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"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,

"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.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
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 ago
  This 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.
  - thereare5lights 5y ago
    > This 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? This is a logical fallacy which requires "deep thoughts" to evolve the same way we did. As mentioned, pigs are considered to be intelligent and yet you didn't choose to address pigs but instead chose cows. > And no, it doesn't help to say "given pigs are intelligent, then pigs are intelligent". It doesn't help to say that. That's true. It's a good thing no one said that though. > Go on then, say that most humans are stupid therefore "humans are not intelligent". That will be a very productive line of reasoning. It's about as productive a line of reasoning as you cherrypicking cows.
    - jodrellblank 5y ago
      > "As mentioned, pigs are considered to be intelligent and yet you didn't choose to address pigs but instead chose cows." If you're going to start with a conclusion, "animals can be intelligent because pigs are intelligent, QED" where does that get you? Why, exactly, are "pigs considered intelligent"? And, note that I'm not saying animals are dumb as rock, there clearly is some level of intelligence involved in navigating the world, finding food, finding mates, avoiding predators, and a level of difference between say hamsters and elephants. What I'm contesting is something like "approximately all animals must have the same capacity of thought as humans because humans are animals", or the original statement more like "we shouldn't be surprised if tests show animals do have because we should have been assuming that all along even without evidence". > "It doesn't help to say that. That's true. It's a good thing no one said that though." fine, then I don't disagree with your statement that "pigs are considered intelligent" in the sense that "people consider pigs intelligent" but I disagree that they are intelligent in the same way that humans are, and the reason I disagree is that they haven't been proven to be such. Occam's razor, if they haven't been shown to have human-level capacity for (invention, language, music, mirror neurons, communicating abstract information, symbolic manipulation, arithmetic, planning, teamwork), then we shouldn't assume they have it unless necessary.
hnfong 5y ago
Treating other people/animals as inferior because they don't speak "English" has been such a historically common theme that it's surprising you seem to deny it. Nations bent on conquest and colonialism had been using those arguments to justify their actions for centuries. Not to animals but to other humans as well. While it's mostly illegal to do so to humans now, it's still socially acceptable to do the same to animals. We still don't know how human intelligence developed or the evolutionary pressures underlying our intelligence. Using that as an argument to summarily dismiss animal intelligence is a strawman at best, as is your other points - you could easily find humans which are literally dumb as a rock, does that have any bearing on the intelligence we're capable of as a species?
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  > "it's surprising you seem to deny it." I'm not denying that people never treat other people as inferior because they don't speak English. I'm saying the reason people treat hamsters as inferior isn't "because hamsters don't speak English", and that saying that is as uninterestingly dismissive as saying "it's because hamsters don't wear makeup". > "Using that as an argument to summarily dismiss animal intelligence is a strawman at best, as is your other points" No it isn't. If cows have no reason to think thoughts to survive, do not compete with tricksy, planning, vicious cow-enemies on evolutionary timescale, display no visible deep thinking behaviour, cannot visibly communicate deep thoughts to other cows, to say "but they must have them because reasons" is not good logic. Me asking "why star a-priori with 'they must have them?'" is not a strawman or a summary dismissal. > "you could easily find humans which are literally dumb as a rock, does that have any bearing on the intelligence we're capable of as a species?" Your position is that "Some humans are stupid so cows are smart?" Really? Where's the cow Einstein, the hamster Beethoven, the Kangaroo Gandhi, where's the wolf whose face launched a thousand ships, or the beaver who added hydroelectric lighting to their damn? The intelligence humans are capable of as a species has taken over the world, it's bloody obvious, you can't miss it for looking - tool use, machine building, theorem proving, organising on a large scale, on a timescale which outlasts one lifetime while adapting to changing environments on a scale of hours to months not hundreds of lifetimes. The presence of dumb humans doesn't undo that. The absence of all that surely does call into question the intelligence bears are capable of as a species.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

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 ago
This 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.
- thereare5lights 5y ago
  > This 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? This is a logical fallacy which requires "deep thoughts" to evolve the same way we did. As mentioned, pigs are considered to be intelligent and yet you didn't choose to address pigs but instead chose cows. > And no, it doesn't help to say "given pigs are intelligent, then pigs are intelligent". It doesn't help to say that. That's true. It's a good thing no one said that though. > Go on then, say that most humans are stupid therefore "humans are not intelligent". That will be a very productive line of reasoning. It's about as productive a line of reasoning as you cherrypicking cows.
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    > "As mentioned, pigs are considered to be intelligent and yet you didn't choose to address pigs but instead chose cows." If you're going to start with a conclusion, "animals can be intelligent because pigs are intelligent, QED" where does that get you? Why, exactly, are "pigs considered intelligent"? And, note that I'm not saying animals are dumb as rock, there clearly is some level of intelligence involved in navigating the world, finding food, finding mates, avoiding predators, and a level of difference between say hamsters and elephants. What I'm contesting is something like "approximately all animals must have the same capacity of thought as humans because humans are animals", or the original statement more like "we shouldn't be surprised if tests show animals do have because we should have been assuming that all along even without evidence". > "It doesn't help to say that. That's true. It's a good thing no one said that though." fine, then I don't disagree with your statement that "pigs are considered intelligent" in the sense that "people consider pigs intelligent" but I disagree that they are intelligent in the same way that humans are, and the reason I disagree is that they haven't been proven to be such. Occam's razor, if they haven't been shown to have human-level capacity for (invention, language, music, mirror neurons, communicating abstract information, symbolic manipulation, arithmetic, planning, teamwork), then we shouldn't assume they have it unless necessary.

hnfong 5y ago

Treating other people/animals as inferior because they don't speak "English" has been such a historically common theme that it's surprising you seem to deny it. Nations bent on conquest and colonialism had been using those arguments to justify their actions for centuries. Not to animals but to other humans as well. While it's mostly illegal to do so to humans now, it's still socially acceptable to do the same to animals. We still don't know how human intelligence developed or the evolutionary pressures underlying our intelligence. Using that as an argument to summarily dismiss animal intelligence is a strawman at best, as is your other points - you could easily find humans which are literally dumb as a rock, does that have any bearing on the intelligence we're capable of as a species?

jodrellblank 5y ago
> "it's surprising you seem to deny it." I'm not denying that people never treat other people as inferior because they don't speak English. I'm saying the reason people treat hamsters as inferior isn't "because hamsters don't speak English", and that saying that is as uninterestingly dismissive as saying "it's because hamsters don't wear makeup". > "Using that as an argument to summarily dismiss animal intelligence is a strawman at best, as is your other points" No it isn't. If cows have no reason to think thoughts to survive, do not compete with tricksy, planning, vicious cow-enemies on evolutionary timescale, display no visible deep thinking behaviour, cannot visibly communicate deep thoughts to other cows, to say "but they must have them because reasons" is not good logic. Me asking "why star a-priori with 'they must have them?'" is not a strawman or a summary dismissal. > "you could easily find humans which are literally dumb as a rock, does that have any bearing on the intelligence we're capable of as a species?" Your position is that "Some humans are stupid so cows are smart?" Really? Where's the cow Einstein, the hamster Beethoven, the Kangaroo Gandhi, where's the wolf whose face launched a thousand ships, or the beaver who added hydroelectric lighting to their damn? The intelligence humans are capable of as a species has taken over the world, it's bloody obvious, you can't miss it for looking - tool use, machine building, theorem proving, organising on a large scale, on a timescale which outlasts one lifetime while adapting to changing environments on a scale of hours to months not hundreds of lifetimes. The presence of dumb humans doesn't undo that. The absence of all that surely does call into question the intelligence bears are capable of as a species.