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Except that isn't true at all: the history of animal research is one of us assigning all human behavior as "uniquely human, requiring great human intelligence"
by XorNot 3y ago
Except that isn't true at all: the history of animal research is one of us assigning all human behavior as "uniquely human, requiring great human intelligence" and then discovering it's either replicated in detail in other "lower" animals, or replicated by animals which don't have nearly the apparent cognitive capacity for it[1].
We have an enormous history of vastly over-estimating the intelligence needed for some behaviors to manifest, with the more accurate conclusion being that actually we simply don't understand the nature of intelligence very well.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5394149/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5394149/
- Jensson 3y agoYou suggest we under-estimate animal intelligence, which is the same argument I'm making. The reason we underestimate how hard human intelligence is to solve is that we underestimate the animal part of our reasoning, animals can't play chess or do math or write sentences, so when computers do that people assume they are smart like humans. But that assumption hinges on the animal part, like navigating a forest, identifying plants to eat etc, isn't a fundamental part of intelligence or that it is easy to solve in comparison. So yeah, underestimating animal intelligence is a large part of it, I agree with you.