New Miscellany 2: .Animal intelligence (General)

by David Turell , Monday, June 16, 2025, 18:34 (11 days ago) @ dhw

Animal intelligence: Cockatoos drink

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

dhw: How the heck do you know?

From my own learning experiences. Are you all pure theory?

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: [...] 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.

DAVID: Nor do we have evidence they do know.

dhw: What do you think tests are for? If any creature is able to work out answers to the new problems which are set for them by humans and which they have never encountered before, then either they are autonomously intelligent or, according to you, your God pops in every time to give them the solutions, or he foresaw the new tests 3.8 billion years ago, and supplied the first cells with all the solutions, to be passed on to the individual animals, birds, fish and insects that are now being tested. Daft!

It is still clear each individual ant knows his role to play as part of a colonies reactions.

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.

DAVID: I knew you would love the articles.

dhw: Thank you. And do please carry on acknowledging animal intelligence instead of pretending that they are automatons following your God’s instructions.

See new intelligence in animal entry.