Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
The recent news reports that cuttlefish are able to pass the marshmallow test are interesting. The classic marshmallow test involved giving a young child a marshmallow but promising them a second one if they could hold off eating the first for 15 minutes. The kid was then left alone in a room with the first … Continue reading The marshmallow test and conscious feeling
Jonathan Birch has an interesting paper in Noûs: The search for invertebrate consciousness. Birch notes that there is no consensus on whether any invertebrates are conscious, and no agreement on a methodology for establishing whether they are. He starts off assessing the difficulties of applying many human centric theories, such as global workspace, which don't … Continue reading The facilitation hypothesis
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You drop a block onto a box, and a toy pops out. If a baby was watching you, she could deduce that your action caused the happy arrival of the toy, because she understands cause and effect. She’d also realise that she could trigger the same event by placing a block on the box herself, … Continue reading Intelligent Crows Flunk Causality Test But Babies Pass
Mano Singham has a interesting post up on a large scale review of animal intelligence studies. Animal intelligence is a fascinating topic and there have been many attempts at studying it. Many of the individual studies look at one or other specific trait that we associate with intelligence in one species and the traits … Continue reading Evolution of animal intelligence | Machines Like Us
SelfAwarePatterns 