Newfound brain structure explains why some birds are so smart
sciencemag.org
sciencemag.org
Another of his books that particularly sheds light on the unimaginably mature navigation skills and the ultraendurance of our avian brethren: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-homing-instinct-bernd-h...
Simply because we cannot speak a common language we assume creatures are drones with no intelligence or emotion, until we can somehow prove otherwise.
It almost speaks more to the human psyche than anything else.
One thing I think regarding AI is it has shown Is just how complex the behaviors of these “simple” creatures really are.
We do have interesting sub systems and they do have great utility. Not to crap on what is done.
But my cat can do things nothing we make can.
Is a pareto frontier of awareness? Trading off the increased cognitive ability it likely supplies with the increased energy consumption it requires. Whats interesting about some of these findings is, in addition to of course the pure science of it, that self-awareness may offer more benefits than previously thought.
This could have implications beyond biological understanding, perhaps in building AI agents for example.
The self.
A computer in a box lacks this. Everything we make lacks this so far.
Biotech is going to change that, IMHO.
Not sure electro mechanical can get there. At least not yet, though we are getting really good at it.
One of the interesting point was how we tend to humanize "evil" objects which clearly have no intent: being angry at a mouse that does not work, some software that crashes, or feeling the printer hates us.
We do seems to have animism as a built-in mental device.
I know plenty of individuals who are more-expert, more scientific than any scientist publishing papers funded by poorly designed incentive structures between education, research, monetary incentive, and survival.
There's a lot of "clique politics" within the academia of science and it deeply troubles me. It's largely based on the university system being in control of it and the processes that contribute to that structure.
Luckily it does seem to be getting more attention so that is good. Additionally the trend towards self-organization with the internet and wherever that leads us will most likely lead to new structures that allow more freedom of information within science to propagate without as much dependence on centralized entities being corrupted and tainting the scientific process.
Outside of that, my critique here is largely based on various modes within Functionalism (theory of mind)
> In an analogous manner, the role of mental states, such as belief and desire, is determined by the functional or causal role that is designated for them within our best scientific psychological theory. If some mental state which is postulated by folk psychology (e.g. hysteria) is determined not to have any fundamental role in cognitive psychological explanation, then that particular state may be considered not to exist . On the other hand, if it turns out that there are states which theoretical cognitive psychology posits as necessary for explanation of human behavior but which are not foreseen by ordinary folk psychological language, then these entities or states exist.
I think the solve I'm looking for is required on both ends to communicate truth and "fuzziness" of truth. I'm not sure if English and current languages will ever trend towards this because every statement has a value of assigned truth based on existence/to-be. So short-term would be communicating the meme of this through the zeitgeist/noosphere and embed it within the culture - then potentially evolve towards a language that is fuzzy based.
And if you want to preach about better communicating uncertainty and statistics then I am afraid you're preaching to the choir in a particularly ranty sermon.
Yes there are plenty of uncertainties, but those uncertainties cut both ways.
It’s not like nobody realizes that we don’t have flawless definitions for “self-aware”, “intelligent”, or even “life”. Or that the experiments we devise to test for these things come from our own experiences and bias, and might exclude creatures with novel presentations of these traits.
But they’re the best we have for now. And smart people have spent countless lifetimes trying to improve upon what we have, attempting to broaden these categories and their testing apparatuses without expanding the definitions past the point of usefulness.
So, yes, we get it. Everyone knows our tests and definitions aren’t perfect. We know they’ll exclude life forms with presentations of these traits that we haven’t even conceived of. Not only doesn’t science have all the answers yet, but it hasn’t even agreed on the wording of the questions yet. Pointing this out for the thirteen trillionth time just isn’t useful or insightful.
I understand your point though, and I'm sorry if it came off as an attack. It's a criticism rooted in a few things. I typed up more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24601665
Sometimes people are well aware of the problems and are actively trying to solve them.
It’s like popping into a discussion of general relativity and “helpfully” chiming in with the criticism that “But we know GR must be wrong, since it’s incompatible with quantum mechanics.”
I will be more mindful of my ranting. Thanks for sharing.
But pack animals? Maybe. We don't have an answer to how our own self awareness works, so we're largely working in the dark.
These are psychological motives and forces and their factual impact on the subject person is observable.
I just recently saw Eien no Zero (aka The Eternal Zero). If that movie reflects the actual events, then the pilots were subject to serious psychological stress coming to terms with their duty to Japan.
If we can ever measure 'psychological stress' in ants, then we can observe if they experience a shift from a normal psychological state to a stressful one before "deciding" to sacrifice themselves on whatever heroic ant task awaits them.
(Philosophers are definitely not self-abnegating. They are on a career track. Soldier do exhibit self-sacrifice, but quite a lot are conscripted against their will, and require a bit of re-education in boot-camp.)
And who's to say what actions are "free will" (whatever that means) over instincts?
Is it that obvious? Mine gets scared by her own farts sometimes.
Wikipedia says "While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and lifestyle, self-awareness is the recognition of that awareness."
Compilation of such reactions that was posted on HN a fee days ago: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jto2peSOLac
Cats grow old too. They have time to learn.
I've always thought a good mirror test shouldn't be just a mark, but something that looks like a venomous insect, to stimulate the subject to look for it.
Similarly when she walked by and we wave she immediately snaps her hear around to look at us.
Certainly seems like she understands mirrors and never treated a dog in the mirror as anything but herself.
Would you conclude from it that Kenyan children are less (or not at all) "self-aware" than Canadian ones? Or that the leap from "recognize reflection" to "self-awareness" is unjustified?
Edit, nevermind, there's a whole paragraph on that towards the end:
> It may be important to note the general use of mirrors in each of the cultures. Although we did not include an independent measure of the extent and nature of mirror experience in these cul-tures, the experimenters visited many homes in these various communities. Although mirrors are present in most non-Western and all Western homes, their use varies considerably. It is more conspicuously and frequently used in the West, compared to any of the other cultures considered here. Western children are more likely to have shared mirror exposure with others or to have seen themselves in a mirror in the presence of others, a situation presumably unfamiliar to the non-Western children we tested. The unfamiliarity with public mirror exposure may be linked to the enhanced “freezing” behavior by non-Western children, particularly when discovering that their face is marked. This inhibition may correspond to the fact that children do not know how to behave, one way or another, in this context.
In contrast, research with humans suggests that children’s relative familiarity with mirrors, which greatly varies across contexts, does not correlate with the age at which the mark test is passed (Priel & deSchonen, 1986). Priel and deShonen (1986) tested Bedouin nomadic children with no previous mirror experience and compared them to same-age Israeli children familiar with mirrors. They found no significant difference in the developmental onset of MSR between mirror familiar and unfamiliar children.
It does not necessarily mean that familiarity with mirrors would cause/improve self-awareness, it could just mean that the test subject would have to learn how to use it or associate the visual stimulus with the concept of self. On the other hand it doesn't exclude the possibility that a mirror can be helpful in learning something related to the self.
I think it’s more that scientists have tried testing animals for self-awareness for many years, and most animals fail any test they’ve devised. Maybe this is just a failure of testing, but I don’t think it indicates a widespread assumption among the public that animals are emotionless drones.
Sponges lack a CNS. I am quite confident that they have no self-awareness. C. elegans has 302 neurons. I am fairly confident that it has no self-awareness by any useful definition thereof. At some point a brain will be sufficiently complex for the possibility of self-awareness, but that does not guarantee that it arises. And even when it arises it might be weak (e.g. the animal might have to be given many opportunities to realize it) or only true according to some definitions and not others. So since not all animals have self-awareness it is then a matter of default position. Do you assume they're likely to have it until proven otherwise or vice versa? Considering that by raw numbers there are more simple animals than complex ones the latter position isn't all that unreasonable.
And most physicists think free will is bunk and therefore we are not self-aware, everything is an illusion.
Unless we agree to call “life long conditioning, genetic makeup, trauma responses, habitual responses, present emotional state, thoughts and beliefs, environment, stimuli, any and all cultural influences, present blood sugar, hormonal levels, pulse, all preferences associated with avoidance of pain and striving for pleasure etc.” and a bunch of other factors which factors are absolutely out of our control, “free will”.
Once I started unpacking the phrase it became nonsensical.
I'm not entirely sure what consciousness means, but dogs (and other animals) show a wide range of emotions, and monkeys are crafty troublemakers, much like humans.
It's often frustratingly difficult to go from the known to the proven; still, just because something's not proved doesn't mean that scientists are ignoring it.
It rides a "sled" down a snowy roof, then carries the sled back up to the top, stands on it, and pecks it get it started.