We are vastly overestimating the cognitive capacities of humans, we should in fact have higher respect for other intelligent species living with us.
But the octopusses. The most fascinating part is not really their level of intelligence per se, but that it has evolved from scratch completely independent from us vertebrates. Bona fide aliens in our own backyard. Deep lessons on what converges and what doesn't.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.0095...
Are we close to standardizing on pluralization in English into 's and 'es?
octopuses instead of octopi fishes instead of fish aquariums instead of aquaria
media and mediums diverged a long time ago, but it seems as though the last few years has seen a dramatic shift
oh good golly, a better question might be: how often do you read your own post and realized you already know the answer :)
I've had a bit of an ant infestation at a house I'm renting temporarily and I've been watching them and seen them do some pretty amazing stuff, intelligent stuff. Such as organize themselves in ways to solve pretty complex problems and even try help other injured or dying ants. These are ants, they're tiny little things.
Then I read the article here about killer wales destroying ships and other things they've learned, also the fact they get depressed when in captivity.
I couldn't agree more with you, and I also think it' why we should me more careful with the harms of our technological progress. It's not up to us alone to decide if we deploy some technology that destroys habitats, we should be equally careful when trying to "fix" habitats that we don't do a lot of harm as well.
Yes, but for some fast, short, rough guesses, regard intelligence as thinking that yields advantages in surviving in the real world. Then guess that in general intelligence is a source of effective response to the real world. Then, whatever the size of the evolutionary and/or genetic tree, notice that we are all in the same real world. So, all of our examples of intelligence are effective responses to the same real world and, thus, the many examples might have a lot in common.
Human supremacy is an empirical fact. A little 120 pound guy can hop on the back of an elephant and boss it around for life. I've seen 100 pound women make killer whales beg for treats. If anything we don't have near enough respect for our own awesome power over the other creatures we share this world with.
[1] including of course inventing the necessary physics, math, logic, and actually doing the engineering in addition to pulling off the mission. And, of course, dreaming of doing it.
Edit: If octopuses or dolphins or whatever animal people think is so clever is in fact so clever, then someone should prove it by teaching them some form of durable symbolic information storage system and teach them to teach other members of their species what they have learned. If they can't do that, then they're not even close to as smart as we are, full stop.
If an octopus wants to come up with a better measurement they are welcome to do that but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Maybe get started here and do more research:
I think this lines up with what I consider intelligence. The "we" is the human race and most of us acknowledge we are the most intelligent life on Earth using the measure we invented (retaining, passing on, and using knowledge). I won't be convinced otherwise unless some other being out there proves to us that they can do it better.
Before all that happens I think it'd be better to work out an arrangement where they help us crack some of the mysteries in the ocean first.
Don't you get the problem with your view? You're testing for human cleverness and then assuming all else is generally incompetent. This gets even more tricky when you start actually contemplating consciousness.
Also, can you build a rocket ship and fly to the moon and back? Why do you get to claim the feats of the smartest but other groups of beings do not get that benefit?
I would also venture that the apparent gulf between us and other animals is largely due to writing things down as you have inferred - but the ability to create an external persistent knowledge store is the cause more than the effect; the ability to store and share knowledge likely doesn't require a huge leap in brain power, but it does grant us a huge bonus, and builds on itself.
Just like I have seen 3 pound kittens make 300 pounds women’s rush for treats
By having kids myself I actually started to demote human intelligence. We are smart eventually but it takes a long, long time and there is a mind boggling amount of stupidity before that stage is reached. Our final stage is indeed very impressive, I agree.
All those Disney movies with singing fish and the like has lead to anthropomorphizing and assumptions that are still being reckoned with scientifically.
Octopuses are intelligent, but their nervous system is very different from ours, less centralized. We think they might dream, but it might just be anthropomorphism.