Clever Corvids: more on how clever (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, November 25, 2018, 09:00 (2190 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Thank you for yet another wonderful article about wonderful ants. They not only recognize the infection, but they have worked out ways of minimizing the overall effect. Sheer intelligence!

DAVID: No question they react with an intelligent solution, based on a warning stimulus. Do the ants know why they react the way they do? That would be a sign of true intelligence

DAVID: Much more to the point is a mind that works on problems are not a brain. IT always must be something more, as we know full well in humans.

dhw: Well, there can be no doubt that ants as well as corvids solve problems, so could it be that they have “something more”, and could it be that bacteria – probably of all our fellow creatures the most adept at solving problems – also have “something more"? Or could it even be that the materials of which cells (whether individual or multi) are made can produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, i.e. intelligence?

DAVID: The issue is still the same: a mind knows why the action is intelligent. That is true intelligence. Our outside judgement recognizes intelligent results which actually is our analysis of the action. The underlying process can be automatic or intelligent. No way around this.

That is not the issue at all. What is “true” intelligence, as opposed to intelligence? You have gone back to the great big wiggle of defining intelligence as self-awareness. There are degrees of intelligence, as you have admitted in the past when talking about your dog and corvids and other problem-solving creatures (problem-solving being the prime means by which scientists test for intelligence). But now apparently you think that only humans are intelligent.