A dog cannot speak or read, but this does not mean that it cannot think. Ethologist Frans de Wahl believes it’s time to stop judging the intelligence of animals by comparing them with humans.
Scientists emphasize the role of language in thought processes. But I’m not sure that we always think through language. Language is a wonderful tool that allows us to translate into words what we think. But no one has proven that it is necessary in order to think. Many animals can plan their actions, remember past experiences, and for this they do not need language.
First you need to define what intelligence is. The question is: how do you solve the problems that circumstances present to you? Do you do it in complex ways — or on an elementary, reflex level? If you use developed and flexible schemes, then you can talk about intelligence.
Suppose we are talking about the ability to defend against dangers. Take, for example, an octopus. He is not a mammal, but he is able to do what we are not able to do — change its color. This requires brain work. It is necessary to analyze the environment, keep in memory a “cast” of its color pattern and reproduce it on your body. There are octopuses that copy not only the colors of passing fish, but also the way they move.
This behavior cannot be instinct because the octopus is not born with knowledge of this or that environmental pattern. He must learn by observing the environment and other animals. We don’t fully know how octopuses do this, but obviously it’s a very complex process. It’s not a reflex.»
We are fixated on ourselves. It is natural for us to consider as equals only those whose logic and behavior are similar to ours. But many animals are very different from us.
The problem is that we are fixated on ourselves. It is natural for us to consider as equals only those whose logic and behavior are similar to ours. But many animals are very different from us. In octopuses, neurons are not only in the brain, like ours. They are distributed throughout the body. The nervous system of octopuses is like the internet. Thus, the octopus thinks with the whole body. His limbs can decide for themselves what to grab and drag to his mouth. All this is very difficult to imagine in terms of sensations.
Intelligence is the ability to acquire new knowledge. But it is also important how flexible you apply this knowledge. If you repeat the same actions in different circumstances, that is not intelligence. This is template behavior. But if you can adapt new knowledge to changing conditions, then you can talk about intelligence.
The most famous example is the experience of Koehler (Wolfgang Köhler) with chimpanzees. He hung the bananas in the cage so that the monkeys couldn’t reach them. The animals had boxes and sticks at their disposal. They knew what a stick was and what a box was. But they never saw bananas being knocked down with sticks or pulled out by perching on top of boxes. In the end, the monkeys found a solution—through insight, according to Koehler. They were able to see the solution in their head, although they had never seen it in nature.
Imagine that monkeys learned to stand on boxes because they were rewarded for doing so. This is reinforcement learning. This is how bears or tigers are trained in the circus: they give them a treat for a well-learned trick. But the bear in the circus walks on its hind legs only because it is waiting for an award. If Koehler did something like that, no one would be impressed. He wanted to understand how a monkey would behave if it was allowed to act spontaneously, on its own.
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Complex learning is related to social behavior: we anticipate how another individual will behave and behave accordingly. For example, jays can hide their prey if they see that other jays are looking at them. Nobody taught them this. They can probably understand how another bird thinks. Moreover, jays remember when they hid their prey and keep track of the “best before date”.
In the last century, we were worried about the question: in what way are we like animals? But this comparison has always concerned those areas in which they obviously lose to us — for example, language or technology. We impose on animals this strange competition for the title of the most perfect species. I do not think that such an approach will help us to better understand what intelligence or consciousness is — in all existing forms.
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