Do you think there are things forever beyond our grasp?

[William White]

I think you're grossly overestimating how much intelligence it takes to negotiate the environment. Consider the locomotion of the paramecium, which is a single cell organism. That is: it has no brain or nervous system by which to calculate anything:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramecium#Movement

no I'm not - and I think you are deliberately mis-interpreting what I am saying.

There are different levels of navigation.

As far as I am aware, the paramecium cannot predict motion and intercept projectiles; factoring terrain, wind-speed, friction accelerations etc. etc.

These are emergent evolved skills.

 

[William White]

there's plenty of people that fail at being people.

 

[zoobyshoe]

there's plenty of people that fail at being people.

Exactly. And that's because no one moves by calculating F=ma, consciously or otherwise.

 

[zoobyshoe]

As far as I am aware, the paramecium cannot predict motion and intercept projectiles; factoring terrain, wind-speed, friction accelerations etc. etc.

The paramecium is obviously predicting forward and reverse motion. When it encounters an obstacle it reverses the motion of its cilia to back up, then reverses it again in the hope the new forward tack will take it past the obstacle.

 

[DiracPool]

Intelligent animals are much more able to predict motion and act accordingly than less intelligent animals. Or rather, there are animals whose brains have evolved to do the mental calculations required to predict motion.

I don't think there' much evidence for this assertion. An eagle or an osprey demonstrates incredible precision predicting the motions of it's prey, much better than I could, but there's no evidence it is performing any "mental calculations" to do so. It's just flying on instinct. These birds don't even have a neocortex, but they have much better "eye-claw" coordination than most mammals who do have a neocortex. I think it's exactly the opposite, I think primate intelligence in particular may have evolved partly to make up for a deficiency in sensori-motor control that was making us easy meals for the lions once we went bipedal and come down from the trees.

 

[William White]

I don't think there' much evidence for this assertion. An eagle or an osprey demonstrates incredible precision predicting the motions of it's prey, much better than I could, but there's no evidence it is performing any "mental calculations" to do so. It's just flying on instinct. These birds don't even have a neocortex, but they have much better "eye-claw" coordination than most mammals who do have a neocortex. I think it's exactly the opposite, I think primate intelligence in particular may have evolved partly to make up for a deficiency in sensori-motor control that was making us easy meals for the lions once we went bipedal and come down from the trees.

you seem to be saying that at some point intelligence just popped into being : before that, there was instinct; then along came a group of animals that were intelligent (intelligence being - amongst other things - capable of predictions, and acting upon those predictions).

I don't accept that. Intelligence emerges and there is a scale.

First you need to define when instinct stops being instinct and starts being something the animal is in control of.

good luck with that.

 

[DiracPool]

First you need to define when instinct stops being instinct and starts being something the animal is in control of.

I think you got it backwards, the burden of proof is not on me, it's on you with making the statement that non-human animals make mental calculations. Good luck with that...

The only animal we can be sure is making mental calculations is Homo sapien sapien, and we know this because we see evidence of his/her arithmetic scribbled on scratch paper.

 

[Dembadon]

Our species is great at connecting dots that aren't meant to be connected. I think we can fool ourselves into thinking we understanding something that we don't actually understand. Assuming our brain had the ability to understand everything, I think the bigger question is whether we'd have an accurate grasp of everything given enough time. The scientific method helps greatly, but does not completely remove our ineptitude.

 

[OCR]

... non-human animals make mental calculations.

I've watched our 3 cats make jumps many, many times... observation tells me, more is involved then just "instinct"...

This example seems to show that...

The only animal we can be sure is making mental calculations is Homo sapien sapien, and we know this because we see evidence of his/her arithmetic scribbled on scratch paper.

Yeah, I agree...

It's an interesting and very complicated subject...

Carry on...

​

 

[zoobyshoe]

I've watched our 3 cats make jumps many, many times... observation tells me more is involved then just "instinct"...

You can see that that cat is paying very close attention to the task it is about to undertake, and I think the same is true in the fishing osprey video. The action is very deliberate and specific, and the 'mind' of the animal is clearly focused on it. It's not only predators who do this, I've seen a similar video of a deer about to leap over a very tall fence: it mentally prepared for the jump, sizing up the situation carefully before it sprang. I believe that is what William White is referring to as "calculation."

However, newjersyrunner's original proposition was (referring to a non-human primate):

I'm fairly certain it could pick up addition and subtraction, and probably multiplication and division too. I think it could probably grasp that mathematical formulas can represent the physical world and I think she'd understand to some degree Newton's laws.

And, although it requires experience and practice for an animal to hunt or jump well, that skill has nothing whatever to do with understanding that mathematical formulas can represent the physical world. There is no calculator lobe in their brains crunching numbers in the background to allow them to jump and swoop.

 

[Hornbein]

I have declared both Finnegan's Wake and Gravity's Rainbow forever beyond my grasp.

 

[William White]

I think you got it backwards, the burden of proof is not on me, it's on you with making the statement that non-human animals make mental calculations. Good luck with that...

no

you are the one making claims without proof - that the complex tasks that the brain of an animal is doing is purely instinctive.

You have no proof for this.

I am saying that it is evident that intelligence is emergent, and that many animals make very acurate predictions about the world around them that cannot be described as just instinctive.

How they do it is unknown, just as how we do it is unknown. But what you are doing is drawing an artificial line between human predictive behaviour and animal predictive bechaviour with no justification.

The only animal we can be sure is making mental calculations is Homo sapien sapien, and we know this because we see evidence of his/her arithmetic scribbled on scratch paper.

thats a very narrow definition.

our human ancestors did not have written language and were unable to do such thing; but were capable of mental calculations.

You are suggesting that there is a gulf between one animal with a brain capable of mental calculations (humans) and all other animals. And you think this - without justification or proff - because humans have developed written language to write down their calculations.

of course, I am not going to convince you otherwise; but I am convinced you are wrong and will remain wrong.

 

[DiracPool]

you are the one making claims without proof - that the complex tasks that the brain of an animal is doing is purely instinctive.

You have no proof for this.

I'm not making any claim, you are. You're saying that animals perform mental calculations. I'm saying they don't. The default-Null hypothesis is that they don't unless you can demonstrate somehow that they do. You haven't done that. That's why I said the burden of proof is on you.

our human ancestors did not have written language and were unable to do such thing; but were capable of mental calculations.

You're making an assertion with no evidence to back it up. I can't really do much with that..

 

[William White]

Animals have been observed making decisions by interpreting their environment, prediciting future events.

Either their brains are doing some complex calculations, or their brains are not.

You do not accept that as proof because your proof demands some sort of ability with written language (which is absurd). Most zoologists would agree that animals are capable of very complex mental agility.

You have said that is purely instinct with no justification: i.e. humans are the only animals that can make non-instintive predictions that involve mental agility, mental calculations.

Your argument is dud because from your argument you cannot prove that humans are doing anything other than pre-determined instinctive behaviour. i.e. you entire proof is based on some humans having the ability of language and that language is proof of mental calculations. Thats some leap (of faith). Its almost religious in its lifiting of humans up above other animals in the order of things. Lift your arm up: was that instinct or did you decide to do it? How did you control your movement? Why?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)#Accomplishments

 

[DiracPool]

you entire proof is based on some humans having the ability of language and that language is proof of mental calculations.

Your making my point for me, William. The proof is in the pudding. Humans have the ability to give an introspective report that they are performing mental calculations which is further verified by the fact that they can scribble equations on pieces of papers and chalkboards. With animals, we have neither of these; they do not display any introspective report of making a mental calculation nor do they leave scribbled equations on paper, and it is not only because they don't have an opposable thumb. Steven Hawking can't move a muscle but we're pretty sure he is making mental calculations.

 

[William White]

You are obsessed with equations on paper as proof of mental calculations. This suggests a lack on your part of being able to think.
Lets say modern humans evolved about a quarter of a million years ago. You are suggesting that the ability to do mental calculations did not exist before then; but that the ability appeared suddenly (in evolutinary terms) in one species only, rather than emerging.

This flies in the face of all evolutonary evidence that mental ability is an emergent behaviour.

Its the sort of nonsense that religionists use when they say animals don't have souls but humans do (their evidence for a soul is the same as your evidence for mental ability btw - ie uniquely human activity such as abstract language, the ability to think, calculate and percieve rather than act on instinct); that the soul popped into being at some point in the past. Before then, it did not exist. Therefore, somebody had the first soul; and therefore somebody (a human about 1/4 million years ago) was the first animal to be ever able to do a mental calculation. Thats a bizarre claim. It does demand that 1/4 million years ago, a mother gave birth to a child; the child able to calculate, the mother unable.

 

[mfb]

I suggest to avoid the phrase "mental calculations", I think you two are using it in different ways.

 

[William White]

i'm using it in what it means.

An animal brain, absorbing information from its environment, processing it in an intellgent way, to make predictions about the future so as to be able to make decisions.
Reducing this to "doing sums on paper" is missing the point entirely.

 

[DiracPool]

I do admire your passion, William, and because I do, I will entertain your more recent queries...

Lets say modern humans evolved about a quarter of a million years ago. You are suggesting that the ability to do mental calculations did not exist before then; but that the ability appeared suddenly (in evolutinary terms) in one species only, rather than emerging.

What do you mean by "emerging?" Yes, the ability to do math "emerged" in the genus Homo. What's so complicated about that? The ability to do math most likely originated with Homo erectus about 2.5 million years ago. I don't know where you came up with the 1/4 million year figure. 250,000 years ago is when we think that the hominin larynx lowered which helped these nascent humans to produce vowels, but it is not connected with the ability to perform mathematical operations. That likely came much earlier. It began with the appearance of homo erectus. I'm not going to go into much detail on this because this is actually in the field of my personal scientific models, and I want to stick to mainstream topics here, that I'm sure the moderators would appreciate. However, what I will say is that Homo habilis (most likely) did not have the capacity for any significant internal dialog. Homo erectus was the turning point.

The take home point, though, is that no non-human hominin species are extant today. So Homo sapien sapien is the only animal that has the capacity to do math. That is the null hypothesis and that is what you have to counter.

 

[zoobyshoe]

i'm using it in what it means.

An animal brain, absorbing information from its environment, processing it in an intellgent way, to make predictions about the future so as to be able to make decisions.
Reducing this to "doing sums on paper" is missing the point entirely.

That animals might learn to "do sums on paper" was the OP's original speculation, and the one DiracPool has been arguing against from his entry into the thread:

I'm fairly certain it could pick up addition and subtraction, and probably multiplication and division too. I think it could probably grasp that mathematical formulas can represent the physical world and I think she'd understand to some degree Newton's laws.

Here's a basic set of definitions for "calculate," that were the first to come up when I googled:

cal·cu·late/ˈkalkyəˌlāt/
verb

1. determine (the amount or number of something) mathematically.
2. intend (an action) to have a particular effect.
3. suppose; believe.

You have consistently failed to see, or are ignoring, that the first definition is the one DiracPool is refuting for animals. In any given context only one definition is operative, and the Opening Poster made it clear which was meant. The Opening Poster did, in fact, propose that animals might be able to perform mathematical operations to the extent they could understand something like F=ma. And that is what DiracPool is refuting. So, your repeated invocation of the second definition of "calculate" shown above is what misses the point.