[HN Gopher] Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seei...
___________________________________________________________________
Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study
shows
Author : pseudolus
Score : 307 points
Date : 2024-09-04 01:27 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| At work I often learned the full names and other details about
| dozens of coworkers, customers, whatever, even if I didn't need
| to know.
|
| A few years after leaving wherever, I begin to forget even the
| simplest names, and I consider this as a blessing, as if Agent K
| set the flashy-thing in my eyes and I've returned to an ordinary
| life.
| dboreham wrote:
| For me typically some attribute remains in memory after the
| name fades: "white-teeth marketing dude" or "guy obsessed with
| keyboards". I suppose that's how names started: Miller,
| Shepard, etc. As a corollary to this if I'm going into a
| business situation where I think it would be useful to be
| remembered, I'll try to wear something notable -- brightly
| colored shoes, something like that. Imagining the other parties
| discussing "that bloke, what was his name?? who? Um, the one
| with the orange shoes. Oh yes".
| card_zero wrote:
| Nathan Whitetoothdouche, Jeff Analkeyboards. But isn't the
| orange shoes thing a classic spy tactic to get people to
| ignore your face? Now _all_ they remember about you is your
| shoes. Wear different ones another time, and you 're a
| stranger.
| bitwize wrote:
| I once interviewed for a job with a small group of people,
| all at once. To keep them all straight in my head before I
| learned their names I gave each a mental nickname based on
| their appearance: Red Hair, Taller Than My Dad, Jack Sparrow
| (he had hollow cheeks and a dark unkempt beard).
|
| Taller Than My Dad turned out to be comp.lang.c FAQ
| maintainer, Steve Summit.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Did you rename you Dad to half-way-to-Summit?
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| This is straight out of The Office
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcksTKoZMts&t=178
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Official family names like Miller etc are a quite modern
| phenomenon for the majority of people, an aspect of a more
| formal and powerful state apparatus.
|
| Traditional names are the first names, and these have been
| less direct for a very long time. First names are assigned in
| childhood and used for most of your life, so they are rarely
| related to your occupation. Much of Europe, America, and the
| Middle East of course use mostly the names of religious
| figures, but even in societies that didn't adopt foreign
| names, given names are typically words that evoke some
| positive aspiration, such as well liked/respected animals or
| plants.
|
| Of course, sometimes people would be known by other names as
| well.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Related:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
| TomK32 wrote:
| Four-and-a-half years ago I started a new job and used Anki to
| learn all the names and faces of my ~100 coworkers, thankfully
| we had some internal directory that I did use as a data source.
| It worked great! Then the pandemic hit... I left the company
| three years ago and now could remember maybe five names if I
| met them.
| pnut wrote:
| One of the guiding principles in my household is that people
| will generally forgive, but they will never forget the way you
| made them feel.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Not good with people, I had developed a facade full of weird
| coping mechanisms as I attempted to fake not being tremendously
| shy and avoidant of rejection. I was just into my twenties,
| working at a dating service as a kind of factotum (data entry,
| but also shooting and editing videos, networking, and
| reception). Inadvertently, the relevant details of all of our
| members just ... grafted themselves onto my hapless brain.
| Names, height, weight, job, member number, video number, and so
| forth. Employees began to call me rather than look people up in
| the directory, but I liked to greet people when they came in
| rather than having them fumble for their card. One conversation
| went like this:
|
| Me: Hello, $Firstname! No need for the card, I know your number
| is seventeen forty-two. It's been about six months since you've
| been in, let me get into the computer and get your activity
| printed.
|
| Him: You know me?
|
| Me: Just by your picture. [ _idle chatter mode initiated_ as I
| wait for the printer]. Say, you 've lost about ten pounds.
| That's down to one-sixty, right? I'll make a note to update
| your profile.
|
| Him: [shifting uncomfortably] I was really one-eighty but I
| fudged it, so now it is accurate.
|
| Me: So, how's the insurance business?
|
| Him: You remember that?
|
| Me: [ _continuing on like a chipper but oblivious robot_ ] Our
| members are important!
|
| Him: I'll buy you a steak dinner if you can tell me my
| birthday.
|
| Me: July thirty-first, nineteen forty-four.
|
| I let him off the steak dinner thing.
|
| I am not good with people and it took me a long time to learn
| that, although people like to be _recognized_ and known to some
| degree, huge amounts of detail retained over long periods, or
| remembering even singular encounters with high fidelity freaks
| some folks out. Somewhere along the line, I had mechanically
| applied the "remember people's names" advice from books like
| _How to Win Friends and Influence People_ and must have figured
| if some is good, more is better, then used the few strengths I
| had, but instead ended up setting off people 's "information
| asymmetry" threat detection and/or Who Is This Freak.
|
| Now I clamp down and try not to blurt out recognizing someone
| from decades back, even though I am, like a puppy, happy to see
| a person from long ago once more. When I make jokes that I am
| like a golden retriever, I am kidding on the square.
| nanna wrote:
| My parents dog tends to not eat his food unless they start
| pretending that his friend poppy, who died years ago and who used
| to love eating his food, is at the door. He panics and eats up
| his bowl, lifting his head up anxiously to look at the door every
| few mouthfuls.
| sova wrote:
| Poppy's here!
| bongodongobob wrote:
| That's kind of fucked up. They're reinforcing the fact that he
| should be worried about his food. They're training him to be
| anxious. If he doesn't want to eat, there's no reason to make
| him. He'll eat when he's hungry.
| dboreham wrote:
| Perhaps once it's in the model, it's so hard to re-train that
| the animal will starve itself in service of the training
| data?
| morkalork wrote:
| I'm pretty sure if you leave a dog alone with a bowl of
| food long enough, they'll eat it.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| natural selection i think overrides that idea, but i also
| thought the same idea at first, and we have 5 rescues, so i
| should know better.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| That's absurd. My dog likes to drink "outside water" so
| much to the point where he won't drink out of his bowl.
| After we come back for a walk he wants to run to the back
| yard and drink out of his puddle. I don't want him to do
| that. So I don't let him out. He'll whine a bit and paw at
| the door but eventually he gives up and drinks out of his
| bowl. Not dying from thirst or lack of food is an instinct
| that every living organism has.
| margalabargala wrote:
| I don't disagree, especially if they do that every day.
|
| There are some times when as humans, we have knowledge that
| the dog needs to eat now, because they won't have a chance
| later, for example if going on some trip with the dog where
| feeding later would be inconvenient. In those cases it's
| useful to have this trick available.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Or, you just skip a meal. Dog won't die from being hungry.
| nutrie wrote:
| Dogs aren't exactly wild animals. They've picked up lots of
| bad habits along the way, due to selective breeding, not
| having to hunt for food, and whatnot. I used to have a
| caucasian shepherd, among other dogs we've had in our family,
| and as she started aging, it had become gradually quite
| difficult to keep her weight in check. "Forcing" her eat less
| and more frequently did the trick. She had hip dysplasia, so
| it was either this or put her to sleep. She got used to it
| eventually. Some dogs tend to overeat (apparently labradors
| have a problem here, some boxers too, from top of my head),
| some don't. Letting them choose may or may not be the right
| strategy. The owner should be smart and responsible enough to
| figure it out. But that's a different issue altogether.
| admax88qqq wrote:
| All your examples were about dogs overeating, which I don't
| think anyone would disagree dogs can do. But I think it's
| pretty rare for dogs to _under_ eat and to need to trick
| them into eating their food.
| nutrie wrote:
| It's not uncommon at all. Take toothache, for example.
| The catch is they can't tell you, and we are terrible at
| reading the subtle signs.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Some dogs can communicate such things. Bunny (of _What
| About Bunny_ ) can vaguely, imprecisely, communicate
| "some kind of pain somewhere" using a button-activated
| buzzer system. She can sometimes name the approximate
| location of the pain after a minute or two of thought.
| (See
| https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=RN_ZpyS6Fkc&t=34 )
|
| I have _no idea_ how you 'd get "I'm in pain" from the
| associated body language; but, then again, I'm not a dog.
| In this case there were behavioural cues, but I don't
| know how I'd tell if there weren't.
| risenshinetech wrote:
| Pretty sure a dog will eat through a toothache too, but
| no one has mentioned anything remotely like this
| situation. You're bending over backwards to rationalize
| the really odd behavior of invoking a dead puppy friend
| to encourage a dog to eat. They will eat when they're
| hungry.
|
| And in your strange example, if this dog wasn't eating
| due to a toothache, the parents are forcing the dog to
| anxiously eat through the pain of a toothache.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| My dog (who recently passed away at the age of 13) used to do
| something similar. When she was a puppy, she spilled her food
| bowl and I swept it up with a broom. And since then, whenever
| we wanted her to eat her food, we'd just bring out the broom
| and start sweeping the kitchen floor - she'd immediately start
| eating her food, watching the broom nervously, because she's
| seen it eat her food before.
| risenshinetech wrote:
| Why were you forcing your dog to eat food?
| SuperHeavy256 wrote:
| "because she's seen it eat her food before" adorable!
| nanna wrote:
| Condolences. Losing a dog of thirteen years is heartbreaking
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| It's not too surprising as they (in movies and also my dog)
| respond well after years to just the call of names of people they
| had a deeper relationship with. So if we associate the name of a
| toy, eg. "go get the penguin" and they played with it for long
| period of time, it makes sense that they form a relationship with
| the toy as well and had memories of it. Dogs dream (I imagine the
| noise and movements they make while sleeping are dreams), and I
| won't doubt they dream about owners playing with them and calling
| out the toy's name and thus reinforcing the name in their
| memories.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| I think the key difference isn't the memory, but the recall.
| Humans can recall memories at will, while dogs often require a
| prompt or stimulus, and there's not a clear indication that
| they're self-recalling information to think about things beyond
| a period of persistence.
|
| That's not diminutive of them, more a reflection that we've
| been selecting dogs for this behavior and other "breed traits"
| (which I think of as specific hereditary OCD) for thousands of
| years, so it makes sense they're primed for this from a
| context- or direction-giver.
|
| It's why if you teach a dog a trick that it's still able to
| recall years later, it won't go off and practice it on its own
| or teach it to other dogs.
| Laaas wrote:
| I don't think I can recall memories at will. They pop up when
| I get cues.
| petepete wrote:
| I've had my Labrador for 12 years, she was about 1 when we
| rescued her.
|
| In the first week I was walking her and passed a bus stop mainly
| used by school kids. There's a small wall behind it and she
| dashed around and emerged with half a sausage roll hanging out of
| her mouth.
|
| To this day, every time we pass that spot she enthusiastically
| pulls and goes round to inspect.
| fracus wrote:
| That poor dog will be perpetually disappointed. You should hide
| some sausage there every once in a while before your walks.
| mikestew wrote:
| Reminds me of the search and rescue dogs used for finding
| people in collapsed buildings after, say, an earthquake.
| Apparently the dogs get depressed after finding nothing but
| dead people, so the humans seed the rubble once in a while
| with a live human for the dogs to find.
|
| https://allcreatureslargeandsmall.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/t.
| ..
|
| "As time passes without survivors found, search-and-rescue
| dogs -- especially those trained to find living people --
| experience increased stress and depression. One way this is
| mitigated is for handlers and trainers to stage mock "finds"
| so that the dogs can feel successful."
| TomK32 wrote:
| Just like me when I fix a bug within a minute by pure
| chance... I need those easy wins.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Ha yeah seriously.
|
| That makes me think of a managerial strategy that
| involves feeding a low performing employee softball tasks
| and praising them for completing them. Once they are
| convinced they are highly competent slowly start ramping
| up the complexity.
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| I do this with new people. Being new somewhere is a skill
| a lot of people I've hired don't have. I toss them some
| meatballs so they can get a couple of quick, visible
| wins. You figure you hired them because they know what
| they're doing, so help them establish their confidence
| early on. I highly recommend doing this.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| The way I've heard avalanche dogs are trained here is that
| they are rewarded for accurate information, so in principle
| they ought to be as satisfied with their job after finding
| "no people" or "dead person" as well as "live person".
| dmurray wrote:
| But in their training they find living people. During
| real disasters, there might not be time to focus on
| rewarding the dog.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Dogs are social creatures. These dogs are _well_ aware of
| humans as fellow social creatures. Constantly finding
| _dead people_ might be inherently distressing, in the
| same way it 'd be distressing to constantly find dead
| dogs.
| mlyle wrote:
| There's funny things at play even beyond training
| effects, most likely. Even leaving aside that finding a
| dead person might be something that inherently triggers
| avoidance.
|
| People screening luggage for bombs/knives/etc do
| significantly better if you show them a picture of a bad
| bag every now and then. Often these systems are used to
| monitor screener performance, but _even if you just show
| them the picture now and then with "this is a test, no
| action is required"_ they do better.
|
| Being primed with things relative to the task improves
| human performance, and I'd expect it would work in
| smarter animals, too.
| sph wrote:
| I am half serious and wondering if they do the same for
| drug-sniffing dogs.
| oldman_peter wrote:
| When I'm banging my head against a problem too long I'll
| do a small task to have a small success. Same thing I
| guess.
| switch007 wrote:
| I've never understood people who say dogs are hard to train.
| They are SO motivated by food
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Which is depressingly animalistic.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| How so? Humans are very much the same way in many years,
| particularly as children.
| pxc wrote:
| Food is a primary reinforcers for all species. Neither
| humans nor dogs are special in that respect. I don't see
| why anyone should find that depressing.
|
| Spend some time training dogs and you'll also find both
| that food motivation can vary quite a bit (some dogs are
| more interested in toys than food, for instance) and also
| that it's quite possible to train dogs without always
| relying on a food reward.
|
| Generally the deeper you go with understanding and
| training dog behavior, the more you realize how the same
| learning theory that informs scientific dog training also
| describes human behavior. (Imo it also reveals
| deficiencies in thinking in terms of learning
| theory/behaviorism alone; idk how you could work closely
| with animals and seriously believe they lack cognition.)
| asimovfan wrote:
| We are also the same. We are out for food, the rest is just
| talk..
| swatcoder wrote:
| What do you mean by that?
|
| Of course sharing food is a way to build social bonding and
| positively motivate social conformance. It is with people
| too, which is why it's so natural for us to carry it over
| to our relationship with dogs.
|
| How or why is that depressing?
|
| It's _good_ that we crave what helps us thrive and that we
| can recognize who makes it easy for us to have more, and
| there 's a beautiful elegance to that fact that so many
| creatures share the trait, across such diverse lineages as
| birds, reptiles, fish, arthropods, mammals, etc
|
| Isn't that inspiring, rather than depressing?
| qwertox wrote:
| I ride a lot of bike. I love it when dog owners see
| someone approaching on a bike, tell their dog to sit and
| give him a treat. These dogs will then stop when they
| notice a bike approaching while the owner is distracted.
| I am always so grateful that I say thank you to the
| owners.
|
| Then there are those who just don't care to train their
| dogs.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Then there are those who just don't care to train their
| dogs.
|
| There is a worse option.
|
| The thin extending dog lead at maximum extension while
| walking the dog in twilight on a cycle path. What could
| go wrong?
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| I tripped over one of these in central London where it
| abruptly started raining heavily and the owner ran off in
| one direction while the dog went in another.
|
| Got some doubts about the value of those leads in
| general; surely it just means the dog has no gauge at all
| in how far they can go in any direction?
| jvm___ wrote:
| I assumed someone was doing this to me on a sunset run
| along a paved path. Human standing on one side of the
| path, small dog in the grass on the side, so I cut my
| running closer to the dog.
|
| It wasn't a dog, it was a skunk. Fortunately it didn't
| seem threatened and just waddled away.
| jumploops wrote:
| Not all dogs are motivated by food.
|
| Our high energy, water-loving, labradoodle is only motivated
| by one thing: frisbee.
| switch007 wrote:
| IME all are...
|
| Labradoodles are loopy, like most of the bred-for-instagram
| breeds. Got to expect the abnormal
| drewmol wrote:
| Some generations of labradoodles are hypoallergenic from
| my understanding.
| radnor wrote:
| There are no hypoallergenic dogs. There are _degrees_ to
| which dogs shed, but it 's not specific to any one breed
| and can vary wildly.
|
| https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/hypoallergenic-dogs/
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Pretty much every dog trainer in the world will tell you
| different dogs are motivated to different degrees by
| different things. Very weird point to argue on.
|
| I have two purebred poodles (not bred for Instagram) and
| one is highly motivated by food, the other will decline
| treats pretty often, even treats we know he really loves.
| This is not super atypical of poodles.
|
| And to put another layer of complication on your
| dismissal of other people's challenges training dogs: the
| _not_ food-motivated one is _way_ easier to train.
| bitexploder wrote:
| Well, I have a lab that is not. She is however motivated
| by fetch. She is not very smart as labs go, but she would
| move a mountain for you if it means one more toss of a
| toy. If you have a toy food does not exist. She will
| still do things for treats, but will also just decide not
| to if it suits her :)
| amarant wrote:
| I have a xolo that has been diagnosed anorectic by a
| veterinary. I'll agree it's not common tho, I didn't know
| dogs could get such a diagnosis until my own dog got it
| CleanRoomClub wrote:
| I have a German Shepherd who isn't toy motivated, but
| will climb mountains to play tug.
|
| Don't assume your experience is universal, especially
| when there's a lot of people telling you it isn't.
| pseudostem wrote:
| Neither did I, until I got this lovely idiot who's probably
| bipolar and probably on the spectrum. They're motivated by
| food, yes; and we're motivated by unconditional love.
| mikestew wrote:
| Most dogs are, yes. I train dogs at an animal shelter, and I
| can tell you that not _all_ dogs are motivated by food. Some
| will just turn their nose up at even the tastiest of treats.
| Some of those dogs might rather have a pet on the head or
| some praise. A rare few don't seem motivated by much of
| anything.
|
| But for the 80% case, yeah, grab some string cheese and a
| clicker.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.rover.com/blog/clicker-training-dogs/
| switch007 wrote:
| Perhaps overfed? Have owned dogs all my life, also trained
| 4 rescues, and various friends' dogs and never yet met one
| who can resist chicken. Relativity small sample size of
| about 20 dogs I admit
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Perhaps all yours were underfed?
| elawler24 wrote:
| My dog is far more motivated by human attention than food.
| There's only one food that he'll do anything for - freeze
| dried chicken hearts.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Depends on the dog. I've trained two puppies this year.
|
| The first one was stupid easy to train. Food motivated and
| could be refocused in every situation with food. Picked up
| commands quickly. Would do training basically any time of
| day.
|
| Second dog just stares at me if she doesn't want to be
| trained or feels the task is too hard. When she gets
| distracted, it doesn't matter how high of a reward I give,
| she won't take it if she doesn't want it.
| dmix wrote:
| Yes the idea that all dogs are equal and it's just a
| mattering of training is a very harmful idea. People get
| soft about it though because they hit some cute/fuzzy
| dopamine thing in their brain and don't take that reality
| seriously.
| glimshe wrote:
| This is essentially the nature vs nurture debate, but for
| dogs.
| pxc wrote:
| One trick that is popular in my family is to rest a treat
| on the tip of a dog's nose, tell them to wait, count
| silently for a few seconds, and then give them permission
| to eat it. (My sister's dog does it every day after his
| breakfast, and I recently had the pleasure of asking him to
| perform this trick for me when they visited. :)
|
| Anyhow, my favorite of the dogs from my childhood was
| generally uninterested in what certain people wanted from
| her. She was more motivated by praise and the sheer joy of
| teamwork with her favorite people than by food.
|
| So one day my mom (not one of this dog's favorites, through
| no fault of her own) sets her up to do the trick: she asks
| the dog to sit and places a treat on the dog's nose. The
| dog slowly decides she'd actually rather do something else.
| She tilts her head down towards the ground, the treat
| slides off her nose, and she leisurely walks away.
| ozim wrote:
| Yeah that is why I think dogs that don't learn tricks are
| the smart ones not the ones who obey on the first ask.
|
| But humans want obedient dogs not ones that have their
| own opinions :)
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| They're animals, you want predictable behavior (as much
| as is possible - because they're animals).
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Eh, I had a Scottish terrier that was incredibly smart,
| learned every trick on practically the first attempt,
| then would just not do them again after mastery.
|
| Independent, great explorer and hiker, hated clear
| objects like she had an intifada against them and never
| got into trouble or destroyed stuff.
|
| She was a good dude and would have been less fun if she
| was more obsequious or eager to please and predictable.
| pxc wrote:
| I think both very adoring dogs and rather challenging or
| independent-minded dogs can be really precious in their
| own ways.
|
| My mom had a boxer who was absolutely obsessed with her
| for his entire life. He was so eager to please her that
| she would often cue certain (benign) behaviors by
| accident, because he was always watching her to see if
| there was anything for him to do with her. He was so
| invested in figuring out what she wanted and in
| impressing her that the gentlest scolding would crush
| him-- it could easily ruin a whole training session.
|
| The things my mom (who is legally blind) got that dog to
| do were amazing. She (just a hobbyist) did dog sports
| with him (competitive obedience and rally) and got titles
| in advanced and intermediate levels. He did some
| 'American trick dog' stuff where he would do really
| gimmicky but pretty cute and impressive multi-step
| tricks, like going outside to fetch the mail and bring it
| back, or hopping into a suitcase, closing it on his own
| head, and lying down. He had some routine tricks that
| were pretty cool, like searching the house to collect all
| of his toys and put them away. He worked as a therapy dog
| in hospitals, where he was especially beloved by
| children, who were invariably amused and pleased that
| they could get a big, strange dog to do many tricks for
| them. He'd also do some little assistance things for my
| mom, like pick things up off the floor (if asked) so she
| didn't have to get down on her hands and knees and pat
| around to find them.
|
| Unrelated to his training career, I'll never forget his
| watchfulness and sweetness toward my tiny old chihuahua.
| As you likely know, boxers can be extremely energetic
| dogs, but he was a calm soul as far as boxers go. While
| they didn't meet often, he had a special connection with
| my little < 5lbs Chihuahua: she trusted his gentle nature
| and he sympathized with her frustration with the antics
| of my mom's younger boxer. When the young energetic one
| wouldn't stop following my little one around, he'd trot
| in between them and quietly create some distance for her.
| My little old lady evidently appreciated this quite a
| bit, so much so that it once caused my family a scare. We
| always kept the big dogs and small dogs separated if the
| big dogs were playing, or if we were out of the house, or
| if no one was committed to supervising them. One day
| after an outing my mom panicked a little when she
| couldn't find my little old lady, and it turned out that
| she, not wanting to be alone for the long duration of a
| shopping trip and dinner, walked a couple steps down (at
| her age and size she was quite apprehensive about stairs,
| and typically would not cross even one or two steps) and
| then _squeezed through the bars of a baby gate_ in order
| to nestle into a dog bed with my mom 's dog. He was
| really an incredible dog, and his gentle, agreeable,
| social, other-oriented nature was certainly a big part of
| that.
|
| On the other hand, that little old lady of a Chihuahua,
| when I met her, didn't know how to walk on a leash,
| resource guarded laps and bit about it, and didn't
| respond to my stupid attempts to scold her except by
| mistrusting me and avoiding me. Learning how to
| communicate her and win her over was one of the most
| rewarding experiences of my life. By the end of her life
| she was a dog I could trust around strangers, dog and
| human, of all sizes and personalities, whom I could take
| offleash anywhere, who would wait for my signal at a
| crosswalk, who I could have lie down on some blankets on
| a table where I was eating and trust her when I walked
| out of the room, and whom I learned to read for the
| tiniest signals: eye contact, pointing at what she wanted
| with her eyes, inaudible growls/whines I could only feel
| because she was in my lap, the 10 kinds of trembling that
| comprise key terms in the Chihuahua language... and I
| probably wouldn't have learned much of anything from her
| if she hadn't demanded that _I_ come to _her_ and
| understand her perspective and needs and wants first.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| What has food motivation or desire to please have to do
| with intelligence? I view them as completely orthogonal.
| A dog can be an idiot and not be food motivated or have a
| desire to please and conversely a dog can be really smart
| and be food motivated and eager to please.
| ozim wrote:
| Just like parent poster story - dog did not want treat
| from person it did not like.
|
| That's a smart dog, while I can imagine someone observing
| such occurence calling the dog dumb.
| hnick wrote:
| A rule of thumb we were taught is half the food comes from
| training (not to the point of cruelty, adjust the training
| to be easier if needed so they get enough). You can adjust
| per dog, but many people treat training rewards as "treats"
| which are surplus to their needs, so greedy or food-loving
| dogs (I would be one, as is our first dog) will take it but
| others won't care.
|
| High stress or emotional arousal or a distracting
| environment will supersede this but it's a decent starting
| point which people often miss. Luckily our second dog likes
| play and praise so that gives us more options.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| We used that for dog #1. Works great to be able to dole
| out kibble for training.
|
| Dog #2 just doesn't care. She eats the recommended daily
| amount, but will take hours to finish a meal. Walking
| away and coming back later. She just doesn't care about
| food.
| jghn wrote:
| We have 2 french bulldogs. They're loosely related. one is
| smart as a whip. One is dumb as hell.
|
| The former, I'm not sure they'd remember toy names from 10
| years ago but I've been impressed time after time after
| time at her ability to understand the world around her.
|
| THe latter, he's just lucky to remember how to walk down
| the hall.
|
| Sometimes it is the luck of the draw.
| pennomi wrote:
| Heck, I've got a food-motivated _cat_ and I've trained her to
| do all kinds of tricks.
| dr_kretyn wrote:
| You have limited experience. Mine couldn't care less about
| food if a ball was near it. We also missed her feeding a few
| times and she never begged or reminded about the food. I
| usually carry a bag of treats (her favourite) but sometimes
| she refuses to eat them.
| sva_ wrote:
| Wolves naturally don't usually eat everyday either, we just
| make dogs do it because we do it.
| rkagerer wrote:
| My dog must have missed the memo. He'll come over at
| EXACTLY 6 o'clock (to the minute) to remind you about
| dinner if it hasn't yet been served. He used to do the
| same in the morning but eventually we reached a truce on
| the concept of sleeping in from time to time.
| OtomotO wrote:
| That's why you never feed them at an exact time.
|
| We have a time frame of roughly 3 hours in which we feed
| the dog.
|
| That way we can have a nice dinner too, go to a musical
| etc. pp.
|
| A friend of ours made the same mistake as you. His dog
| becomes a real diva after 6pm, if she hasn't eaten
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| I tried doing that with my dogs, but it led to them being
| annoyingly clingy as their general dinner time approached
| because they knew they could be fed suddenly at any time.
|
| So I switched to using a phone alarm that marks when it's
| time to feed the dogs. I can easily change the time it
| rings to adjust their meal times, and they remain patient
| because they know that they won't be fed until they hear
| that sound.
| sva_ wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
| rkagerer wrote:
| Are you implying _he 's_ conditioned _me_?
|
| Out of curiosity we've tried to figure out if there's
| some external cue he's relying on outside of a very
| accurate internal 'clock', and haven't found any. He's
| consistent even in the face of timezone changes and
| travel across the country (and other mundane tricks
| that'd eliminate stimulus like daylight cues), different
| environments / homes (ruling out equipment / building /
| neighbourhood noises), and different humans (in case his
| usual companions unwittingly broadcast hints).
|
| I'm forced to the conclusion he swallowed a Rolex at some
| point.
|
| My own schedule isn't particularly routine otherwise, so
| it's actually not an unwelcome anchor. He does understand
| and give up after a couple attempts if you tell him
| 'later' or have an obvious reason for the delay. He's
| intent, but not impolite.
|
| We left him with a friend once for a few days who feeds
| their own dog an hour earlier. The discovery that 5
| o'clock dinnertime can be a thing completely rocked his
| world. He tried to share this revolutionary breakthrough
| with us but with limited success.
| jzb wrote:
| Wolves can eat 20lbs of meat in one meal. They're hunters
| that eat their fill when food is present because there's
| no guarantee they'll catch prey later. Not really a
| reasonable comparison to a domesticated animal that's not
| designed for feast/famine living.
| suprjami wrote:
| I have a dog who is so food-motivated that he gets distracted
| by the chance of a treat and won't learn anything.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Ha, I was going to say the same thing! We have a Black Lab
| with the same problem, he's so motivated by food that he
| gets tunnel vision and can't focus on anything but the
| treat in our hands. Training him was tough.
| powersnail wrote:
| Being motivated to learn isn't equal to being effective at
| learning. Not all dogs are prone to "understand" what the
| training is about. Sometimes, they seem like they are eager
| and ready to engage with your training, but then at the end
| of the day, not really having learned anything.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Food, but play is better...
|
| In many cases it's the owners fault, not being able to train
| well
| Propelloni wrote:
| I agree, most dogs are not hard to train, but also not all of
| them are motivated by food. We accidentally got a Kuvasz
| (probably a mix, with 50cm at the shoulder she is a little
| short for a pure breed) puppy eight years ago. That's a LGD
| from Hungary. By "accidentally" I mean nobody in the shelter
| knew what kind this white fuzzball was, but she liked us, we
| liked her, so we took her home. It was quite the surprise
| when we found out what we got there.
|
| Anyhow, like many of her kind she is NOT into food. That made
| training her in the beginning very difficult, because we knew
| no other way back than. Even today, I always have to chuckle
| when I try to give her a treat and she takes the treat very
| gently from my hand and puts it down on the floor, like
| saying "let me put it there for you." Of course, sometimes
| she just eats it but you never know.
| megatron2009 wrote:
| We had a Samoyed who was completely uninterested in food. We
| tried everything including treats, meat, peanut butter, what
| not. It would not even touch that food and only eat when he
| was hungry. He did love combing his hair a lot, walkies and
| frisbee. So, in the first couple of months, we actually used
| combing his hair and frisbee as a prize, despite our
| reservations because his hair would develop knots. But he
| learned extremely quickly and then we could let it go.
| dkga wrote:
| Dogs actually don't need food for training. It's an
| effective, but "lazy" way to train dogs. The best practice is
| behavioral, to show you are the leader in the dog's pack.
| Then you won't need to ever give a treat for good behaviour.
| And even in my case where I do give a treat some times, my
| dog completely obeys me "organically". PS.: I'm a
| veterinarian.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| There's certainly a degree of luck regarding a dog's
| demeanor though. I have a BC / Beagle mix and started
| training her with treats: she's highly food motivated!
|
| Eventually I realized she also loves to please - and reason
| things out herself - and the food was completely
| unnecessary! No specific "dominance" training necessary.
| dkga wrote:
| That is actually my point: if your dog likes to please
| you, it's because in part it sees you as a leader. It's
| not so much (always) about specific training (and
| definitely nothing resembling being an "alpha" in modern
| parlance).
| quectophoton wrote:
| If you search "magic pie bush" you can find other similar
| stories :)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| That felt like a dangerous Web query but I did it anyways and
| that little story and the others people shared in comments
| sections are great. Dogs are so wonderfully complexly simple.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| That has NSFW written all over it.
| quectophoton wrote:
| I didn't realize how it sounded without context until it
| was too late.
|
| It's just people talking about (a screenshot of) a Twitter
| post, quote:
|
| > "A month ago Dusty found half a pie in this bush, so
| every day until the end of time we must closely inspect the
| Magic Pie Bush."
|
| Mostly Reddit and one or two blog posts.
| wiether wrote:
| I read "had" instead of "has" and spent too much time
| trying to find another explanation to the completely SFW I
| found.
| k4j8 wrote:
| This one break area at work had some cookies sitting out one
| time for people to grab. That was 6 months ago, but I still
| check every time I pass it...
| bionsystem wrote:
| My grandfather's dog (some bastardized belgium shepherd) was
| annoyed at some electric cable hanging too low in some place
| where he would go for a walk ; after a storm the pylon fell a
| bit and he would jump up and bite the cable (which was isolated
| of course), and bark a lot at it.
|
| Years later after everything was fixed, going to walk in this
| area the dog would always look up at this exact spot and bark a
| few times. Like "heck don't you dare coming low again I'm
| watching you".
| grujicd wrote:
| While this is all cute, dogs should be discouraged from eating
| food they find in the street! It could be poisoned. You never
| know whether there's someone who really hates dogs in the
| neighborhood, or if someone tries to solve problems with rats.
| Unfortunately, my friend lost a dog that way.
| kennyadam wrote:
| No doubt this happens, it must be so rare for someone to put
| out poisoned half-eaten sausage rolls with the aim of killing
| a random dog that finds it, I think this is perhaps a teensy
| bit paranoid.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| It's so rare, but it actually does happen, and the people
| doing it actually try to conceal it like a half eaten
| sausage that "just fell".
|
| But this isn't even about this particular half eaten
| sausage. A dog doesn't know the difference between a
| pristine sausage and a half eaten one, to them it's just
| meat. And the point is that dogs should be taught to never
| eat any meat on the street - because they can't think "uh,
| looks half eaten, probably fine".
| Snild wrote:
| We've had this problem in Malmo, Sweden recently:
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/skane/nya-hundbullar-
| hitta...
|
| Bread rolls with bits of glass or metal in them, found in
| parks or along other pedestrian paths. They caught one
| woman doing it, but it is believed the news might have
| inspired other nutjobs.
| stevesimmons wrote:
| It does happen. My sister lost two dogs from poisoned meat
| someone put in their local park. They ran into the bushes,
| must have eaten something, started frothing at the mouth,
| and 15 minutes later both were dead. Apparently a number of
| other dogs died near that location the same way.
| petepete wrote:
| Oh she's never encouraged. But, Labs being Labs, she'd find a
| crisp in a field given two minutes.
| torstenvl wrote:
| #embed "whaleeyes.jpg"
|
| All food must go to the lab for testing!
| authorfly wrote:
| That's cool but dogs remembering names is more insightful in an
| exciting way, let me elucidate on why it's pretty fascinating!
|
| We know how place memories work quite well, Place and Grid
| cells specifically. There is a natural and almost physical
| level of 1:1 mapping at various scales[1] from location (based
| on different tracking systems - point integration, landmarks,
| your own steps) to activating cells in your brain. Simple co-
| activation alongside reward, like a literal map, sets down
| "good stuff here" signs in your brain.
|
| Once attenuated and activated by Dopamine, the place cells to
| triangulate (at different "distances") that position have
| basically fewer mechanims and binding opportunities for
| neurotransmitters to change upon other interaction(they have
| little input beside place + pleasure + pain), so they do not
| result in loss of their attenuation or association (part of why
| place stays longest in Alhzeimers patients association).
|
| Memory of sounds however, isn't so clearly mappable, there is
| no obvious grid/comparable formulation of sound memories in any
| kind of "order" like there is with location and places in Place
| Cells. And clearly we humans forget many of the sounds we have
| heard (e.g. songs, lyrics). That's why it's quite interesting
| that dogs remember toys names for a long time. It makes you ask
| questions like "If we had less sounds/named things to remember,
| could we remember the ones we do remember for much longer, with
| less forgetting?". "What is the difference between permanent,
| event and temporal memories?", "Could we resolve
| neurodegenerative diseases by modifying neurons to be longer
| lasting or impervious to future modification in strategic areas
| of the brain? Could be retain some learning?"
|
| [1]
| http://www.rsb.org.uk/images/biologist/Features/Grid_mouse_d...
| csallen wrote:
| This is all fascinating stuff. I love the idea behind memory
| palaces, and this stuff about place/grid cells sounds like
| the explanatory science behind it. Any reading you'd
| recommend?
|
| _> And clearly we humans forget many of the sounds we have
| heard (e.g. songs, lyrics)._ >
|
| It's true we forget many sounds, but songs and lyrics is a
| curious example. I'd guess those were high on the list of
| things humans are good at remembering... maybe #4 behind
| places, faces, and language in general? I've had pop lyrics
| and commercial jingles and theme songs rattling around in my
| head for decades, and I can easily sing them word for word.
| Something about a sequence of words put to a beat and a
| melody just seems to stick.
| blinkeer wrote:
| Dominic OBrien is a memory champion. He's got some good
| material on it.
|
| https://artofmemory.com/blog/how-to-build-a-memory-palace/
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_O%27Brien
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9684328-you-can-have-
| an-...
| raldi wrote:
| Is it possible the names of the toys were fitting, like Kiki and
| Bouba? It would be interesting to see result where the toys had
| the same names but the dogs had never learned them.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Orwell wrote two books which purported to sketch different
| societies from his own mid-century english one:
|
| In _1984_ , the inner party sell the story of "english
| socialism", although closer inspection reveals a tripartite
| distinction in which they (nomenklatura) derive most of the
| benefit from a system administered by the outer party
| (apparatchiks, kept on a tight leash) and staffed by the proles
| (who have more freedom than outer party members, because, well,
| they're harmless).
|
| In _Animal Farm_ , the pigs sell the story of "animalism",
| although closer inspection reveals a tripartite distinction in
| which they derive most of the benefit from a system administered
| by the dogs and staffed by the other animals.
|
| In _1984_ , the distinction between inner and outer party is in
| theory not a matter of family background, but depends merely upon
| performance on standardised exams during adolescence.
|
| If we can push the loose parallels between the two works, then
| we'd expect that according to Orwell's model of animals, while
| pigs are the brightest among the domesticated species, dogs are
| not far behind in intellect? Do we expect he'd have been
| surprised at TFA's reporting?
|
| Lagniappe: https://ribbonfarm.wpenginepowered.com/wp-
| content/uploads/20...
|
| (I know dogs buy into The House Rules so much that they can be
| remarkably guilty-looking if you run across clear evidence of
| them having done something they were supposed not to do; the
| question Venkatesh Rao might ask is if any dogs ever attempt to
| shift the blame onto another critter?)
| smogcutter wrote:
| In the case of animal farm, it's not so much that the dogs are
| more intelligent than the other animals as that Napoleon takes
| advantage of their disposition to unshakeable loyalty and need
| for a master. Likewise, unfortunately, in life.
|
| If you _have_ to rank the animals by intelligence, second (or
| first, even?) is certainly Benjamin the donkey.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Looking through Rao's prism (in which disposition to
| unshakeable loyalty is a "clueless" trait), Benjamin is a
| clear "sociopath" candidate: he's (a) laconic, and (b)
| underperforming.
|
| [In the 80s, Rabinovich was allowed a tour of Europe. He sent
| telegrams from everywhere: "Greetings from free Bulgaria.
| Rabinovich" "Greetings from free Romania. Rabinovich"
| "Greetings from free Hungary. Rabinovich" "Greetings from
| Austria. Free Rabinovich"]
| smogcutter wrote:
| In Rao's model, the sociopaths and losers share an
| understanding that the organization exists for the benefit
| of the sociopaths, they just respond to it differently.
| It's only the clueless who are bamboozled.
|
| So idk if it's a great lens for AF, where all the
| proletarian animals are more or less equally taken in.
|
| But anyway, Benjamin is definitely a loser, not a
| sociopath! He comes closest to understanding what's
| happening, and his response is to put his head down, so his
| job, and seek meaning outside the political game. A Ryan-
| type sociopath candidate would ditch work to make a
| political play. Benjamin is Stanley.
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| Tiny nitpick: Benjamin certainly would not want to become
| a sociopath, but the incumbent sociopaths would
| doubtlessly love to promote him into their ranks,
| surreptitiously. Confidence in the power of power to
| corrupt! (Usually misplaced, thankfully, despite media)
|
| (To abuse a Ridley Scott favourite: slip a Marechal's
| baton into his rucksack)
|
| [this is opposite of the Rabinovich "strategy", which
| hints that YC are not sociopaths]
|
| EDIT: I dont think this is comparable to Steve Jobs'
| 100-Person Retreat without more insider data, e.g.,
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41416275
|
| Would be interested to know if anybody got promoted as a
| result of these retreats, my hunch is, no, because
| everybody knows about the 100-person retreat.
|
| EDIT 2: another system to compare with, kind of the
| opposite of Rao's model, is the Lambeth race, thats more
| like openly favouring the tortoise? So that no rabbit
| would sign up in the first place.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41468567
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Then again, in the universe of Benjamin/Squealer fanfic,
| who's to say we couldn't find the following convo?
|
| -- ... Ironic. He could save others from death, but not
| himself.
|
| -- Is it possible to learn this power?
|
| -- Not from a pig.
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| SPJ's innovation, was to keep it bipartite and below--
| making sure type IIIs didnt feel like they were a higher
| class & everyone else was type II (Imagine an army with
| only NCOs and officers, but the NCOs are type IIIs) No
| proles (grunts) in the orgchart of a very large design
| agency..culturally, designers often happy to work like
| grunts anyway! (Painters = painters)
|
| This trouble with the proles (app store, actual store,
| icloud, contractor relations, PR screwups.. ) ultimately
| stems from that failed pancreas transplant, so that they
| no longer had an IV to keep entropy in its place..
|
| [plus maybe the programmers n ee types started to feel
| they werent fully designers (Bret Victor, later, pple
| like Lattner?)]
|
| [Check out the wwdc videos.. the sw engineers dress
| like.. they havent read the canon]
|
| https://culturology-journal.ru/en/article.php?id=309
|
| https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_la_marechale
|
| See cultural references in the less misogynistic
| (misandric?) en wiki
|
| Equoid Lagniappe: the surnames Si Ma and Marshall have a
| common origin
|
| > _the recipes in which are infamous for reducing the
| population of anarchist cooks_
|
| > _I then began thinking about the other aspects of the
| bizarre parasitic life-cycle of the unicorn_
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| Contrast also the scale of the engineering
| consultancies/art/design coops that are purportedly the
| talent-dense equivalents of Mondragon, eg
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arup_Group
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _So that no rabbit would sign up in the first place._
|
| I liked Dobro pozhalovat', ili Postoronnim vkhod
| vospreshchion (1964), in which the summer camp director
| plays a very soviet version of an Eric Berne
| Transactional Analysis* game, "Everything I do, I do it
| for you".
|
| According to wikipedia, it's infamous in russian for the
| lines:
|
| -- Children, remember! You all are the owners of the
| camp. [All of] you! What do you all [therefore] need?
|
| -- [children in chorus] Di. Sci. Pline!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku_V2HgK6i8
|
| Thx for Equoid! Not having started in on it yet, all I
| have for now is pedantry, for the commenters on Stross'
| blog who are making horse analogies (as well as the
| wonderful Unicorns From Hell vid) are way off base:
| horses are Perissodactyl, but unicorns are Artiodactyl.
|
| * I'm not sold on TA, but learning to tune out as soon as
| you notice the opening moves of a TA game? That's sanity-
| preserving material right there.
|
| PS. I've lost the source for the roman trichotomy; plz
| remind?
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| [PS] B Russell, _In Praise of Idleness_
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Dark Benjamin is a productive characterisation. Here are
| a few more snippets, from a world with a few less
| Midichlorians:
|
| I. [Benjamin is attending an Animal Farm wedding with his
| mare friend from a neighbouring farm, Kay.]
|
| -- and Napoleon assured him that either his brains or his
| signature would be on the contract.
|
| -- ...
|
| -- That's a true story. That's my farm, Kay, that's not
| me.
|
| II. [After the death of Napoleon, the younger pigs took
| out a mortgage from the human bank. Pinkeye meets
| Benjamin to discuss some financial aid the latter
| provided for recent payments.]
|
| -- Com.. Mr. Benjamin, of course we pigs are very
| grateful for your assistance with affairs of farm, and so
| we thought we should give you a quick heads-up. You're an
| animal of the world, you know how unforeseen things
| happen; we'd like to repay you on the original schedule
| but our accountants are saying we _might_ have to get
| creative and renegotiate. I don 't know what we might do,
| that's for others to decide, and unfortunately it didn't
| get discussed at the last committee meeting because we
| were too busy drawing up this list of the new government
| ministries. Would you care to see it by any chance?
|
| -- Don't worry about negotiating with me; you should be
| worrying about negotiating with your Maker for breaking
| your word, when you come before Him to have Judgement
| passed on your soul...
|
| -- Mr. Benjamin, surely you of all animals know that we
| pigs live quarter to quarter and have no time to waste on
| something so far off as that?
|
| -- Allow me to repay your kindness by giving you a quick
| heads-up. You're an animal of the world, you know how
| unforeseen things happen. I'd like to be flexible but my
| investors are impatient. If we don't get repaid by
| Friday, you _might_ be meeting your Maker on Saturday.
|
| III. [Years later, Benjamin, having since officially
| taken over from the pigs, has scheduled a "working
| holiday" at a secluded fishing spot with the president of
| the bank]
|
| -- Ben, how do you do it? These skeeters are as loud as
| the outboard and I'm slathered in DEET but still getting
| eaten alive. Yet they don't bother you?
|
| [Benjamin twitches his ears back, and lifts a hind hoof
| ever so slightly off the aluminium deck. In the sudden
| silence, the president can hear wavelets rippling along
| the gunwales of their fishing boat.]
|
| -- They... know better.
| smittywerben wrote:
| I remember how happy our Golden Retriever was after digging up
| his Kong toy buried in the dirt in the backyard from eons ago. He
| liked hiding bones out there, and he had several Kong toys laying
| around the house and yard, but this dirty earthy Kong toy must
| have gone missing and when he dug it up it was like he struck
| oil.
| quintes wrote:
| Our dog a shitzu cross can remember multiple toy names, and go
| find the specific one.
|
| Dogs are the best man
| nutrie wrote:
| What always surprises me is they remember places they haven't
| been at for many years as well. Not so much people in my
| experience. I guess we don't matter to them as much as we like
| to think we do :)
| quintes wrote:
| Remembering places is an interesting one, I've not
| experienced that with our little guy except he knows the vet
| and the kennel and not a fan of either. I suspect you're
| right and we are not as important as we think we are to them
| but a wagging tail tells me all I need to know!
| jumploops wrote:
| It always bothers me how little intelligence we assume of and
| thus ascribe to the animal kingdom.
|
| Especially to our mammalian brethren, who have many of the same
| underlying neurological mechanisms (though in differing
| quantities).
|
| Dogs have co-evolved with humans for thousands of years.
|
| Remembering names seems like a useful albeit unsurprising skill,
| especially when it comes to recognizing/avoiding danger.
|
| "The bear/wolf/demon tribe is back!"
|
| Will we ever stop looking down from our heavenly pedestal? Can we
| instead treat at our earthly contemporaries as different but
| equal?
| accrual wrote:
| I agree, I think there is a lot of intelligence around us,
| perhaps even in ways we don't fully see or imagine. One of the
| largest organisms on Earth is a mycelium network in Oregon,
| it's nearly 4 square miles in size.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...
|
| Is it possible this mass of mycelium has some form of
| intelligence that is difficult for humans to measure? Maybe it
| "knows" things we can barely conceptualize. What about trees
| that stand in place for hundreds, or even thousands of years?
|
| https://www.treehugger.com/the-worlds-oldest-living-trees-48...
|
| Perhaps the trees experience time differently due to their slow
| growth, and they too have "witnessed" many different events in
| their environment over time, encapsulating them in the rings
| and structures within themselves.
|
| We could write this off as non-sense as trees have no nervous
| system, but maybe a lack of such a system doesn't necessarily
| preclude some type of intelligence we just don't consider
| "intelligent".
| sethammons wrote:
| I think you will enjoy the documentary The Hidden Life of
| Trees. It talks about trees and social networks of mycelium
| where trees share nutrients and information on threats (ant
| species X attacking, start chemical defenses) and mother
| trees prioritize their offspring over other neighbors when
| sharing nutrients.
|
| There are whole worlds to be discovered yet here on our
| little blue dot of a planet
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| >Is it possible this mass of mycelium has some form of
| intelligence that is difficult for humans to measure? Maybe
| it "knows" things we can barely conceptualize.
|
| That's actually the plot of a Garrett P.I. novel.
| throwaway892552 wrote:
| It's almost as if we have some type of coping mechanism. If we
| recognized more of ourselves in our animals, we would need to
| treat them more humane.
|
| Just look at all the cases in human history where other people
| were reduced to primitive beings and could be treated more
| cruelly. If we can rationalize these actions towards fellow
| humans, I assume that the barrier for accepting animal emotions
| is even harder to break
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Didn't you just describe several religions' beliefs about
| humans and animals, where humans are claimed to be a priori
| more special in various ways (besides reading that they're
| more special)?
| hdivider wrote:
| Every time I encounter resistance to your points here, I feel
| like an alien among humans.
|
| I think it cuts so deep into people's psychology, and
| frequently religion. The very notion that we are not the apex
| of anything. And that we no longer need to eat other animals to
| live and be healthy. Too much to bear for many, so it
| frequently results in low-quality conversation, laden with
| emotions.
|
| The fact remains, however. Non-human animals are not that
| different from us. Pretty much all mental behavior is
| represented in the animal kingdom. _They_ , in so many ways,
| are _us_. And we are them.
|
| Why should it be otherwise, after all? It would be strange to
| have a quantum jump in mental behavior with humans, and only
| primitive behavior in all other animals.
|
| It'll probably take some centuries for humans to see other
| animals as inherently worthy of respect.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I am in no way religious, and I don't think we are
| fundamentally different than other animals, but I don't think
| it is surprising that most of us (myself included) think of
| human emotions and intelligence as being on a completely
| different level than animals.
|
| The complexity of human language, social structure, and
| technology is not even in the same ballpark as animals.
| Humans make iPhones and travel to space and write War and
| Peace. We dominate the world, changing its very climate and
| wiping countless species off the planet, and no other species
| even tries to stop us.
|
| It seems a bigger stretch to think other animals have similar
| emotions to humans than the opposite.
| gefriertrockner wrote:
| > The complexity of human language, social structure, and
| technology is not even in the same ballpark as animals.
| Humans make iPhones and travel to space and write War and
| Peace. We dominate the world, changing its very climate and
| wiping countless species off the planet, and no other
| species even tries to stop us.
|
| That's true only for a small subset of humans. 99.9% of
| humans achieve no feat as you describe.
|
| You can easily make the case for attributing these feats to
| smaller subsets. E.g., Africans, Native Americans do not
| make iPhones, travel to space, etc. And therefore its ok to
| colonize them. I think that sounds familiar to history.
|
| If you go by this notion, it would rather make sense to
| attribute these feats to a small elite and not humans
| entirely. And by that logic, this elite is siphoning money,
| creating riches for their own benefit. Which is probably
| what is happening in most countries (more so if they are
| authoritarian).
|
| I think its simply about a feeling of superiority, might
| makes right. If you can, you abuse others for your own
| benefit. Whether they are a human or another animal.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > That's true only for a small subset of humans. 99.9% of
| humans achieve no feat as you describe.
|
| You can have a conversation with 99.9% of humans,
| something you can't do with any other animal. The other
| list of accomplishments is not even needed to surpass
| what animals can do.
|
| You have to be intentionally being obtuse to suggest that
| the gal between humans and animals is not an order of
| magnitude away from the gap between humans and other
| humans.
| gefriertrockner wrote:
| Your point doesn't touch my argument. I'm saying if you
| are claiming superiority over other animals, you can also
| claim superiority over weaker humans, for the same
| reasons, with the same results.
|
| By the way, you can't have a proper conversation with
| someone, if you don't speak the same language.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Even if someone doesn't speak the same language, we can
| communicate in a way that animals simply can't. I think
| the fact that different civilizations have been able to
| contact each other throughout history, and even when not
| speaking the same language at all, establish relations
| shows that it isnt just that we don't speak animal
| languages, but that they are fundamentally different in
| their ability to communicate.
|
| To answer your other argument, there is a different
| fundamental level of 'superiority' over animals that you
| could never argue for over humans. Even the most
| 'primitive' of civilizations have been able to articulate
| their resistance to oppressors in a way no animal has
| ever even come close to doing. Again, the orders of
| magnitude difference between humans and animals makes it
| a completely different comparison than between humans and
| 'weaker' humans. It is insulting to humans to imply it is
| the same thing.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Humans might not be able to converse with animals like
| one another. Humans can absolutely communicate with other
| animals, especially other mammals, to varying degrees. I
| believe such communication could argued as a form of
| conversation.
|
| Are humans more intelligent than animals though? By human
| definitions and metrics? Unquestionably. However, I am
| not convinced that humans are truly superior in every
| facet of intelligence.
|
| I have mental health issues, I breathe in toxic air,
| consume poisonous food and drink, wait in traffic to go
| to some miserable office, to be surrounded by miserable
| people, to do meaningless work. I do all of this so that
| I may survive and placate myself with the leftovers.
| Other "intelligent" humans give me concoctions that alter
| my brain chemistry in order to help me cope and distract
| myself from our Sisyphean existence.
|
| In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was punished for believing
| he was more intelligent than the gods. I sometimes wonder
| if we, too, are punished for believing we are superior to
| nature. Perhaps true intelligence is not defined by our
| metrics after all.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > We dominate the world, changing its very climate and
| wiping countless species off the planet
|
| To add on to your argument in the context of this quote,
| I also think this is also an extremely compelling
| argument for not only the arrogance of mankind, but the
| true stupidity of mankind.
|
| We treat our one and only planet -- source of survival --
| like its rental. Hopefully within the next century, we
| can develop some method to eat those iPhones because we
| might not have many options left.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| I sadly ascribe it to education.
|
| People are wrongly taught when they're children that as a
| human they're special.
|
| Mostly it's with good intentions (encouraging ethics and
| responsibility), but often the message is rudimentary or lost
| along the way.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| never seen a dog using a computer
| devnullbrain wrote:
| on the other hand, never seen a dog use javascript
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| you wouldn't, they tend to prefer Python
| hirvi74 wrote:
| I am also bothered by mainstream definitions of intelligence
| and our humanity's egocentric ascription.
|
| I personally really appreciate the definition of intelligence
| from Dr. David Krakauer, a mathematical biologist. Krakauer
| once said on Sam Harris' podcast (episode 40):
|
| _Intelligence is, as I say to people, one of the topics about
| which we have been most stupid. All our definitions of
| intelligence are based on measurements that can only be applied
| to humans. An IQ test is not interesting if you're trying to
| calculate the intelligence of an octopus -- which I would like
| to know, because I believe in evolution. I think we need to
| understand where these things come from, and having a
| definition that applies just to one particular species doesn't
| help us. We've talked about entropy and computation, and
| they're going to be the keys to understanding intelligence.
|
| Let's go back to randomness. The example I like to give is
| Rubik's cube, because it's a beautiful little mental model, a
| metaphor. If I gave you a cube and asked you to solve it, and
| you just randomly manipulated it, since it has on the order of
| 10 quintillion solutions, which is a very large number, if you
| were immortal, you would eventually solve it. But it would take
| a lifetime of several universes to do so. That is random
| performance.
|
| Stupid performance is if you took just one face of the cube and
| manipulated that one face and rotated it forever. As everyone
| knows, if you did that, you would never solve the cube. It
| would be an infinite process that would never be resolved.
| That, in my definition, would be stupid. It is significantly
| worse than chance.
|
| Now let's take someone who has learned how to manipulate a cube
| and is familiar with various rules that allow you, from any
| initial configuration, to solve the cube in 20 minutes or less.
| That is intelligent behavior, significantly better than chance.
| This sounds a little counterintuitive, perhaps, until you
| realize that's how we use the word in our daily lives. If I sat
| down with an extraordinary mathematician and I said, "I can't
| solve that equation," and he said, "Well, no, it's easy. Here,
| this is what you do," I'd look at it and I'd say, "Oh, yes, it
| is easy. You made that look easy." That's what we mean when we
| say someone is smart. They make things look easy.
|
| If, on the other hand, I sat down with someone who was
| incapable, and he just kept dividing by two, for whatever
| reason, I would say, "What on earth are you doing? What a
| stupid thing to do. You'll never solve the problem that way."
| So that is what we mean by intelligence. It's the thing we do
| that ensures that the problem is efficiently solved and in a
| way that makes it appear effortless. And stupidity is a set of
| rules that we use to ensure that the problem will be solved in
| longer than chance or never and is nevertheless pursued with
| alacrity and enthusiasm."_
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Wow, now release the study on how to take over control of an
| animal remotely.
| thelittleone wrote:
| Here I can barely remember the browser tab I was just working on.
| kazinator wrote:
| I don't believe it. Dogs' brain matter is a different shade of
| gray, which only remembers for six weeks.
| denkmoon wrote:
| That's a clearly absurd proposition. My family's dogs remember
| me when i haven't been around for 6 months, let alone 6 weeks.
| kazinator wrote:
| The point is, why should it it be surprising.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > That's a clearly absurd proposition.
|
| Yes, that is the joke.
| denkmoon wrote:
| Terrible joke. "Lol"
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I used to watch a family member's dogs. One year one of the dogs
| got super obsessed with a toy I bought. As I was packing things
| up, the dog saw me put the toy in a drawer. A year later when dog
| was dropped off it immediately went to the room with the drawer
| and waited eagerly for me to open the drawer and retrieve the
| toy.
| inopinatus wrote:
| corollary: a toy cannot be disposed of whilst at least one dog
| holds a reference to it in memory.
| nyjah wrote:
| I have a German shepherd. She's 10. I've been buying the same toy
| for her for the last 10 years, jolly ball soccer ball in blue.
|
| Probably average about 2 a year. My dog understands when it's
| time for the new one. She's ultra excited and all the sudden the
| old ball we have kicked and fetched every single day for 6
| months, is non existent as we are on to the new one. I always get
| a kick out of it. She's too funny about it.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| I've had a Mal for a couple of years now; I find myself looking
| for new words to describe "go" and "walk" with my s/o. We can
| only use the new words for so long before he catches on and the
| old ones don't seem to fade away. It's almost a game between us
| now.
| spike021 wrote:
| My dog constantly surprises me and he's only 3.5 years old.
|
| The first year I had him as a puppy, he could smell/hear (?) his
| best neighborhood buddy walking multiple buildings away from our
| apartment while the windows were closed. He'd run to the door and
| start crying and as soon as we got outside he knew the right
| path. And his friend hadn't even walked by our building yet, so
| it's not like there was a trail to sniff other than whatever may
| have been carried by breeze.
|
| Dogs are incredibly smart.
| gitaarik wrote:
| There's also this experiment with dogs where they observed dogs
| getting up, walking to the front door, and waiting for their
| owner to come back home from work, as soon as the owner started
| heading home from the office. They somehow know, like they're
| telephatically connected.
| poikroequ wrote:
| I know the experiment you're referring to. It's been a long
| time since I've seen it, no idea how to find it now, but
| you're definitely misremembering some details. Dogs do have a
| sense of time, but in that experiment, it actually had to do
| with scent. As their owner was away, their scent would
| gradually dissipate throughout the day. At a certain point,
| the scent was weak enough that the dog knew it was about time
| for their owner to be home.
|
| In the experiment, then they did everything they could to
| remove their owners scent from their home. The dog's owner
| came home at the usual time, but the dog wasn't expecting it
| this time because they had removed the owner's scent earlier,
| so the dog was clearly surprised and confused.
|
| Dogs have a very strong sense of smell which we humans often
| fail to appreciate. It's not like dogs can smell their owner
| coming home from miles away, that's a little preposterous.
| But they can use their sense of smell in other ways, which
| are not so obvious to us, such as to maintain a sense of
| time.
| gitaarik wrote:
| Aha, interesting, I looked up some info about it and it
| seems that in another experiment the dogs also reacted when
| the owner went home at irregular times. Quite interesting:
|
| https://www.sheldrake.org/research/animal-powers/a-dog-
| that-...
| jonplackett wrote:
| Why is this surprising? Dogs are frikkin clever.
|
| Our old Collie could fetch different types of ball on command
| without really any intention training.
| rongenre wrote:
| I had a GSD who remembered everyone who threw a tennis ball for
| her. To the point that I had to warn people that if they tossed
| it once, she'd be dropping a tennis ball in their laps for the
| foreseeable future.
|
| I miss that girl.
| Biganon wrote:
| "...years after (last) seeing them", or "after years of not
| seeing them".
| aj7 wrote:
| Remember names?
|
| Dogs have egos!!
| benjyk wrote:
| The first author of the study -- Dr Shany Dror -- presented an
| excellent seminar about this paper on Cassyni.*
| https://doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.hwbggb
|
| *I'm one of the founders of Cassyni
| raffraffraff wrote:
| My dog remembered a song. I may have posted before. Zuni (a
| lurcher) and Pasha (a greyhound) were two dogs we rescued about
| 12 years ago. We took two because they were together and we
| didn't want to split them up. Zuni was a howler. He'd howl if he
| heard the ice-cream truck, and Pasha would join in.
|
| Now, in our house, music is playing pretty much constantly, and
| we always assumed that dogs either didn't understand it or didn't
| care about it. But whenever the Warren Zevon song "Werewolves of
| London" came on, my wife would try to get Zuni howling with the
| "Aaaaaaaah Ooooooh" bit. Every time the song would come on, she'd
| make the same silly joke with the dogs. Zuni would begin to howl
| immediately, and Pasha would join in with him.
|
| Well, Pasha was diagnosed with bone cancer and we lost her a few
| months after that. Sheena couldn't bare playing the song and I
| intentionally avoided it. We got another greyhound as a companion
| for Zuni.
|
| About a year after we got Lily, I put on a random mix and
| wandered around the house doing chores. Some time later I heard
| the first bars of Werewolves in London and immediately though
| "damn, I hope the wife doesn't hear this". Before I could finish
| the thought, Zuni was howling his head off, and racing around the
| house, I _think_ , searching for Pasha.
|
| It hadn't even gotten too the "Aaaaaaaah Ooooooh" part. Which
| means that he also recognised the song in the first few bars.
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