Rats learned to drive
theconversation.com
theconversation.com
He has mastered it. He clearly understands the concept of roads vs sidewalks. He can drive using one hand. And most importantly, he obviously has a great time doing that.
So chill!
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=dog+skating&iax=videos&ia=v...
In fact, given the dimensionality of all possible fitness gradients, our direction of evolution is likely near-orthogonal to theirs.
Can't wait to hear an ape argue that online.
Oh, wait.
https://www.youtu.be/IFACrIx5SZ0 orangutan the carpenter
https://www.youtu.be/PcvH1eOjOVs parrot drives his own car
https://youtu.be/IFACrIx5SZ0 orangutan the carpenter
https://youtu.be/PcvH1eOjOVs parrot drives his own car
Someone, at some point, said lets see if the Orangutan can drive the golf cart, and presumably no one said "NO! That's an awful idea"...
Then not only did it learn, it got good at it and seems to enjoy it...
I just really don't understand how this came about. How did it learn to do this. The initial phases must have been just constant crashing into stuff. How on earth did it ever get past this without a teacher being able to communicate with it.
I have so many questions.
Why would you assume that?
It didn't learn by trial and error, it watched and copied another ape.
Golf carts aren't massively complicated.
For anyone having, being friends with, are interested in cats will recognize this behavior. If you meet a cat on the street and it raises its tail like this, it will also probably come up to you. A cat that sweeps the tail back and fort, often with the end of it a bit jerky is probably afraid, angry, hesitant and does not want to engage. It should be left alone unless you want to feel the sharp end of those retractable razor blades.
Cats also use the same patterns between each other. And interestingly some dogs use the same patterns too. Tiger puppies seem to do this also (as seen in documentaries). So, at least to me, there seems to be common 'language' to express feelings and interests between some animals equipped with tails.
I would have thought this should have been a known thing, possibly even for the driving rat scientists. Anybody on HN that have some references into known ´tail language´?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08G8u7sk2Jo
A different one, in a home environment:
I'm not sure if english is your first language or you intended it like that but saying that someone is living a "fake life" also sounds quite offensive and arrogant.
I used 'fake' because this is nothing like a natural human life, nor a natural rat life.
I don't get grinding at work to buy your pet rat a new car, no.
“If one could run without getting tired, I don’t think one would often want to do anytrung else?”
As a runner, I agree. :)
https://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Motorcycle-Ralph-Book-ebook/dp/...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/goldfish-driving-1.6309485
>>> Surprisingly, it doesn't take the fish a long time to learn how to drive the vehicle. They're confused at first. They don't know what's going on. But they're very quick to realize that there is a correlation between their movement and the movement of the machine that they're in.
As good as it sounds, I have my reservations about it showing "that a fish has the cognitive capability to navigate outside its natural environment".
Rather it seems to me the fish is just swimming in the direction of the treat, as it would do _inside_ its natural environment, and the car translates that directional push - I don't see a real "driving" coordination in the sense of a motoric abstraction based on a learning of cause and effect.
I doubt the fish are in any way "aware" of what's happening, or even that it's happening distinctly outside their environment. They're just swimming instinctively, adopting to what I imagine might a feel like a strong breaking current and a boop on the nose. Some might be more adept at this than others. After all they're captive animals that probably don't have much experience navigating challenging environments, not even aquatic ones.
I highly suspect "driving" via levers or buttons like the rats do would be beyond of what can be reasonably expected from a goldfish brain anyway.
As a kind of mental cross-check of the claim, I'd expect, say, a moth to be able to "drive" just the same way towards a light - and it would be pretty obvious there's no deeper cognition involved.
That is absolutely adorable and wonderful!
Seriously though, I wonder if they drive to please the researchers (to any degree).
But maybe the rats will be smarter.
Mind you, I don't think the rats would enjoy it as much if they had to share the road with the kind of rats I share it with, and if the penalty for crashing (or being crashed into) was as high.
Here in the Netherlands, we arguably have some of the most bike and pedestrian friendly infrastructure in the world. Guess what, we also have a very well respected car infrastructure with high quality highways and connections.
Focussing on other modes of transport isn't banning cars, it is making cars optional for those who choose to do so. Or worded differently, it gives people a choice.
With that out of the way, the title here on HN is misleading. It is not so much about driving but enrichment in general.
But you can combine best of both world experiences, being compressed in a bus, stuck in a middle of stop and go traffic.