hard to see examples like that and think "deep intelligence". I could say the same about most humans > But examples of planning ahead, cooperation, tool using, they're so rare they make headlines like this article when observed. This is true, but the way you go about making a case for it ain't it.
- jodrellblank 5y agoThis line of argument makes sense given that humans use ~20% of our energy running our brains, and evolution is known for cutting out energy hungry things which aren't helpful for survival. Cows don't have cooked fatty meat as a ready supply of energy, they don't need to chase prey, they don't need accurate throwing of spears or organising groups to set traps. Why would they evolve whatever you think "deep thoughts" are? And no, it doesn't help to say "given pigs are intelligent, then pigs are intelligent". > "I could say the same about most humans" Go on then, say that most humans are stupid therefore "humans are not intelligent". That will be a very productive line of reasoning.
- paskozdilar 5y agoAgreed. Animals have their own understanding of the world, sometimes a lot more perceptive than ours.
- meristohm 5y agoAre We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? book by ethologist Frans de Waal: https://www.worldcat.org/title/are-we-smart-enough-to-know-how-smart-animals-are/ https://www.worldcat.org/title/are-we-smart-enough-to-know-h...
- juramento 5y agoBut do crows know that humans know that crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds ?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Razengan 5y agoDo humans?
- lostmsu 5y agoYes, obviously.
- bee_rider 5y agoHuman behavior must be very confusing to the animals who observe it. The strange situations we create by (for example) dropping nets and catching dolphins, only to let them free. (Do they know we put out those nets, or are we just helpful monkeys that sit on the evil loud floating net monster and sometimes save them?). And I wonder if the animals that we run these intelligence tests on know the humans are behind the tests. Maybe if crows achieve a culture with legends and stories, they'll have the a trickster god -- white coat, glasses man. For lab rats I guess white coat glasses man would take a more malicious aspect.
- aspenmayer 5y agoAre you familiar with the Rats of NIMH series? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Frisby_and_the_Rats_of_NIMH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Frisby_and_the_Rats_of_NI... http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?15912 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?15912
- bee_rider 5y agoSaw the movie, and read the first book I think (would have been middle-elementary school aged, so memory is a bit hazy).
- Melatonic 5y agoIf you want to befriend your local crows try buying a crow call - they will all look at you funny but you definitely get their attention. Supposedly they also like many types of nuts
- Overtonwindow 5y agoTo test whether crows know and can analyze the contents of their brains...trained two birds to peck a red or a blue target on a panel, depending whether they saw a faint light." "[Researcher] Nieder kept varying the “rule,” with the birds told which color meant what — red = saw it, or blue = saw it — only after the flash. That required the crows, Glenn and Ozzy, to keep monitoring their brains; they had a second or two to figure out what they had seen and tell Nieder by choosing the corresponding target. While the crows were solving these tasks, the researchers were tracking the activity of hundreds of their neurons. (Crows’ brains have 1.5 billion neurons, as many as some monkey species.) "When the crows reported having seen a faint light, sensory neurons were active between the flash and the birds pecking the color that meant, yes, I saw that. If the crows did not perceive the very same faint stimulus, the nerve cells remained silent, and the bird pecked, no, I didn’t see anything. Ozzy and Glenn’s brain activity systematically changed depending on whether or not they had perceived the dim flash. "During the delay, many neurons responded according to the crows’ impending report, rather than to the brightness of the light... The birds were aware of what they subjectively perceived, flash or no flash, correctly reporting what their sensory neurons recorded..."
- NoGravitas 5y agoNow I feel bad for crows. They're in the same MALIGNANTLY USELESS boat as humans. > “For the rest of the earth’s organisms, existence is relatively uncomplicated. Their lives are about three things: survival, reproduction, death—and nothing else. But we know too much to content ourselves with surviving, reproducing, dying—and nothing else. We know we are alive and know we will die. We also know we will suffer during our lives before suffering—slowly or quickly—as we draw near to death. This is the knowledge we “enjoy” as the most intelligent organisms to gush from the womb of nature. And being so, we feel shortchanged if there is nothing else for us than to survive, reproduce, and die. We want there to be more to it than that, or to think there is. This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are—hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.” – Thomas Ligotti
- FredPret 5y agoThat Ligotti chap really managed to put the darkest possible spin on the greatest possible miracle - consciousness. Our brains represent a step change in the timeline of complexity in the universe, from subatomic things spontaneously coalescing into atoms, all the way up to Thomas the paranoid android. Instead of being depressed that we will get hurt and die, let's be happy that we will be able to experience many interesting and wonderful things, many of which can be quite pleasant and meaningful.
- NoGravitas 5y ago“One cringes to hear scientists cooing over the universe or any part thereof like schoolgirls over-heated by their first crush. From the studies of Krafft-Ebbing onward, we know that it is possible to become excited about anything—from shins to shoehorns. But it would be nice if just one of these gushing eggheads would step back and, as a concession to objectivity, speak the truth: THERE IS NOTHING INNATELY IMPRESSIVE ABOUT THE UNIVERSE OR ANYTHING IN IT.” ― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
- fourthark 5y ago
- RajT88 5y agoThe wild thing about this article is less the article content, and more the realization that I know adult humans less self aware than what is described in corvids.
- edgyquant 5y agoI really hate this mind set. Every single human being that ever lived is a ridiculously intelligent entity. It isn’t funny or cute to pretend otherwise and just because some people dedicate that intelligence to things you or I don’t agree with, or just because they don’t care about the same things as us, doesn’t make them less self aware than any other person.
- snek_case 5y agoDisagree. Some people are less self-aware than others. It's not a matter of opinions or what you believe in, it's a matter of how much you are aware of your own cognition. There are many people out there who seem to lack the ability to analyze the consequences of their behavior, or to admit that they were ever wrong. There are also people who seem to be very bad at understanding what are their motivations for doing certain things. Not being able to look back at your own behavior and your own mistakes makes it nearly impossible for these people to grow. I won't get into the argument as to whether these differences in self-awareness are biological in origin or due to nurture. It's probably some of both. Either way, even though this metric is multidimensional and hard to quantify, some people are definitely less self-aware than others. Just like some people are less physically fit than others.
- ifyoubuildit 5y agoHow do you distinguish between the case where these people are actually less self aware vs being roughly just as self aware but having different values from your own? In other words, they are aware of much of what everyone around them is aware, they just act on it differently? In any case, the vast majority of healthy humans are probably more self aware than the vast majority of healthy crows, no?
- 5y ago
- whatrocks 5y agoThis is only inspirationally relevant, but a few weeks ago, I saw a crow (or a raven, never quite sure) holding a stick, floating without moving, on top of Twin Peaks in SF, like it was waiting to give a wand to a wizard. When I got home, I wrote this weird little story about it: https://f52.charlieharrington.com/stories/a-great-unkindness/ https://f52.charlieharrington.com/stories/a-great-unkindness...
- dontbeevil1992 5y agovery cool! some similar themes to LotR. Did you intentionally make the crows names use mainly phonemes from the word "crow"? That's a cool technique
- whatrocks 5y ago> Did you intentionally make the crows names use mainly phonemes from the word "crow"? That's a cool technique Not consciously! But they sounded crow-like to me. Like they could be onomatopeias for words that crows could theoretically speak/croak to each other.
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoHey that was fun! I was pleasantly surprised to see the audio option as I’m too sleepy to read right now. Reminds me of a short story I wrote which is a transcription of a vivid dream I had: http://www.tlalexander.com/spooks/ http://www.tlalexander.com/spooks/
- whatrocks 5y agoGreat story! I love the image of the huge airships looming over the city. A lot of my stories in my "Fahrenheit 52" project have been extended versions of dreams. Whenever I have a particularly weird one, I try to tap it out quickly on my phone, even if it's the middle of the night.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
- tombert 5y agoCrows and ravens continue to amaze me every day. I'm fairly sure that there are a lot of humans that cannot ponder the content of their own mind. Makes me feel bad for using the insult "bird brain" in the past.
- at-fates-hands 5y agoI think the real question here is when consciousness evolved and where did it evolve from? Researchers have always felt a cerebral cortex is necessary to experience "consciousness" but crows have confirmed that's not necessary which only deepens the mystery: This research has important consequences for our understanding of the evolution of higher intelligence. First, a cerebral cortex is not needed, and there are other anatomical means to achieve the same outcome. Second, either the evolution of consciousness is very ancient, tracing back to the last common ancestor of mammals and birds about 320 million years ago, or, equally intriguing, consciousness arose at least twice later on, independently in mammals and birds. Both options raise the likelihood, in my view, that higher intelligence on other planets may not necessarily be mammal or human-like, but could very well be birdlike. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/crows-are-even-smarter-we-thought-180976970/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/crows-are-...
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- ComputerCat 5y agoWow, that's fascinating research! I've always found crows so majestic, perhaps it's because they were pondering.
- khaledh 5y agoI know this isn't scientific, but for those who may entertain the idea of a Creator, there's a mention of crow behaviour in the Quran, where it describes the story of Abel and Cain (sons of Adam and Eve), and how after Cain killed his brother, God sent a crow to teach him about burial: "Then Allah sent a crow searching in the ground to show him how to hide the disgrace of his brother. He said, “O woe to me! Have I failed to be like this crow and hide the body of my brother?” And he became of the regretful." (5:31)
- 2000UltraDeluxe 5y agoEuropean magpies have been documented to hold wakes for fallen flock members. It's not impossible crows have similar bit undocumented ceremonies. They definitely have a rudimentary culture.
- drcongo 5y agoMagpies are usually bastards, however, about a year ago a cat got run over in the street near my house and the only reason anyone knew to go to its aid was because a group of magpies stood around it in a circle shouting until someone came. Obviously I could be anthropomorphising this in the nicest possible way, the alternative is that they were taunting it Nelson Muntz style.
- 2000UltraDeluxe 5y agoI think they were taunting it. They're not just bastards but cruel bastards too.
- openfuture 5y agoI once heard a theory that the story of cain and abel is about the agriculturalists killing the nomadic people by taking their lands ("killing their brother") idk how you'd think of the crow part in that interpretation but something to think about.
- cardy31 5y ago
- Animats 5y agoCrows have been seen using traffic to crack nuts. Including using a crosswalk to get a chance to retrieve the cracked nuts.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0
- robbedpeter 5y agoOr sledding, using discarded plastic lids, for the sheer fun. I've seen young raven fledglings flinging pinecones at eachother, and there's a sense of play and joy in what they do. Good for them, the more conscious creatures we share the universe with, the better. Well, the planet, anyway. While we're nominally in charge. If we can avoid screwing everything up too badly. Actually, hell, can the ravens take over? We seem to be bodging things up just a bit.
- bee_rider 5y agoI've seen the sledding crow clip. It is funny to think about. For a human, part of the fun of sledding is the sort of controlled falling/almost flight-like experience. I guess that's old hat for a crow, so I guess they must see it from the other side somehow.
- hunterb123 5y agoWalking is controlled falling
- reducesuffering 5y agoWhereas the nut cracking is cool for the intelligence shown towards survival, the one that truly astounds me is intelligence for the sake of having fun. Crow skiing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WupH8oyrAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WupH8oyrAo
- Razengan 5y ago> the one that truly astounds me is intelligence for the sake of having fun. Crow skiing Don’t worry human chauvinism will find a “practical” reason to break that down to too.
- peter303 5y agoOur Last Common Ancestors were 250 million years ago in the Triassic. Amazing how intelligence can evolve multiple times.
- mach1ne 5y agoNeurons are old. The last common ancestor had some brains for itself, too. Bird brains are much more neuron-dense than mammalian brains. They also lack the layered structure that permeates our cerebral cortex. I wonder if the different structure is what causes the funny head movement seen across bird species.
- javajosh 5y agoIt is surprising. I suspect there are many millions of planets in our galaxy where intelligent life evolved and even invented radio, and I suspect that all but one or two of those civilizations ended disaster within about 100 years. It seems to be quite a challenge for a technological civilization to survive its own side-effects.
- awb 5y ago> I suspect that all but one or two of those civilizations ended disaster within about 100 years All sorts of biological / ecological factors would come into play like average lifespan, the size of life in relation to the size of the planet, resource scarcity, reproduction rates, mobility, avg. number of offspring, mutation rates, weather patterns, geography, etc. Then you get into social and technological factors. We have a sample size of 1, so it’s hard to extrapolate or understand where we are on the probability curve. The best data point we might have for a self-inflicted civilization ending event would be looking at it from a smaller point view. How many times in history has one group attacked another such that both groups ceased to exist? One positive sign is that even with all our destruction and violence, someone usually wins or backs down with the ability to continue on living. Of course there are always long-tail events like mutually assured destruction, but I don’t know if 100 years is the correct timetable for ~100% certainty. There was an interesting HN discussion about it a few weeks ago here with folks chiming in on the best ways to assess the odds of a long-tail event like MAD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30545558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30545558
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoHumans have achieved not just intelligence but co-operation. we are "herd" enough that the benefits of learning from others overcomes the need to be smart enough to work it out yourself. But individualistic enough that we won't follow the herd all the time (we might want to improve that given the success of religion and dictators). But what I am trying to say is that intelligence is a necessary but not sufficbet condition. We also need ... politics ... for want of a better word. Our brains seem to be wired as levels of co-operating systems coming to collective decisions - and that is a pretty good way to describe politics and society. Human species is less a collection of organisms feeding and dying and more a distributed brain, trying to wake up. Now that each node has a pocket sized way to communicate with each other node, I wonder what the conditions for consciousness really are?
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- winnit 5y agoHave you read Swarm by Norman Spinrad? It's a short-story which illustrates some of the points you have made by bringing an alien species that are less individually intelligent but more hive-oriented than human beings into the mix.
- bar_de 5y agoAlso the book "The Invincible" by Stanisław Lem tells a story about distributed intelligent lifeforms. Really nice as they are described in a very unique un-anthropocentric way, i.e. their rationality is hardly understandable by the space faring humans encountering them.
- rmnull 5y agoi can't seem to find the book by that title by that author. I did find a book by that title but its 800 something pages long and don't think its the title you referred to. do you mind providing a link?
- 5y ago
- ornornor 5y agoMaybe one day we’ll start accepting we’re not the only “intelligent” things on this planet and start treating all animals a little better/stop eating them.
- u385639 5y agoHow will we teach other animals to stop eating other animals?
- broken8ball 5y agoInstagram stories with lots of flashy infographics, obviously.
- adolfojp 5y agoWe take a randomized sample of every species and we try to teach them. We spare the ones who are intelligent enough to learn and we eat the rest.
- ghostbrainalpha 5y agoOr people will get worse because we embrace eating intelligent animals.
- aiana 5y ago
- MaxMoney 5y ago
- geocrasher 5y agoI first read this as "Cows" and was reminded of "Cow Tools" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Tools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Tools
- fleddr 5y agoHere in the Netherlands there was the case of two corvids trying to harass a small owl so that they could use its nesting hole. This in itself shows team work. They failed to get rid of the owl in time before the breeding season. Next season they tried again. This time, together they stuffed the nest hole with so much stuff that the owl couldn't get in anymore. The owl would try to clear it but soon gave up as it was two working against one. With the owl permanently gone, they cleared the hole and seized it. Isn't that stunning? This demonstrates memory as the previously failing tactic was not repeated. The idea of stuffing a nest surely isn't intuition or a skill learned from parents, it's a spontaneously formed idea for a highly specific problem. They also have very complex social behavior where males exchange favors. Every bird knows of every other bird they commonly interact with whether they are owed or in debt. So that means they have a currency. We should lose our arrogance and look at wildlife with new eyes and with new respect. And not just for wildlife superstars like crows or dolphins, do it across the board. Case in point, earthworms drag leaves into their underground lair and feed on them. When you give it the wrong type of leaf, it will reject it. When you give it the right type of leaf, yet wrongly oriented, it will turn it around. We're talking about a creature with a handful of neurons, figuratively speaking. It's one of the most stupid life forms and it can do that.
- weq 5y agothanks for sharing this. birds in general are some of the most amazing aniamls man can befriend. So much intelligence, its really next level. That said, ants friggen farm. Size does not determin intelligence. Nore does brain size. https://modernfarmer.com/2014/04/meet-earths-oldest-farmers-ants/ https://modernfarmer.com/2014/04/meet-earths-oldest-farmers-...
- _dain_ 5y ago>To test whether crows know and can analyze the contents of their brains, neurobiologist Andreas Nieder of the University of Tübingen in Germany trained two birds to peck a red or a blue target on a panel, depending whether they saw a faint light. Nieder kept varying the “rule,” with the birds told which color meant what — red = saw it, or blue = saw it — only after the flash. That required the crows, Glenn and Ozzy, to keep monitoring their brains; they had a second or two to figure out what they had seen and tell Nieder by choosing the corresponding target. ... I don't actually understand what this means. Am I dumb or is this just badly written? Can someone explain? What is Nieder actually doing here, and how does it test whether the crows are introspecting? How are they "told" which color meant what?
- netsharc 5y agoIt's strangely summarized, but the full text (linked from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344393003_A_neural_correlate_of_sensory_consciousness_in_a_corvid_bird https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344393003_A_neural_... ) has more details. If there was a faint light, and the red target appears, the birds were taught (how?) to peck it. If there was light and a blue target appears, don't peck it. If there was no light, and the blue target appears, peck it, and if the target is red, don't peck it. So peck a red target = "I saw a light", peck a blue target = "I didn't see a light". If the opposite color target appears to what you need to peck, don't peck it. Or: Target is red, did I see a light? If yes, peck it. Target is blue. Was there a light? If there wasn't, peck it. I didn't continue reading the paper, but I guess the researchers concluded since they crows could answer the "Did I see a light?" question correctly most (i.e. statistically significant amount) of the times, it shows they can ponder the contents of their brains.
- _dain_ 5y agoSo how does this mean they can "ponder the contents of their own brains"? I'm pretty sure you could train even a very stupid creature to perform this task.
- Ajedi32 5y agoIsn't that effectively just a simple short term memory test? How does that tell us anything about whether crows can "ponder the contents of their minds"?
- lamontcg 5y agoI had a crow that was on my back porch last year trying to tell me something, but I don't think I was clever enough to know what it was trying to say. I could walk out on the porch and get within a foot or two of it without it flying away. I hadn't been feeding them or anything. I put out some water and ran the garden hose a bit and put out a bit of bread thinking that food or water was probably what it was looking for (it was during some very hot days in Seattle). It didn't really act all that interested in what I did though.
- mach1ne 5y agoHe just wanted to use the loo.
- tux1968 5y agoYears ago I was putting out the garbage in the back alley behind our building where I lived on the 8th floor. A crow attacked me out of the blue. Distracted by the attack, the back door slammed shut behind me. Since my key was only good for the front door, I had to walk around the building. That damn crow followed me the entire time, dive bombing my head, and screaming bloody murder at me. It was a little spooky. When I finally got back inside and upstairs, I went and looked out the living room window, which looked out the same direction as the back alley. The crow had flown back around and was at the 8th floor looking in the window, from the other side of the pigeon netting we had on our balcony. On the inside of the pigeon netting, was another crow, desperately trying to figure out how it could escape. Not really sure how it had got itself through the pigeon netting in the first place. I went out and sliced a hole through the netting and the trapped crow quickly joined its mate outside, who finally stopped screaming bloody murder. To this day it still amazes me that the crow's mate, knew which apartment I lived in and spotted me downstairs.
- bdamm 5y agoOne day I was out walking by the water. A small bird was standing on a rock, apparently unable to fly. Crows were gathering and preparing to feast. I tried to scare them off, and sat by the little bird to prevent them from eating it. Silly, but it seemed right to me. The crows were not impressed. They became more daring, and eventually I decided to leave. A trio of crows broke off from the group and followed me all the way home, perhaps a mile's distance. They flew from branch to branch as I walked, with the tail crow moving to the lead every time. The tactical pattern continued the entire time. Maybe it was just me, but for months I could have sworn there were crows out sounding the alarm whenever I left my apartment. Bears are another animal that seem to recognize individuals and take offences personally.
- zmgsabst 5y agoCrows are capable of identifying and remembering individual humans. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html There’s a delicate balance to be struck if you live in a neighborhood with a large crow population and also like to pet neighborhood cats — and like most of life, bribes go a long way to lubricate the peace.
- dorianmariefr 5y agoRick knew I guess https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Two_Crows https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Two_Crows
- krono 5y agoNot a crow, but I have a parot companion. If you're still scared of printers someday taking over, you should really stay away from birbs.
- silasdavis 5y agoI don't follow the experimental conclusion here. It seems like a demonstration of memory. What am I missing?
- nickelpro 5y agoConcur. Jumping from "a collection of sensory neurons remained active after a sensory experience" to "Crows have subjective experience and 'ponder' the contents of their own minds" is an editorial leap. The latter likely isn't even provable in a scientific way. If I said a fly wheel keeps spinning after being in contact with an outside force, you would never characterize it as "fly wheel acts of its own accord following demonstration".
- kgc 5y agoThe article states that the report neurons reflected the report despite possibly contradictory sensory input if I read it correctly.
- mach1ne 5y agoA lot of the field of neurology is about sensationalising your findings by binding them to some abstract notion of psychology which doesn't even fit the study.
- remarkEon 5y agoUpvoting this merely because I love reading all the stories people have about these amazing animals.
- lacker 5y agoThere is often a lot of cawing in my backyard when I refill the bird feeder, or when the neighborhood cat comes by. Clearly the crows are communicating useful information in their social group. Too bad I can't speak crow and I don't know how much detail there is in crow language.
- jrapdx3 5y agoMy house sits at near tree-top level, Steller's jays are frequent visitors. Like other corvids they're intelligent but also cranky, often contentious critters. The jays absolutely adore peanuts. Fun to watch their peanut selection procedure. They'll pick up a peanut then put it down, pick up another one put it down, maybe go back to first one. We're convinced they're hefting peanuts to select the heaviest. Then there's the occasional very vocal "argument" that breaks out. Bears astonishingly close resemblance to shrill overwrought political "discussions" we've heard, it's hilarious. Without doubt the jays are comedians in the avian community. Curiously crows (abundant around here too) have displayed little interest in the peanuts on offer. OTOH there have been "wars" between the crows and jays, not sure what "issues" precipitated highly vocal confrontations. I assume it was territorial. Significantly there was never any evidence of killed or wounded black or blue participants. Strikes me as sad and shameful that these corvid cousins know more about resolving differences than we humans ever seem to learn.
- cmpb 5y agoEver since I was a kid, whenever I would read things like this or stuff about animals doing human-like things, I always wind up thinking "what would it be like to be <whatever animal> for a day?", and in particular, what exactly _are_ the similarities between human cognition and other animals'. Even as a thought experiment along the lines of "assume we had a machine that could swap brains", it's always seems reasonable to assume that there are certain faculties that we possess that would not translate and would render the experience uncomprehendable (i.e., as a bird, do I even have the ability to actively probe my consciousness, to conceive and remember higher-order thoughts? I've always assumed the answer is a hard no). I find myself wondering more and more if we are more similar than I give animals credit for.
- mitch3x3 5y agoAbout a year ago my dog (~7mo at the time) would lunge at the ravens and try to chase them even though he was on a leash. I changed my route to prevent that behavior, but the ravens remembered both of us. One morning they flew above us with a rotting sausage and dropped it right in front of my dog and waited for him to eat it. I had to pull it out of his mouth and when I looked up the ravens were all watching us. I can’t say for sure, but it certainly felt like revenge.
- dougSF70 5y agoDoes those crows know they won't be flying any time soon?
- pxi 5y agoIs it possible that crows might also have some form of religion?
- costcofries 5y agoBut do they know that they don't know!
- dmje 5y agoThe strangest picture I ever took was of an upside down crow. It's the first load on our band website https://blameclub.com https://blameclub.com I posted it to Reddit at the time and got a bunch of suggestions ranging from "it's dead" to "crows love to play tricks". I never got to the bottom of what was going on.
- mths 5y agoI've seen lorikeets do this outside my home. I've also seen cockatoos do a couple of screaming barrel rolls for seemingly no reason in their fly byes. I think they just like to have a little fun. Alternatively the lorikeet was looking for something to swoop down at.
- stubish 5y agoWe actually get that behavior a lot with parrots. Galahs mostly, but also Corellas and Cockatoos. It is most common to see Galahs hand upside down when there is a light rain, with their wings open and giving their armpits a wash. But not always. Once we caught a Cockatoo spinning three or four times around on a wire like some sort of trapeze artist while another pair looked on, including at one point holding on with a single foot. There seemed to be no reason apart from showing off. I believe that the main reason people think that swans occasionally fly upside down is also just to show off, for shits and giggles. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=galah+upside+down&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=galah+upside+down&t=ffab&iax=image...
- dmje 5y agoWow, that's amazing, thanks for the insight :-)
- harel 5y agoWe have a family of Crows who comes every morning, calls my wife, who gives them some treats and then go about their day. Sometimes they return at noon for lunch. We started leaving them puzzles to get to their food but they solved these pretty quickly. We now need to up our game. Originally it was just a couple. At some point only one came, which meant the other was watching their egg/offspring. Sure enough some time later kiddo joined them. Amazing bird.
- jallbrit 5y agoFascinating. Care to share any puzzles?
- harel 5y agoI think they were meant for dogs originally. One is a round plate with small white 'bone' cases concealing treats underneath. They need to remove the small bones to get to the treats with two difficulty settings - they cracked that in a seconds, but still seem to enjoy 'playing the game'. Another is a transparent tube, with plate like stoppers in different locations. Each stopper can be pulled out with a string, causing the treats on top to drop to the next compartment. When they reach the bottom (3 different 'plates') the crow gets his food. That also seemed just too easy for them. We're now looking for more elaborate games to play with them. Despite all the obvious communication from them, and them being part of our daily life, they are still scared animals and will not get to a arm's length distance. Still, we get what they give, and love them for it. Beautiful entities they are.
- nborwankar 5y agoThis Reddit story was making the rounds a while back. Tells of how to befriend crows and how they could save your life. https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/ki6fnd/oregon_i_accidentally_created_an_army_of_crow/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/ki6fnd/oregon_...
- faangiq 5y agoHigher intelligence is definitely not a human attribute.