New Miscellany 2: Animal intelligence. (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 15, 2025, 18:41 (12 days ago) @ dhw

The opossum

DAVID: Opossums are part of a necessary ecosystem. Only God knows what is too complex for opossums. You obviously don't.

dhw: All organisms are and have always been part of the ecosystem which is necessary for their own survival. That doesn’t mean they are and have always been necessary for the survival of humans, and it doesn’t mean that they are all automatons obeying God’s instructions. You agreed last week that bacteria, plants and animals are possessed of “intelligent awareness” (given to them by your God)– and you even give examples below, though you try to avoid using such words.

Conscious awareness is a different term to apply.

Animal intelligence: Cockatoos drink

QUOTE: "Now, they've learnt how to use twist-handle water fountains, which require a complex sequence of actions that we humans may take for granted.”

DAVID: It is learned behavior that must have come from observing people drink.

dhw: The ability to learn from observation is just one manifestation of “intelligent awareness”. And of course any beneficial form of learning will be passed on. For example, an opossum observes a wolf sniffing a dead body and walking away. The opossum remembers the incident when he is in danger of being eaten, and survives to pass on the good news. This hardly requires even the “complex sequence of actions” performed by our intelligent cockatoos.

Your opossum story would require some degree of repetition of observation to make the point. A single observation isn't enough.

Ant intelligence; colony actions

QUOTES: Among the tens of thousands of ant species, incredible "intelligent" behaviors like crop culture, animal husbandry, surgery, "piracy," social distancing, and complex architecture have evolved.

[…] in reality, individual workers don't understand the situation at all. This intelligent behavior happens at the level of the colony, not the individual.

Each ant follows simple cues—like fresh scent marks left by others—without needing to understand the bigger picture, yet together they create a smart, goal-directed outcome," (David’s bold)

DAVID: This shows the same aspect of colony member actions, automatic behavior creating a whole colony reaction. It is just like soccer or football athletic team efforts, but the human players understand the whole concept of what they are a part.

dhw: There are two stages in the evolution of strategies: first the origin and then its continuation. All organisms require food. First step: some ants come across an obstacle that hinders access to the food, and it has to be removed. Is that so difficult to understand? We have no idea which ants will later have decided that some should forage and others should remove obstacles, but the division of labour is a clear indication of “intelligent awareness” and of course it becomes part of the overall system of acquiring food. Strategies arise out of need, and successful strategies then automatically become part of the overall system. But the assumption that the obstacle-clearing ants don’t know that they are helping to acquire the food which keeps them alive (= the bigger picture) is totally without foundation. It’s well known that ants can even change their “careers” according to new requirements. We don’t know how the collective decisions are taken, but we social humans create jobs as and when necessary, and we appoint workers to do those jobs. Does that mean each worker becomes a robot? (Watch out, though, if AI takes over!) Ants are not robots either, and it is sheer arrogance for humans to assume that the individual members of the ants’ work force don’t know what they’re doing.

Nor do we have evidence they do know.

dhw: I checked the article, and found that the conclusion was as follows:
"These ants thus provide us with an analogy to brains, where from the activity of the relatively simple computational units, namely neurons, some high cognition capabilities miraculously emerge."

I have always loved the analogy: ants provide us with a visible illustration of how cell communities work, even within our own brains and bodies. We don’t know the source of consciousness, but we do know that our own organs, like those of all our fellow creatures, function through intelligent cooperation and communication between the different cells and cell communities. I’m delighted to see that both this and the cockatoo article use the word “intelligence” in their headings. Please carry on.

I knew you would love the articles.