Magpies Are Self-Aware 591
FireStormZ writes "Magpies can recognize themselves in a mirror, confounding the notion that self-awareness is the exclusive preserve of humans and a few higher mammals. It had been thought only four species of apes, bottlenose dolphins, and Asian elephants shared the human ability to recognize their own bodies in a mirror. But German scientists reported on Tuesday that magpies, a species with a brain structure very different from mammals, could also identify themselves. It had been thought that the neocortex brain area found in mammals was crucial to self-recognition. Yet birds, which last shared a common ancestor with mammals 300 million years ago, don't have a neocortex, suggesting that higher cognitive skills can develop in other ways."
The bird replies: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I knew magpies are quite "smart" (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you mirror mark tested your dog? You have to think of ways to differentiate between recognition and self-recognition, i.e. can your dog tell that it's itself or does it just recognise a non-threatening, non-responsive playmate, or even just a flat object?
Dogs are very sensitive to smell as a part of identity, I'm not sure a mirror would 'work' for them anyway.
What about a water fountain? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't Birds see a reflection of themselves in still water?
Don't they drink as opposed to fly away fearing for their safety?
Is this not a sign of self-awareness?
Re:Crows, for one (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh the irony of your post. Especially your "mythology" when you mention the "soul" 3 times in your post. Pray tell, where does this "soul" of which you speak go after we leave this place?
Re:Crows, for one (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that those tribes which have embraced this ideology have dominated the world, while those that did not were driven to extinction. It's evolution at work, just at a different level of granularity than what you can look at in a lab.
The whole concept of a "soul" exists for the purpose of supporting the perspective that we are aliens in this place, that we will go home through some mystical means when our vehicle here (our body) wears out, and we can do anything we like to the place while we're here, because it's alien and inconsequential.
Re:Crows, for one (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't give us all so much credit. There are a lot of things hard-wired into an animal's brain that comes from millions of years of evolution, and other things that come from the organism's experiences.
For instance, a heterosexual man can't help but look at a pretty girl, which annoys the hell out of their wives. When I stopped smoking, a year later when I didn't have any craving for tobacco whatever and had no desire to light a cigarette, nevertheless when I walked down the steps at work my hand automatically grabbed the shirt pocket that had held cigarettes all those years.
We are only another species of organism. There's nothing special about us; at least, no more than any other species. We have big brains, so what? We almost became extinct 70,000 years ago [telegraph.co.uk] despite our big brains.
Re:Crows, for one (Score:3, Insightful)
There's nothing special about us; at least, no more than any other species.
On the contrary there is something special about us. We are the only species capable of exceeding the physical limits of our bodies.
For a long time we have been able to lift heavier weights, move faster, communicate more quickly than the physical limits of our bodies, to name but a few. Soon we may even be able to reason beyond our brains capacity by the creation of special machines. That will be an extraordinary day.
Re:Crows, for one (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't give them all so much credit.
Hens are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of weasels (panic/run) and to sound (tweeting) of small chickens ("herd/care").
Slashdotters are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of the opposite sex (arousal/enlarged penises) and to sound (heavy breathing) of the their favourite bands ("tribal/belonging"). Don't give them all so much credit.
Employees are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to the arrival of their boss (panic/run) and to sound (yelling) of anyone in authority ("fear/flight"). Don't give them all so much credit.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Setting aside the hand-wavy theories and taxonomies promoted by those in the social sciences, I'd say that such generalisations, while possibly interesting, are mostly meaningless. If a fairly accurate generalisation can be made, it's that our age-old insistence that we're somehow unique or different is repeatedly proven wrong, and the underlying hubris has interfered with our ability to understand not only ourselves, but the world around us.
Re:Crows, for one (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Crows, for one (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Crows, for one (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing special about us; at least, no more than any other species. We have big brains, so what?
I realize this kind of rhetoric makes us feel better when we chide intelligent designers or want to alleviate our guilt but the fact is we are special. How many cities have dolphins, apes, and those crows built? How much literature have they written? Ever see a movie directed by Shamu? Check and mate!
Re:Crows, for one (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, for one these particular hens never faced a live weasel, for another, freezing like that in presence of real weasel would never allow the hen a learning experience.
It may be loss/degeneration of natural instincts due to unnatural environment, but the change is on genetic level, not on "upbringing" level.
Re:Crows, for one (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think anyone ever specifically -bred- chickens for (low) intelligence.
There may be two evolutionary factors though.
1. chickens that don't run away have a better chance for being bred. The runaway ones usually die pretty quickly and are rarely a basis of huge farms.
2. intelligence of a (domesticated) chicken doesn't improve its survival ratio the least bit. Unused organs (parts of brain) degenerate.
Re:Crows, for one (Score:5, Insightful)
Although i am a hard-line meat eating humanist, i do think he has a point, and you have not been able to contradict him.
Apart from an species bias based on genetic composition, there's no clear cut criteria to define human (tool making and self awareness discarded). Now you propose, among others, i presume, city building, literature writing and movie directing as criteria. I have not done anything of the above, and apart from genetic similarity, i have no relation to anyone who has. Am I Human?
To put it differently: Who built cities? was it the worker? his part in city building is no more complex than the role performed by the crow using a tool. Maybe the architect? then his humanity is tied to a capacity for abstract design, but then again, there are many homo sapiens of whom we do not know if they posses such capacity. Are they to be considered human too? and if we have no proof of their capacity, on what basis should they be considered human?
In the end, the whole capacity-based point of view is flawed. It's impossible to determine now if any capacity chosen as criteria will not be replicated by some non-human agent in the future, be it because we discovered it or because we create it, so we end up with only two possible criteria: Genetics and Empathy. And both are arbitrary: In the strict sense, the concept of "species" is irrelevant form a genetic point of view, as argued by Dawkins in the Selfish Gene and the Extended Phenotype. And empathy is just a generalization and aggregation of a capacity based criteria, not to say it's subjective and not possible to state formally (e.g. some forms of disability produce repulsion, etc).
All in all, i think this is no trivial matter...
Re:Crows, for one (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Parrots, for another (Score:3, Insightful)
...Why did you just sit there and take it?
Wrong Approach (Score:2, Insightful)
Any narrow or specific measure of "intelligence" or "consciousness" will likely backfire. This is because intelligence is a complex, multifaceted thing, not any single feature.
Further, the variety of niches in biology almost guarantee that at least one critter will evolve the ability to pass a specific test. Some birds depend on twigs to fetch food in their regular activities, for example. These birds have turned out to show remarkable innovation and creative problem solving involving wires and sticks to obtain food via lab puzzles despite having peanut-sized brains.
Re:Crows, for one (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, chickens are dumb. That has little to no relevance to whether magpies are smart because they aren't the same species.
Some birds (corvids, parrots, ) ARE quite smart, some (chickens, domesticated turkeys) are much less smart. Similarly, some mammals (dolphins, chimpanzees) are very intelligent, while others (manatees, people who enjoy country music) are notoriously stupid.
Re:Crows, for one (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, anyone who has ever had a parrot or macaw as a pet can tell you they're smarter than most people.
I lack even the most basic intellectual faculties and I'm unable to post anything original or meaningful so I instead repeat annoying internet memes.
There, fixed that for you.