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I don’t know why these things are surprising. To me, the assumption that animals can’t do things we later discovered they could do is the surprising thing. Su

I don’t know why these things are surprising. To me, the assumption that animals can’t do things we later discovered they could do is the surprising thing. Such arrogance we humans have.

lll-o-lll 2y ago
Because they have such little brains. When I look at a crow, I think - not much room for brains in there.
- dasyatidprime 2y ago
  Among other things, avian brains have a higher density of neurons than mammalian ones! https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2822%2901221-0 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%282... seems to be a primer on some of the differences.
- pajeets 2y ago
  parrots too are extremely smart. I swear they know how to perform basic math and know what things are called.
- CuriouslyC 2y ago
  We're finding through LLM research that smaller models aren't necessarily dumber, so much as their intelligence is more limited in terms of domains and knowledge encoding ability. Those small brains might have limited knowledge encoding ability, but that doesn't mean they can't reason about the things they have encoded.
- naikrovek 2y ago
  What does size have to do with anything? We should not assume that the human brain size to brain capability ratio is the highest in nature, or even that it’s in the top half of all creatures. Humans are just arrogant and overconfident. We’re an incredibly flawed species and we’ve created incredibly flawed societies.
imoverclocked 2y ago
Earth isn’t the center of the universe, either. Our arrogance goes way back :) I think our arrogance is also part of why we succeed as a species.
nkrisc 2y ago
I think it is at least a bit surprising. There is clearly something different between humans and all other animals.
- nradov 2y ago
  That seems true, and yet when we try to pin down specific differences there always seem to be exceptions. Like chimpanzees making stone tools. There's a spectrum of intelligence, not a binary difference between humans and everything else. https://www.livescience.com/which-animals-use-stone-tools https://www.livescience.com/which-animals-use-stone-tools
  - card_zero 2y ago
    So, it seems true and seems not true. I agree, that's how it seems.
- anonyfox 2y ago
  Biological Jackpot advantages, or: sheer luck. 1. we do not live underwater, so lots of tools and stuff possible (iE: fire). 2. we have usable hands with thumbs. This allows much better tooling. Ravens only have their beak and are comparatively handicapped in technical developments. 3. we do not die during/after reproduction. This allows for accumulation of knowledge instead of every generation starting to learn from scratch. That’s octopus handicap. 4. we have reasonably enough raw strength and compensate weaknesses with social groups and tools/weapons to eliminate basically all competition where we lived. And managed to increase food production for exponential population growth, again some way of tooling ultimately. … so it for me boils down to the fact that we, among several intelligent species, have been the lucky ones to leverage tooling in the most efficient way. And especially ravens/crows are absolutely in the ballpark of humans when it comes to intelligence. They have actual language to communicate facts to others, they have social structures/rituals similar to ours, they make tools to accomplish goals, even with multi-step-plans. Heck, they even „use“ other animals like wolves: since they are not capable of opening a fresh deer corpse to get to the meat, they search for the nearest wolf and guide him to the corpse for win-win food sharing… some wolf packs have even been seen essentially protecting raven flocks/eggs, so ravens literally can have kinda dogs.
shermantanktop 2y ago
It cuts both ways. We've discounted animal abilities out of arrogance, but we've also paid attention to those abilities that most remind us of ourselves. In this case, crows are doing something that is interesting but doesn't appear to be spontaneous tool-making but rather a form of mimicry that may have hard-wired instinctive basis. Is it human-like learning? Is it "smart" the way a human is smart? Doesn't look like it.
Xerox9213 2y ago
Maybe not surprising, but exciting! This kind of pessimistic take is what really surprises me. Crows can make mental templates, this is something we didn't know earlier, and is really neat, as far as I can tell.

I don’t know why these things are surprising. To me, the assumption that animals can’t do things we later discovered they could do is the surprising thing. Such arrogance we humans have.

lll-o-lll 2y ago

Because they have such little brains. When I look at a crow, I think - not much room for brains in there.

dasyatidprime 2y ago
Among other things, avian brains have a higher density of neurons than mammalian ones! https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2822%2901221-0 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%282... seems to be a primer on some of the differences.
pajeets 2y ago
parrots too are extremely smart. I swear they know how to perform basic math and know what things are called.
CuriouslyC 2y ago
We're finding through LLM research that smaller models aren't necessarily dumber, so much as their intelligence is more limited in terms of domains and knowledge encoding ability. Those small brains might have limited knowledge encoding ability, but that doesn't mean they can't reason about the things they have encoded.
naikrovek 2y ago
What does size have to do with anything? We should not assume that the human brain size to brain capability ratio is the highest in nature, or even that it’s in the top half of all creatures. Humans are just arrogant and overconfident. We’re an incredibly flawed species and we’ve created incredibly flawed societies.

imoverclocked 2y ago

Earth isn’t the center of the universe, either. Our arrogance goes way back :) I think our arrogance is also part of why we succeed as a species.

nkrisc 2y ago

I think it is at least a bit surprising. There is clearly something different between humans and all other animals.

nradov 2y ago
That seems true, and yet when we try to pin down specific differences there always seem to be exceptions. Like chimpanzees making stone tools. There's a spectrum of intelligence, not a binary difference between humans and everything else. https://www.livescience.com/which-animals-use-stone-tools https://www.livescience.com/which-animals-use-stone-tools
- card_zero 2y ago
  So, it seems true and seems not true. I agree, that's how it seems.
anonyfox 2y ago
Biological Jackpot advantages, or: sheer luck. 1. we do not live underwater, so lots of tools and stuff possible (iE: fire). 2. we have usable hands with thumbs. This allows much better tooling. Ravens only have their beak and are comparatively handicapped in technical developments. 3. we do not die during/after reproduction. This allows for accumulation of knowledge instead of every generation starting to learn from scratch. That’s octopus handicap. 4. we have reasonably enough raw strength and compensate weaknesses with social groups and tools/weapons to eliminate basically all competition where we lived. And managed to increase food production for exponential population growth, again some way of tooling ultimately. … so it for me boils down to the fact that we, among several intelligent species, have been the lucky ones to leverage tooling in the most efficient way. And especially ravens/crows are absolutely in the ballpark of humans when it comes to intelligence. They have actual language to communicate facts to others, they have social structures/rituals similar to ours, they make tools to accomplish goals, even with multi-step-plans. Heck, they even „use“ other animals like wolves: since they are not capable of opening a fresh deer corpse to get to the meat, they search for the nearest wolf and guide him to the corpse for win-win food sharing… some wolf packs have even been seen essentially protecting raven flocks/eggs, so ravens literally can have kinda dogs.

shermantanktop 2y ago

It cuts both ways. We've discounted animal abilities out of arrogance, but we've also paid attention to those abilities that most remind us of ourselves. In this case, crows are doing something that is interesting but doesn't appear to be spontaneous tool-making but rather a form of mimicry that may have hard-wired instinctive basis. Is it human-like learning? Is it "smart" the way a human is smart? Doesn't look like it.

Xerox9213 2y ago

Maybe not surprising, but exciting! This kind of pessimistic take is what really surprises me. Crows can make mental templates, this is something we didn't know earlier, and is really neat, as far as I can tell.