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Author | Topic: Animal and Extraterrestrial Intelligent Design? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1508 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I'm not suggesting that any animals have 'human-scale
intelligence' (and that includes some humans i have met ). I am saying that starting with the assumption that they do notis as erroneous as starting with the assupmtion that they do, and this results in biased interpretation of behavioural observations. To put it another way, assuming that other animals do not havean intelligence similar in structure/function to humans precludes a whole set of possible explanations of some behaviours. Precluded not by reasoning or experimentation, but by assumingthat they do not possess intelligence in the first place. It closes the door on possible scenarios. Chimps aren't the only ones who appear to reason out solutionseither. Some examples exists of birds that appear to reason .. oh, but I forgot, the assumption that humanity is the only source of intelligence on the planet has led mainstream behaviourists to state categorically (and without investigation) that it's just trial and error at work ... or instinct ... or ...? Example: Let's assume that the entire population of the planet excepta handful of people and a few dozen species of animal were wiped out by a global flood 4500 years ago. We'll base all our interpretations of data upon that 'fact'. I wonder what wonderful theories/explanations would spring fromthat unsupported assumption
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lpetrich Inactive Member |
Peter, please calm down. I'm willing to accept evidence of mental modeling, but it has to be something difficult to explain by instinct or conditioning or trial-and-error, like chimp problem solving.
I am saying that starting with the assumption that they do notis as erroneous as starting with the assupmtion that they do, and this results in biased interpretation of behavioural observations. So both hypotheses deserve equal weight? I disagree. Occam's Razor and falsifiability tend to favor the non-intelligence-based hypotheses. To put it another way, assuming that other animals do not havean intelligence similar in structure/function to humans precludes a whole set of possible explanations of some behaviours. Occam's Razor is not the same as dogmatic dismissal; placing the burden of proof on support of certain hypotheses is not the same as ruling them out. Precluded not by reasoning or experimentation, but by assumingthat they do not possess intelligence in the first place. It closes the door on possible scenarios. There is no need for such sarcasm. Chimps aren't the only ones who appear to reason out solutionseither. Some examples exists of birds that appear to reason .. oh, but I forgot, the assumption that humanity is the only source of intelligence on the planet has led mainstream behaviourists to state categorically (and without investigation) that it's just trial and error at work ... or instinct ... or ...? Again, there is no need for such sarcasm. I think that the evidence is strong for chimps' reasoning abilities, and possibly those of certain birds. But in most species, such abilities are absent, however useful they might be.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1508 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Apologies for any offence ... I do tend to get a little
worked up around this issue. The problem for me is not so much that the two hypothesesneed equal weight, but that the 'intelligent' hypotheses needs at least a passing comment rather than complete dismissal. quote: Not intentionally, I'm sure, but the above comment is thekind of subconscious bias that I am referring to. It implies that 'intelligence' behind a behaviour is thelast port of call. Occam's razor is all about the simplest explanations being themost likely correct ones, but I fail to see how 'instinct' is any easier to explain than 'intelligence'. Assuming that they are on some kind of continuum, they are just facets of the same mental 'feature'. I concede that the thought of honey bees having any formof reasoning ability is not one that springs readily to the mind ... but does that mean it is impossible? Have people studied the possibility? We don't really understand where our own intelligence comes from,or how that is related to the brain (I'm not suggesting any Descartian separation between brain and mind here). Hope that was calmer In essence all I am saying is that an unsupported assumptionbiases any investigation ... it at least bears a quick glance, surely.
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lpetrich Inactive Member |
Peter:
The problem for me is not so much that the two hypotheses need equal weight, but that the 'intelligent' hypotheses needs at least a passing comment rather than complete dismissal. In science, one gets a hypothesis taken seriously by proposing some serious explanatory value, not by whining about all the orthodox oxen in the world. I'm willing to accept evidence of mental modeling, but it has to be something difficult to explain by instinct or conditioning or trial-and-error, like chimp problem solving. It implies that 'intelligence' behind a behaviour is thelast port of call. Why not? Why not work out a strategy for recognizing it instead of whining about how rejected it is? Let us consider something that may require intelligence. The Escherichia coli bacterium can eat lactose, turning it into smaller sugars, which are then metabolized. These bacteria do so with the help of the enzyme beta-galactosidase, which they produce only when there is lactose to metabolize. Does a tiny little E. coli bacterium have some intelligence? Does an E. coli bacterium think to itself "I see some lactose; I ought to produce beta-galactosidase so I can live off of it"? Not at all. What happens was discovered by Jacques Monod and other molecular biologists some decades ago. Beta-galactosidase and related genes are grouped together in the lac operon. Near it is a site for the lac-repressor protein molecule to bind to the chromosome; this molecule will inhibit the transcription of the lac genes. But when lactose arrives, it binds to the lac repressor, changing its shape, and such a repressor molecule on the chromosome will fall off, allowing the lac genes to be transcribed for consuming the lactose. And when the lactose is gone, the repressor can again bind to the chromosome, inhibiting the production of now-unnecessary proteins. And numerous other such regulatory mechanisms have since been discovered; here is a nice page on gene regulation. Now consider a certain sort of behavior that E. coli has. This bacterium has a flagellum, and will swim toward higher concentrations of its food. Does it do that by intelligence? However, a mechanism has been discovered for this behavior, which can be expressed as pseudocode: At each time: If Concentration >= PreviousConcentrationRun flagellum forward, making straight-line motion Else Run flagellum backward, making random change in direction End PreviousConcentration gets Concentration End Instinct or intelligence? Occam's razor is all about the simplest explanations being themost likely correct ones, but I fail to see how 'instinct' is any easier to explain than 'intelligence'. Assuming that they are on some kind of continuum, they are just facets of the same mental 'feature'. I am a computer programmer. And I know from experience that "artificial instincts" are MUCH easier to produce than "artificial intelligence". Essentially all of the software that we use may be called "artificial instinct" software. Human-scale intelligence has been very difficult to produce in software; most software has fallen far short. From the 1950's to the 1970's, there were lots of optimistic predictions about the progress of AI; however, such predictions have failed miserably. The famous Turing Test is whether one can distinguish some chatterbot software from a "normal" human conversant; all chatterbot software to date has fared miserably. My own experience has been that chatterbots are almost unspeakably dumb. I concede that the thought of honey bees having any formof reasoning ability is not one that springs readily to the mind ... but does that mean it is impossible? Have people studied the possibility? I don't know if anyone has considered it, but bee behavior is mostly unlearned and stereotyped, so instinct is the most plausible hypothesis here.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1508 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
What you have described for E.Coli is, in effect, the proposal
of a 'mechanism' which is then tested. The experimentation bears out the proposal ... therefore that is a likely explanation. What I am whining about is the use of untested assumptions asthe basis for other research. It has been such a widespread belief that no other animals have'intelligence' that it's rarely looked at unless the possibility is slapped in a researcher's face. Re: Honey Bees ... if the issue has not been looked out to yourknowledge, then your conclusion is based upon an assumption rather than on any direct knowledge or evaluation process. The objection I have is not about animal intelligence ... it'sabout founding thoery on unsupported assumption .. exactly the way creationists do.
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John Inactive Member |
quote: No it doesn't. What you said was that:
The honey-bees behaviour doesn't sound like something that would normally be put down to 'instinct' does it? It involves measurment, lobbying, and a democratic process ... Well, why not? The behavior, though outwardly complicated can be duplicated with a minimal ruleset, so why can't it be 'instinct'? It appears that you are arguing that 'measurment, lobbying, and a democratic process' are too complicated to be explained by instinct. My response is that they aren't necessarily complicated, so why is it outside the realm of 'instinct'. ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
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Peter Member (Idle past 1508 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I'm not saying that it isn't.
I'm saying that just because we can mimic it simplydoesn't mean that's how it actually happens. Building something that does the same thing doesn't meanwe are doing it the same way.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
First off, I'd just like to say that my reading of the above exchange sees two very similar lines of argument; I'm not sure theres a lot of disagreement here.
quote: What we can do is, take the sophisticated model and figure out how to break it in a manner that would not apply to the simple model. Then we can implement a similar scenario on the real thing, and see if it breaks that way. In so doing we can determine which model is more accurate.
quote: I'm not so sure about that. I'm very supportive of arguments to non-human intelligence; I do not think that human intelligence is special in any particular way. That said, we have a very high proportion of brain mass to body mass by comparison to many other organisms. This seems to suggest to me that we can at least consider sapience to be as mechanical property occurring in brain matter. In that case it would not be unreasonable to see ourselves as being unusually intelligent. All that it might mean is that some other animals with big brains, or good proportions of brain:body mass, might also be intelligent on our terms. I think the great apes are pretty smart. (probably) Not as smart as us, but smart enough that Jane Goodall and other Gorilla researchers have reported a profound sense of recognition passing betweem human and ape (or between ape and ape, we might say). I privately suspect that some species of cetacean are (at least) as intelligent as we are. I am aware this is still a controversial claim, but I expect that further research will bear it out eventually. Anyway, the point being that seeing intelligence as being fundamentally mechanical (which I do) and not a special property of humanity (which I don't) still allows us to claim quantitative distinctions without, IMO, massive injections of hubris. We do know that we don't live the same way as most animals, even those who are our closest relatives.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1508 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Without being able to delve inside the 'real thing' (which onewould assume otherwise why need to model) the above is not possible practically. We only have control over the 'inputs' and can observe the'ouput' ... i.e. black-box analysis. We can devise several models that all match the I/Oproperties so how do we choose between them? quote: But brain mass isn't directly related to intelligence. Thereare children in the UK (some now in late teens) that have something like 10% (I think ...I'll check but it's significantly reduced in any case) of the normal brain mass ... but operate normally and some with higher than average 'intelligence' in an analytic sense. My main gripe is the apparent lack of consideration of intelligenceat all. For example, critics of 'sign language' learning apes have actually come out and said 'Yes, but they aren't using langauge they are just mimicing' This tends to be after limited exposure. I think there are a proportion of people who feel threatenedby the idea that other animals have intelligence ... maybe they ODed on 'Planet of the Apes' as kids or something
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
If you are refering to the work of John Lorber with hydrocephalics, showcased in a TV documentary entitled 'Is your brain really neccessary'. Then the reduction was described as being 'in the wall of the cerebrum' where the normally 4-5 mm thick cerebral cortex had been compacted to only 1mm in thickness, it was not clear if there was an actual reduction in cell number or just a compression of the normal volume. There is clearly a large reduction in the volume of grey matter however.
Some other sites refering to this research misinterpret such as
Instead of two hemispheres filling the cranial cavity, some 4.5 centimetres deep, the student had less than 1 millimetre of cerebral tissue covering the top of his spinal column. From the website alternative science The difference between 4-5mm and 1 mm is substantial, but certainly not as dramatic as that between 4-5cm and 1mm. Sadly even No webpage found at provided URL: New Scientist quotes the normal thickness as 45 mm.
This article in PNAS however clearly shows that the thickness of the grey matter varies between 1 and 4.5 mm. Somehow the 45 mm figure crept in and has become the more prevalent one in pages which refer to Lorber's study. [This message has been edited by Wounded King, 06-27-2003] [This message has been edited by Wounded King, 06-27-2003]
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MrHambre Member (Idle past 1422 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
I have no problem with the notion of animal intelligence. So many of the long-held myths about humans being the only organisms who use tools or language have turned out to be exaggerations or outright lies. It's time for humans to develop a little respect for the other organisms on our planet.
The matter is one of degree and not of the 'essence' of intelligence, but I still believe the matter is one of great degree. True, vervet monkeys have been shown to have a vocabulary of defined screeches to convey different messages, and apes have been taught to use sign language. The ravings of some of our fellow correspondents here should be enough to make us realize that the basis of speech is conditioned behavior. However, language is much more than that. I don't mean to steer this discussion into linguistics. It's been firmly established that humans have a language system hard-wired into our brains (the legacy of eons of evolution), and that a human's linguistic sophistication cannot be the result of a few years of stimulus-response exercises. Incidentally, I was indeed a big 'Planet of the Apes' fan, and can't help but be reminded of that fine Charlton Heston performance every time I get shot in the neck.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1508 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Oh ... I'll have to check that out ... thanks.
Maybe not as significant then to the point at hand... although at least it suggests that brain mass is not necessarily relevent to intelligence level.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1508 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: It's not just vervet monkeys ... mere cats have a vocab. too(at least 'snake!!!' and 'eagle!!!" anyhow ), and don't dolphins have a 'unique sound which identifies individuals' ... like we cannot bring ourselves to suggest that this is a name. Bird song is smoething of a mystery too ... and I have seenvideo of a parrot that has been taught to speak ... that is it will answer questions about shapes and colours ... but for me more tellingly .. after a short time of doing this turned it's back on the experimentor saying 'no' every time it was asked a question. Reminded me of my two-year-old Maybe it is a matter of degree (I don't know), but I thinkuntil it starts to be acepted as a possibility no-one is going to look hard enough. [Added by edit ... I'm a big Planet of the Apes fan too(not Tim Burton's one, although it was OK) wasn't intending to suggest it was bad ] [This message has been edited by Peter, 06-30-2003]
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MrHambre Member (Idle past 1422 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
What I'm saying is that there's no magic line that separates us from other animals in terms of intelligence or speech faculty. Millions of years of evolution have given us the cerebral hardware to communicate on a language basis, and it shouldn't surprise us that experiments with gorillas (for example) hit a threshold beyond which the animals are not equipped to communicate.
I too have kids, and heard plenty of lines like 'we goed outside' when they were young. If language were just mimicry, this would never happen: kids don't hear adults say that. Language is an internal grammatical structure that a kid is applying to what he hears, and he has yet to learn the exceptions to the rules. When he processes information he's filtering it through that instinctive language framework. Do animals do the same thing? Not to nearly the same extent, it would seem. We can teach animals large vocabularies, but the framework humans have for language hasn't developed in them yet. Before we bemoan the species-centric arrogance that humans display, let's at least admit that there's a less insidious effect to this condescension: we don't ascribe moral significance to animal behavior. If we don't give animals sufficient credit for their intelligence and capabilities, neither do we condemn them for acts we may otherwise consider reprehensible.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Ah, but we have tried horses for murder and so forth in the late middle ages. Peter: Just to clarify that I was addressing the proportion of brain:body mass, not only the quantity of brain mass. My private thoughts on the brain see it as a computer - the question then is how much computational capacity is driving the meat, and how much is driving the mind. But this is not strongly supported; its just stuff I've seen discussed and which makes prima facie sense to me. It is also established that the brain can signidicantly re-wire... not entirely unlike internet packet routing. So in same cases significant brain iompariment might not produce a mechnistically predictable reduction in capacity. Hard to say. Many cetaceans, and elephants, have "unique identifiers" for individuals which, as above, we still rather hubristically IMO choose not to describe as names. Elepehants are also, of course, famously able to recognises people. Now I say if it has a name and identity, and can recognises other specific identities, we are talking about a consciousness that is substantially similar to ours. Just a few weeks ago, a herd of African elephants broke into a holding pen where some antelope were being held for disease research. The researchers expected the elephants would be after the silage, but instead the opened the gate and held it open till the antelope left the corral.So maybe thats just an accidenthat RESEMBLES deliberate intervention... thats possible. But its not the only possibility. I'll not go so far as to defend non-humam sentience in the world here and now... just to support more research in that direction. |
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