[PatrickHenry]

A subscription is required to access the Journal, but the entire article is posted above. The portions in bold font were emphasized by me; there is no bold font in the original.

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[Buck W.]

In a related experiment, the nine democrat presidential candidates were dumped into a pool and trained to swim to a paddle if they had a plan. Any plan.

No paddle movement has yet been recorded.

[angkor]

Spend some time in the open ocean with a pod of wild dolphins.

Once you've recovered from the experience, repost.

[boris]

"The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is.

Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.

"In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was.

"The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error."

[spodefly]

"If we were equally rigorous in what proof we demand of consciousness in people," he said, "we couldn't infer conscious thought in each other, either."

I often find it difficult to infer conscious thought in other people.

[Consort]

I read that animals are impressed by nature directly through the senses and respond immediately to the impressions received, rather than using thinking as per human customs. Thinking would inhibit their immediate response to impressions.

[Voltage]

I have often wondered if the cattle realize we are just fattening them up for a good meal!

[John Valentine]

"If we were equally rigorous in what proof we demand of consciousness in people," he said, "we couldn't infer conscious thought in each other, either."

I have been reasonably certain of the truth of this supposition since the Carter election.

[PoisedWoman]

"Meta-cognition is considered one of our most sophisticated capacities." Among other things, it's the ability to realize, after perusing a column, that you have no idea what you just read.

I often have that feeling after reading Reuters "news" and books by liberals and listening to speeches by Dems. Seemed to me that they were intentionally plotting to bewilder people into submission. But perhaps I do the Rats an injustice. After all, the article goes on to state:

Rats and pigeons, though undeniably clever, don't seem to know when they don't know.

[ChemistCat]

Cool article. Doesn't surprise me at all.

[djf]

I saw the most remarkable item on birds.

A woman had a parrot, and had a bunch of small plastic toys. Plastic keys, cars, etc of various sizes and colors. She would ask the parrot to pick up the blue car or the red key or the large car.

For every item, the parrot picked up the right thing. And the scientists who watched pretty much agreed that there was no way the woman was somehow subtilely clueing in the parrot on the item.

It was clear the parrot understood the nouns and adjectives. No explanation was offered because the brains of birds are radically different from our brains.

[Scenic Sounds]

It is usually a mistake to anthropomorphize even intelligent beasts like dolphins,

That is an easy mistake to make. Animals are different. Humans are superior to dogs and probably all animals intellectually, but dogs are more spiritually evolved than humans.

[Ichneumon]

I wish I could remember where it was, but one "seaworld" type park had trained their dolphins to respond appropriately to the command, "do something new".

When that command is given, the dolphins use their "imaginations" (and check against their memories) to come up with some new action that they haven't done before, then do it. That alone seems to me to prove an actual sort of cognition and not just "mindless" behavior.

But the way they do it is thought-provoking too. For example one time the trainer asked the two dolphins to "do something new", and the dolphins swam side-by-side, leapt out of the water together, then simultaneously spit a mouthful of water at the trainer. Indeed, they'd never done that before. But ponder this -- the dolphins had to somehow *preplan* their coordinated action together. The swimming and jumping might possibly be explained by a "follow the leader" mode, whereby one dolphin just followed the other one's actions a few tenths of a second behind the other one -- that would look simultaneous enough. But that doesn't explain how both ended up in mid-air with a retained mouthful of water to spit at the top of their leap... It seems that there's no other explanation except for the notion that in some way, the dolphins formulated the plan and communicated it before executing it, like one saying to the other, "I know, let's both grab a mouthful of water, jump up, and spit at George."

[RadioAstronomer]

Reminds me of the work that was done by Dr. John C. Lilly. :-)