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Author Topic:   Instinctual Behavior Vs Intelligent Decisions
Tangle
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Message 15 of 83 (643839)
12-12-2011 11:03 AM


One test would be if the organism could show novel behaviour in reply to a change in circumstances. Ie can it invent?
Your skyscraper planner could probably also design you a bridge a bungalow or a airport if asked. Your spider would keep spinning the same type of web until it died regardless of the situation it found itself in.

Life, don't talk to me about life.

  
Tangle
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Message 23 of 83 (643874)
12-12-2011 1:40 PM


Surely difference between intinctive behaviour and intelligence is the ability to solve novel problems in novel ways?

Life, don't talk to me about life.

  
Tangle
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Posts: 9504
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
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Message 25 of 83 (643880)
12-12-2011 2:26 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Jon
12-12-2011 2:14 PM


Re: making unintelligent decisions
Jon writes:
Thus, the issue at hand here seems to be figuring out how we can distinguish between behaviors that are instinctual at their base and behaviors which are merely the manifestations of some form of intelligenceeven if the intelligence itself is innate.
[is my microphone on?]
Umm, it's the ability to solve novel problems in novel ways.

Life, don't talk to me about life.

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Tangle
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Posts: 9504
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 27 of 83 (643883)
12-12-2011 3:20 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Jon
12-12-2011 2:41 PM


Re: making unintelligent decisions
jon writes:
Do you have some examples to go with that?
Only the blindingly obvious - a spider will spin it's web in the same way no matter where you put it - a funnel web maker will never spin a spiral web even if it's life depended on it. A crow will never build a nest in a hedge even if all it's usual trees are felled. Etc etc
Non-human animals can't adblib - or at least have a infinately diminished ability to do it compared to a human.
A human can see a new problem and work out a new solution. We can invent and create, have ideas, test, adapt, experiment and improve.

Life, don't talk to me about life.

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 Message 26 by Jon, posted 12-12-2011 2:41 PM Jon has replied

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Tangle
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Posts: 9504
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 30 of 83 (643895)
12-12-2011 4:14 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Jon
12-12-2011 3:52 PM


Re: Novel Ideas and Intelligence
jon writes:
How can we use your filter with specific behaviors?
If we want to get general, we can simply mark off finding new solutions as 'business as usual' for us H. sapiens and so conclude that there's little novel about it.
Why can't we do that?
i'm sorry, I just don't recognise your problem or feel that your filters or specific behaviours or languages mean anything.
An animal merely repeating the behaviour of all other members of it's species is not doing anything intelligent regardless of how complex it seems.
If it's capable of solving a problem that it's never encountered before it's got a measure of intelligence. If it creates and uses a tool to do it and none of it's species has ever done before, then it's pretty damn smart (relatively).

Life, don't talk to me about life.

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Tangle
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Posts: 9504
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
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Message 32 of 83 (643898)
12-12-2011 5:25 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Jon
12-12-2011 4:52 PM


Re: Novel Ideas and Intelligence
Crashfrog pointed out that behaviour that all members of the species do is likely be instinctual and then made the distinction that not all humans design skyskrapers thereby implying that humans have diferentiated behaviour and that may show intelligence.
I'm saying (quite repetitively) that inteligence can be shown to be an ability to solve new problems in new ways. Using yours and Crashfrog's analogy, I said that a Skyscraper designer is also likely be able build you a bungalow or a bridge if pushed.
As a skyscraper designer, he doesn't build the same building that his dad built Or that his partners built, he has to come up with new ideas and new designs in new materials. I'd say that that requires a degree of intelligence.

Life, don't talk to me about life.

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Tangle
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Posts: 9504
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 49 of 83 (644624)
12-19-2011 3:32 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by jar
12-13-2011 7:34 PM


Re: making unintelligent decisions
jar writes:
We use our brain, and we learn how to do that.
It's not binary, we both have (are born with) intelligence and we learn how to use it. A child will behave relatively intelligently whether taught or not.

Life, don't talk to me about life.

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 Message 40 by jar, posted 12-13-2011 7:34 PM jar has replied

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 Message 50 by jar, posted 12-19-2011 3:43 PM Tangle has replied

  
Tangle
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Posts: 9504
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 51 of 83 (644630)
12-19-2011 4:22 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by jar
12-19-2011 3:43 PM


Re: making unintelligent decisions
jar writes:
Have you ever been around a child?
Weirdly, not only have I been around quite a lot of children I've been one myself.
Of course, kids are intelligent. Sheesh.

Life, don't talk to me about life.

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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9504
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 72 of 83 (648066)
01-13-2012 3:27 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by New Cat's Eye
01-12-2012 11:19 AM


Re: A great example
Crows are pretty damn smart.
Intelligence
As a group, crows show remarkable examples of intelligence. Crows and ravens often score very highly on intelligence tests. Certain species top the avian IQ scale.[9] Wild hooded crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs for bait-fishing.[10] Crows will engage in a kind of mid-air jousting, or air-"chicken" to establish pecking order. Crows have been found to engage in feats such as tool use, the ability to hide and store food across seasons, episodic-like memory,[vague] and the ability to use individual experience in predicting the behavior of environmental conspecifics.[11]
One species, the New Caledonian Crow, has also been intensively studied recently because of its ability to manufacture and use its own tools in the day-to-day search for food. These tools include 'knives' cut from stiff leaves and stiff stalks of grass.[12] Another skill involves dropping tough nuts into a trafficked street and waiting for a car to crush them open.[13][14] On October 5, 2007, researchers from the University of Oxford, England presented data acquired by mounting tiny video cameras on the tails of New Caledonian Crows. It turned out that they use a larger variety of tools than previously known, plucking, smoothing, and bending twigs and grass stems to procure a variety of foodstuffs.[15][16] Crows in Queensland, Australia have learned how to eat the toxic cane toad by flipping the cane toad on its back and violently stabbing the throat where the skin is thinner, allowing the crow to access the non-toxic innards; their long beaks ensure that all of the innards can be removed.[17][18]
Recent research suggests that crows have the ability to recognize one individual human from another by facial features.
Crow - Wikipedia
Edited by Tangle, : Typo

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

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