So crows could build a jumbo jet, they're just lazy? It's pretty obvious that animals lack any type of intelligence even close to human ability. It's not even in the same ballpark.

What motivation does a crow have to build a jumbo jet?

Furthermore, the vast majority of humans have no idea how to build a jumbo jet, and throughout the vast majority of human history, there were no jets - jumbo or otherwise - does this mean that we only have higher intelligence in today's world, now that we are able to build jumbo jets? For the vast majority of human history, we only had the simplest of tools and if we compared those humans to today, by your standards, these humans do not possess higher intelligence. However, evolution has not progressed nearly as quickly as our ability to work with tools has; as such, the human brain really hasn't changed all that much in even the last 10,000 or even 100,000 years! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_human_intelligenc...

Finally, you have no proof that crows would be incapable of building a jumbo jet, you've simply asserted that they couldn't. To be clear, I'm not arguing that they could, merely conceding that because they haven't done so, does not mean that they are incapable of doing so.

Crows have only been around in one form or another for 30 million years give or take, so if they haven't done anything more interesting than adapt to their environment and use basic tools since, I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that the reason is because they are incapable of it, not because they have chosen not to.

At the end of the day, it is impossible to prove a negative, so no I can't show you off hand that a crow can't actually conceive of this or that or the other thing

I think the point is that we assume that because other animals don't have this kind of engineering ability, we assume that they don't have capabilities like self-awareness or higher-level thought. But we can't see into their minds, so we don't actually have direct evidence of that.

What we do see in more intelligent animals such as orcas, orang-utans, elephants, parrots, crows, octopuses, even cats and dogs, etc is sophisticated planning and inventive use of their environment. We also know that early humans were likely anatomically similar to modern humans (and may well have

Are there areas where humans are smarter. Almost certainly. But is the difference as great as the outward achievements as judged by human standards would indicate. Almost certainly not. And there may even be aspects of cognition that other animals excel at that we are completely unaware.

Language seems incredibly important, it may actually be the basis for our ability to build abstract concepts, not to mention share knowledge.

Agreed. I wouldn't like to assume that other animals don't have language though. Dolphins/Whales in particular seem pretty likely to have true language that we just can't understand.

Crows absolutely could build a jumbo jet, they just have no need to because they can already fly.

Would they build a submarine then? Or a rocket capable of reaching orbit?

More realistically: have they mastered fire? There are caloric efficiency benefits to eating warm/cooked food[0]. Have they mastered writing? There's compound interest in terms of civilization development sitting right there, in the ability to put thoughts into a form that outlives individuals without degrading.

--

[0] - At least for humans; IANABiologist, but I'd guess this would be true for other animals too, including birds, and at the very least it would expand the range of foods they can consume.

It took us 1000s of years to do that. One might ask, why did we master fire in the first place? Maybe to cook? To stay warm and go north? Do crows need to cook or can they just eat what humans cook? Do they need to stay warm?

Perhaps intelligent animals are just too well adapted to their world and don't feel the needs we do.

Or perhaps crows only have two claws that also serve as feet and a beak, making it harder to fashion tools?

Perhaps living underwater, like octopuses do, makes it quite hard to master fire?

Or perhaps measuring intelligence is hard, and focusing only on engineering outcomes is a fallacy.

It's also not like most humans would be able to build even a steam engine, let alone a jumbo jet.

Well, humans just started to build jumbo jets in very very recent history. That’s not a very fair benchmark.

If we remove ourselves from the world and let it sit for another few million years, there might be a dog or elephant or crow society, sure. And while that’s interesting to imagine it also shows that a fair benchmark is indeed simply which species makes it there first.

What would you consider the bare minimum act to be judged at human-level intelligence?

Remember, for most of the history of our evolutionary ancestors, we were hunter-gatherers that used extremely crude tools. Not really better than crows. Discoveries happened a whole lot slower back then, like the eons between making fire and starting agricultural towns. Given a few millennia, crows may be making their own fires to cook.

> What would you consider the bare minimum act to be judged at human-level intelligence?

Lex Fridman discussed this topic with Françoit Chollet in his recent podcast episode "Measures of Intelligence" [1]. I highly recommend it. Lengthy but really worth it.

[1] https://youtu.be/PUAdj3w3wO4

Maybe they are smart enough to realize that jumbo jets would ruin the planet? /s

Of course they could, but they can already fly. See? Intelligence.

See, there's your arrogance again. They may have no interest in doing so or anything leading up to it and desire is not a measure of intelligence.

OK, so how about the fact that they haven't figured out how to heal broken bones? Is that my arrogance again, or is it that they would just prefer to flop on the ground until nightfall and then be eaten alive by coyotes?

And how are crows supposed to defend wounded fellows from coyotes? Or carry them to safety?

How about the fact they can apparently build compound tools from parts?

Your example isn't just about brains. It requires both proper bodies and arguably complex social behaviors, which are quite separate from intelligence itself.

I agree with missedthecue that this response is kind of ridiculous. We know things about anaesthesia, blood clotting, soft tissue, and our physical actions are informed by an amassed body of knowledge and an ability to reason from that knowledge and apply it with a degree of sophiscation that crows don't apply, even within the domains of things that are easy for them physically to do.

This is so ridiculous that I'm wondering if I'm missing the point. Is this sarcasm? Is this playing devil's advocate to prove some kind of point?

Edit: TDLR - There are many affirmations, assumptions, and a lot of confidence in those in many of the responses here. And I seriously doubt most of them are supported by anything more than gut feelings and certainties of unknown origins.

---

> We know things about anaesthesia, blood clotting, soft tissue, [...]

Actually, most of us don't know much, if anything, about any of this. Heck, for all most of us know, it could actually be wizardry powered by small elves running in hamster wheels.

> and our physical actions are informed by an amassed body of knowledge and an ability to reason from that knowledge and apply it with a degree of sophiscation [...]

That really doesn't match most of human behaviors I can observe around me, online or in the street. Actually, it seems that implementing informed and vaguely rational decision-making is a great way to improve many things.

It often feels like we merely are pompous and arrogant monkeys who are lucky some of their ancestors built most of what's around us.

> This is so ridiculous that I'm wondering if I'm missing the point.

That's my fault. I'll try to make it clear.

- Intelligence is hard to measure.

- Our biases, as individuals and as a species, are huge.

- Our knowledge, as individuals, on other living things' perspectives, is laughable.

- Objectives and desired outcomes are relative.

- Outcomes' prerequisites are many, diverse, and often unknown.

Meaning:

-> We really don't know much,

--> Unless approaching the subject with a scientific method and an open mind, any opinion could only be founded on pre-conceived notions, gut feelings, limited personal experience, and unfounded "common sense" and "cultural knowledge.

Thus:

---> Having and expressing any personal opinion on this subject, based on anything else than scientific experience, is both pointless and presumptuous.

And now we can go into the credit we should give to science, the limits of the scientific methods, and probably many other things.

What you're pointing out is human culture, not the wits of human individuals. For the vast majority of human existence and for most humans alive today there is no such knowledge or practice.

I don't think this rebuttal holds much water. Humans are capable of doing things that our bodies cannot. We domesticated beasts of burden in order to move heavy objects from one place to another for instance.

But consider very basic advancements. Communication for instance is something humans mastered from the outset. We are able to store and pass down information beyond the instinctual for generations, something no other animal has done. Imagine if humans needed to rediscover mathematics every generation!

There are plenty of examples I could give that would provide crows with an immediate improvement in the quality of life. I think the reason they have not done these things is because they cannot, rather than because they have chosen not to.

> I don't think this rebuttal holds much water.

I don't know if it does. But I surely ain't convinced by gp.

> Humans are capable of doing things that our bodies cannot. We domesticated beasts of burden in order to move heavy objects from one place to another for instance.

I would be curious as to how a crow is supposed to domesticate an ox. Or even a dog. Birds are extremely fragile.

As for communication, well, it's both a matter of intelligence and sociability. And they do seem to be able to communicate information "beyond the instinctual" (such as how to identify specific human individuals [1])

As for "can't vs won't", my point isn't that they don't want to. I don't know. I don't know what they can or cannot do. I don't know how their minds work. And I don't know what are the actual prerequisites for our species accomplishment.

And that is exactly my point: assuming anything about such radically different creatures, or the actual prerequisites for our species', solely based on our limited experience and insights, is both vain and presumptuous.

[1]: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2011.095...

Can you heal a shattered leg all by yourself with no one around? I guarantee you’ll lay on the ground until nightfall and probably be eaten by coyotes (since you’re a human, they /might/ leave you alone).

If you have someone with you, maybe they can carry you. Crows can’t carry other crows. If they wanted to fix the other crow, they’d have to do it where the crow fell. It would still get eaten by coyotes. They can’t protect the downed bird, so it will still be eaten. Ergo, why bother trying to heal the bone?

I think what's really at the core of this is whether crows would figure out such advances given sufficient evolutionary pressure to do so. One could reason that crows are smart enough to avoid most situations that would cause broken bones but if something forced them to adapt, would they for example evolve thicker, stronger bones. Or if their common predators disappeared, would that allow them to build more permanent communities where they had the spare time to learn about their environment enough to manipulate it?

Humans by and large, especially in less forgiving environments with harsh winters, are helpless without the ability to manipulate their environment seeing as they are hairless apes who without modern medicine could die from an infection from a mere scratch.

Basically, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Why crows haven't invented stretchers to carry fellow crows to safety? Making a stretcher doesn't look more complicated than building a nest.

A crow can carry about 1.5 lbs in flight. A crow weighs at most 4.5 lbs. Let's assume a stretcher that can carry a crow by more than one crow to weigh another 1-2 lbs. At most, the total payload would be ~5 lbs which requires at least 4 crows. I don't think that kind of coordination is possible with that kind of turbulence in such close quarters.

So why bother?

Humanity couldn't for 99.61% of its existence either and apes in general couldn't for nearly 100% of their existence. If we were to rely on your criterion, then all humans before a few thousand years ago would be deemed unintelligent, whereas we know they are essentially identical to us.

Occam's razor suggests that "not capable" is a better explanation than "not interested in", when considering things that are clearly an immediate and strong benefit to a life form.

Then you must be fundamentally and essentially "not capable" of masonry since that's a much simpler explanation than your lack of motivation and opportunity.

I absolutely am capable of masonry, I just don't do it much because I'm also capable of getting (by using money) someone else who's capable and willing to do it for me. Same applies to just about any other thing anyone outsources in their lives, but the end result is the same - the advanced work gets done. Other animals don't demonstrate any of that.

>So crows could build a jumbo jet, they're just lazy?

How can they physically even come close to building a jet?

It seems humans physicality has a LOT to do with our intelligence. Perhaps someone with actual knowledge on this can chime in.. but it seems to me if you have a build similar to ours, you have the opportunity to actually progress and manipulate things to a level where it might a situation where as a species you continue to evolve with more intelligence over time because you are able to actually use it.

I don't know how to say that better.. but on the other hand, if we had our same brains but had the bodies where we can hardly manipulate any tools.. don't you think that makes all the difference in the world?

The specifics of jumbo jet manufacture really has nothing to do with my point. The point of my comment is that there is a very evident and very clear discrepancy between human intelligence and animal intelligence.

It's always fun to watch a clever squirrel find its way into a bird feeder, a cunning fox outsmart a rabbit, or a curious monkey recognize himself in the mirror. These are signs of sentience, sure, but all of those are far cries from what even an immature human is capable of, and this obvious evidence is what leads us to believe we are smarter than them. It's not arrogance in any sense.

Building anything significant requires a relatively high level of dexterity, does it not? Even if crows could figure out how to build and operate tools that would allow them to build significant physical structures and objects, their bodies are not well-suited to doing so.

It's not about building anything, really. The cornerstones are figuring out a reliable method to store knowledge over generations, and then figuring out mathematics more advanced than counting your food and potential mates. Having that, you have both an abstract framework for developing better understanding of the world (which is a necessity for better control over it, i.e. technology), and a way to implement it as work that spans generations.

I think more in line with reality is that we would be more likely and better off reading how to build such things. The knowledge already exists around us in our culture. I program every day but it's not because I'm some super animal genius who invented computers and programming and software design.

They can build nests. Nest building seems to often get overlooked in discussions about tool use, perhaps because shelter isn't traditionally considered a sort of tool? But it seems tool-like to me. Maybe nest building doesn't impress us because bugs do it too?

Birds might lack the physique to use human tools, but they have plenty of dexterity when it comes to building nests. They just seem to have relatively little interest in using that dexterity to build things which are not nests

How could a human physically come close to building a microchip? We're much, much, much too large for that to be possible.

> How can they physically even come close to building a jet?

A human can't do that either. Humans as a whole can do it because we have enough intelligence to implement the whole chain of technology required to be able to do things on this scale. Not just the physical scale, but also the scale of the science and engineering required to make the thing actually work.

Possibly inversely correlated.

Tribes that expressed humanity to creatures outside of homo sapiens were frequently wiped out by tribes that couldn't even manage to express humanity to other tribes of homo sapiens.

The victors sit on a throne of skulls, wondering why they are so lonely.

Aggression is a gene that selects for itself. But if it's too successful, then the next time some external selective pressure comes from outside, that 'loneliness' may become an existential threat, wiping out the local gene pool entirely. Just like a virus.

Intelligence is one of the strongest predictors for success even among humans.

You're begging the question. You've defined what humans do as success. It's not even clear that what we do isn't complete failure (see climate change, nuclear war, etc.) Let's see if our actions keep us alive for some 160 million years.

So let’s say human behavior is failure, and animals are at least reasonably smart. We’re implying the reason why animals don’t engage in human-like behavior is that they recognize it will lead to things like climate change and nuclear war. Why are they not stopping us from destroying them along with ourselves?

No, that's not the claim, only that our "success" is not a good measure of intelligence.

If the question is whether animals can be deemed intelligent in the same way we humans are, and you define intelligence to be something other than what made humans successful, then the question becomes kind of moot, doesn't it?