Animal Intelligence

[Mr. Pecksniff]

Idk but this guy seems pretty stoked if you ask me

[Dolan]

The mirror test in the wild


[video src="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaMylwohL14" size="large"][/video]

No lab-controlled environment, no rewards, no captive apes that were used regularly in experiments, no researcher-animal relation/interraction, just the raw reactions. ')

[Metis]

Human toddlers can't pass the mirror test either. However, chimpanzee, bonobo, and orangutan can, as can dolphins and many parrots. Note that the chimpanzee eventually settled down and used the mirror like a mirror. The elephant and female gorillas seemed to understand that it was just a reflective surface too. Pretty much, it was just male animals full of hormones that attacked the other "male" in the mirror. In these cases instinct won over cognition. However, this happens in humans too' just look at what happens during riots, when the people mob up and figuratively shit in their own beds by destroying their own neighborhoods.

[Dolan]

Yeah, I''m aware of that, that''s why I posted a video that wasn''t made in the lab or in any controlled environments with animals that have gone through any experiment, so they can''t be suspected to have any degree of conditioned behaviour. What you see in the above video is just the spontaneous reaction to a mirror of animals living in the wild.

On another, related note:

http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2015/11/8/9648320/the-verge-review-of-animals-the-dog
Basically an article on how neoteny as a trait in other animals can manipulate people''s feelings towards animals. For those who don''t know, neoteny is considered one of the main reasons why humans evolved in the shape we know today. Neoteny is a known trait in tame animals, which gradually lose their wild characteristics and become "cuter" and less aggressive. Recognising this trait in other animals can trigger parental instinct in humans.

In other words, yes, you can be manipulated by animals, simply because you evolved to like neotenous traits in your own species. That doesn''t mean they are "aware" of this, but they may condition themselves into a symbiotic relation with humans simply by noticing they can get food for free if they behave in a certain way.

[Metis]

they may condition themselves into a symbiotic relation with humans simply by noticing they can get food for free if they behave in a certain way.

I know someone is going to yell "misogynist" here, but have you ever been around women?

[momuuu]

Human toddlers can''t pass the mirror test either. However, chimpanzee, bonobo, and orangutan can, as can dolphins and many parrots. Note that the chimpanzee eventually settled down and used the mirror like a mirror. The elephant and female gorillas?seemed to understand that it was just a reflective surface too. Pretty much, it was just male animals full of hormones that attacked the other "male" in the mirror. In these cases instinct won over cognition. However, this happens in humans too' just look at what happens during riots, when the people mob up and figuratively?shit in their own beds by destroying their own neighborhoods.

Id strongly doubt those animals consistently recognize themselves in the mirror, but that only a specific few do.

Also, dont babies start recognizing themself in the mirror somewhere betweem the age of 1 and 2?

Oh, another more amazing note about the mirror experiment: the animals see the exact same animal as they are, which would be eqyally strong. Yet the dominant animals tend to show dominant behaviour, while the recessive animals show recessive behaviour.

[deuxballesman]

Human toddlers cant pass the mirror test either. However, chimpanzee, bonobo, and orangutan can, as can dolphins and many parrots. Note that the chimpanzee eventually settled down and used the mirror like a mirror. The elephant and female gorillas?seemed to understand that it was just a reflective surface too. Pretty much, it was just male animals full of hormones that attacked the other "male" in the mirror. In these cases instinct won over cognition. However, this happens in humans too' just look at what happens during riots, when the people mob up and figuratively?shit in their own beds by destroying their own neighborhoods.

Id strongly doubt those animals consistently recognize themselves in the mirror, but that only a specific few do.

Also, dont babies start recognizing themself in the mirror somewhere betweem the age of 1 and 2?

Oh, another more amazing note about the mirror experiment: the animals see the exact same animal as they are, which would be eqyally strong. Yet the dominant animals tend to show dominant behaviour, while the recessive animals show recessive behaviour.

Miroir test is passed for humans between 7 months and two years and for animals most of chimps, orang outan and dolphins pass it too. Gorillas are the only apes for whom it doesnt work.

[Metis]

The best test of self recognition is to place a mark on an animal and then see if it uses the mirror to examine it.

I'll not embed these because the videos seem to be slowing loading of the thread but here are a few examples if you are interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oKieWRzH7g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjl49P_EAw8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lAMzzrjTq0

I performed the mirror test a few times on my nieces. It's funny to see a baby crawl up to a closet door mirror, realize that she can't touch the other baby, and then look behind the door to see if it's in there. My tiny experiment also showed that it's about at 18 months that toddlers begin to recognize themselves in the mirror.

[Dolan]

Tbh, such tests are best done in the wild. All too often those animals you see in videos are "lab veterans", theyve been through a lot of experiments and received lots of rewards for participating in them. Which doesnt mean they have been conditioned to pass the mirror test, but it means theyre not quite so representative of wild type animals behaviours.

As you could see from the video which was shot in the jungle only the chimps behaved as if they recognised themselves in the mirror, most of the other animals either failed it or didnt pay much attention to the mirror. Anyway, the mirror test is not totally conclusive about an animals ability to be self-aware, its just one test among others. It obviously doesnt prove animals who pass it have human-like abilities, it might simply mean they have a basic representation of their physical self in their insula, a sort of protoawareness.

they may condition themselves into a symbiotic relation with humans simply by noticing they can get food for free if they behave in a certain way.

I know someone is going to yell "misogynist" here,&'nbsp'but have you ever been around women?

Yeah, but if some women do it, that doesnt mean all do it. Men dont do it because they dont have a chance to be seen as neotenous, since we are uglier and have more gross/"atavistic" traits.

[momuuu]

One could also question if a mirror test is at all a test to show self recognition/awareness, but rather a test to show the ability to understand some relatively complex mechanic known as the mirror. In the end, if they'd actually be able to realize that the mirror is that, a mirror, that it is simply a reflection of what is in front of it, that's more a sign of raw intelligence.

[Metis]

Tbh, such tests are best done in the wild. All too often those animals you see in videos are "lab veterans", they''ve been through a lot of experiments and received lots of rewards for participating in them. Which doesn''t mean they have been conditioned to pass the mirror test, but it means they''re not quite so representative of wild type animals'' behaviors. .

That''s a valid point and science should always strive to reduce bias wherever possible.

I wonder what would happen if we were to encounter technology that was millennia ahead of our own, such as an extremely lifelike AI hologram. How many people would assume it was another human and for how long?

[musketjr]

One could also question if a mirror test is at all a test to show self recognition/awareness, but rather a test to show the ability to understand some relatively complex mechanic known as the mirror. In the end, if they''d actually be able to realize that the mirror is that, a mirror, that it is simply a reflection of what is in front of it, that''s more a sign of raw intelligence.

"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings' they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."

[Dolan]

Yes, and we're all in the same boat called evolution.

And guess what, many of these animal "nations" are already eating each other, as "sensitive" and painful as it seems to you, this is just nature running its course. Did you know chimpanzees kill for fun? And they also pass the mirror test. So, guess what, again, they have some rudimentary concept of self, they can infer when another animal is feeling pain, but they don't give a fuck.

Eventually if you claim equality in rights, the "natural fallacy" is not possible anymore, because there is no separation between nature and human morality. Morality is just another fact of nature.

[musketjr]

Re read and don't intellectualize

[Dolan]

That's just basically an appeal to think based on emotion, and just forget about arguments. Emotions are not such great counsellors.
Emotions can be self-deceptive, if you're not wise about them.

[Mr. Pecksniff]

That''s just basically an appeal to think based on emotion, and just forget about arguments. Emotions are not such great counsellors.
Emotions can be self-deceptive, if you''re not wise about them.

You underestimate the role our emotions play in our reactions to the world.

[Dolan]

No

[Jam]

Yes

[Mr. Pecksniff]

No

Stop being so emotional!

[_venox_]

I'd say that it would be wrong to consider emotions and thoughts completely apart from one another' most thoughts carry an emotional "weight" with them already. If you consider thoughts to be a specific change in connection patterns and functional sequences like I do, then emotions are basically the same. Thoughts and emotions have a different impact on us though, that may be why some say that emotions aren't great counsellors.

Everything can be self-deceptive if you're not wise about it, especially thoughts structured in a way that they form a belief, which, if not rooted in reality can have devastating consequences. BTW You can't "think based on emotions", you, Dolan, probably meant that one shouldn't make decisions by valuing ones current emotional status too highly. Thoughts are a powerful tool if used to solve a problem or plan ahead, but emotions tell you your inner state well being, which shouldn't be neglected.
If you were to feel worse and worse each day emotionally, sooner or later your desire to change your emotional well being will take over your rational judgement and habits' emotions aren't worthless as some portray them to be.

Cheeryo

[Dolan]

Yeah, but what musketjr was saying was something to this effect: let's stop thinking and looking for reasons and just assume we're all one big family on the planet, because solipsism is the best. I think that's too extreme. We may be in the same evolutionary boat on this planet, but surely we're not one big family. Family don't eat family!

[Metis]

We may be in the same evolutionary boat on this planet, but surely we're not one big family. Family don't eat family!

Correct.

Animal life feeds on other life. You can be as "ethical" as you want and you still are going to have to kill to survive. Even if you were to consume only artificially synthesized nutrients, you would still kill. Neither the pathogens that are trying to eat you, nor your immune systems that kills them, are going to stop just because of your values.

If you want to kill as little as possible then eat only large animals. One beef cow has about a half a million calories of meat, which would feed you for 250 days. A bushel of wheat, containing a million baby wheat plants, can make about 95 loaves of whole wheat bread. One loaf of bread is about a day's calories. Therefore, by eating bread versus a cow you will kill over two and a half million times more living beings.

[musketjr]

Yeah, but what musketjr was saying was something to this effect: let's stop thinking and looking for reasons and just assume we're all one big family on the planet, because solipsism is the best. I think that's too extreme. We may be in the same evolutionary boat on this planet, but surely we're not one big family. Family don't eat family!

1 - Henry Beston wrote what you're responding to
2 - You haven't understood what he wrote

[musketjr]

We may be in the same evolutionary boat on this planet, but surely we're not one big family. Family don't eat family!

Correct.

Animal life feeds on other life. You can be as "ethical" as you want and you still are going to have to kill to survive. Even if you were to consume only artificially synthesized nutrients, you would still kill. Neither the pathogens that are trying to eat you, nor your immune systems that kills them, are going to stop just because of your values.

If you want to kill as little as possible then eat only large animals. One beef cow has about a half a million calories of meat, which would feed you for 250 days. A bushel of wheat, containing a million baby wheat plants, can make about 95 loaves of whole wheat bread. One loaf of bread is about a day's calories. Therefore, by eating bread versus a cow you will kill over two and a half million times more living beings.

You can't be "I'm all about the science, me" then actually resort to 'plants tho' when discussing this. 'Plants tho' is not valid: use your intelligence.

As for the reason you resorted to that, it's easier than admitting there is no justification beyond 'I like how it tastes'.

Final point: not that I should humour 'plants tho', but, to humour it - if the killing of plants concerns you, then you kill many more plants to produce meat than if you were to eat the plants directly.

Good luck scientist!

[Dolan]

2 - You haven't understood what he wrote

Should I believe you on your say-so? I actually wrote some arguments, you just come here and paste quotes, then tell me I didn't understand the quote. Maybe if you took the time to actually develop an argument, your position would be taken more seriously.

But for now, your position seems to be based on some kind of emotional solipsism, from what I could tell from that quote.