Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, December 24, 2015, 12:39 (3043 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This article agrees that humans are a different kind, but presents a very interesting review of animal minds:http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/furry_feathery101801.html
QUOTE: "How then does the male weaverbird know how to build a nest? That's apparently not simply a genetic program either; the birds must learn some of the techniques by experience.
"Genetics, neural networks, and experience all make animal learning much more complex and information-rich than the concept of "instinct" implied. But we are not yet in the realm of "intelligence." The migrating and nest-building birds access existing solutions to longstanding problems; they do not come up with new ones.-It is hardly surprising that the birds learn by experience, but it's nice to hear that your God didn't actually preprogramme the first living cells with the complete nest. We are not yet in the realm of “intelligence” depends on how you define intelligence. Birds do not need to come up with new solutions if they already have solutions that work. And finally, how the heck do they think the birds came up with these “existing solutions” in the first place? 
Here are some more quotes:-QUOTE: “Both birds and mammals can learn to solve new problems presented to them. Let's look at some recent finds in mammals first, bearing in mind that we have only really begun to look at their intelligence seriously. It is early days yet, so some sketchiness is inevitable.”-If they can solve new problems, maybe they solved old problems as well, and passed on the solutions. It's about time people started taking animal intelligence seriously. And it's about time evolutionists started to recognize that vast areas of animal intelligence are not anthropomorphic projections, but are traits inherited from our animal ancestors.
 
QUOTE: “Alex the parrot (1976-2007), possibly the most famous "intelligent bird" personality, could use human language to communicate needs. However, he had only typical parrot needs. Alex was not achieving more human-like intelligence--as his researcher and patron Irene Pepperberg acknowledged:”-A dazzling discovery: parrots think like parrots, and their intelligence is different from ours. I suggest that applies to all organisms, and following the likes of Shapiro & Co, I would suggest that bacterial intelligence is also different from ours.-QUOTE: “So we come to a culturally unexpected conclusion: Bird intelligence is a respectable competitor on a continuum with primate intelligence. But, like theirs, it is on a different track from that of humans.”-All intelligence must be on a continuum if we believe in common descent. If they mean “on a par”, I can't say I'm surprised, but I would have been shatteringly surprised if they had found that animal/bird/insect/bacterial intelligence was on the same track as that of humans. Furthermore, animal/cellular intelligence should not be measured against human intelligence. Every organism will use its intelligence for its own particular purposes.
 
QUOTE: “So there are rough general trends in intelligence, as in evolution, but they appear to be patterns, not laws.”
“Do the patterns relate in some way to anatomy? Can we say, for example, that intelligence requires a multicellular life form that has a spinal column and a brain? What can the vast world of invertebrates tell us about that?”-Those are important questions, and I look forward to the answers. My guess, of course, is that the researchers will discover that intelligence does not depend on a spinal column and brain.