Sentience

[His Divine Shadow]

Everything we attribute to sentience, is exhibited somewhere else in the animal community.

So where are all the feline skyscrapers?

Cats 0wnz the human race(they just haven't told us yet), human race build skyscrapers in honor of felines, so technically our skysrapers are theirs.

[His Divine Shadow]

As for kitties doing crazy stuff, our cats learned to open doors too and one night for no reason there was a light on in the kitchen, dunno why at first, but when I got there one of our cats was sitting up against the window and had turned the lights on(the switch was right next to her)

[XaLEv]

Seriously though, IIRC, there are some species of birds that use small sticks to retrieve bugs from holes and ants from hills.

Crows do that. They will use sticks to pull worms out of their burrows. They poke the worm in the face till it gets aggrivated and bites onto the end of the stick, at which point the crow pull the stick out with the worm on the end.

I also remember reading about an intelligence test done with a couple of crows, one male and one female. They were provided with thin metal rods, one with the end bent into a hook, the other straight. The test was to see if they would use them to reach food they can't get on their own. The female chose the hooked one and used it successfully. The male tried to use the straight one, but it didn't work well, so he took the hooked one from the female. The female then took the straight one and bent the end of it.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Well yeah, the ability to use tools is a bit hard to grasp when you don't have opposable thumbs.

I suspect my dog Fuzzy is quite unhappy about that.

he's got that dewclaw in the back of his leg, if only the canids had kept evolving it....

[data_link]

Datalink, chimps are capable of abstract reasoning. They can learn concepts that are abstract and draw conclusions based on them. Orangutangs are even smarter than chimps. Besides, even a few simple tools are technology, they're exactly what our ancestors started out with and improved during the course of time. And dolphins and killer whales have demonstrated logical reasoning capabilities, both abstract and practical, both in and out of experimental circumstances.

Some birds can learn our concepts of the physical world they can observe, along with our language, and communicate fully in that language, even if their thoughts will never be as complex as those of humans. I don't know how far the birds will grasp abstract concepts, probably not as far as chimps, but to some extent.

We're not quite that unique, we just have the most developed reasoning capacity (abstract or not) at the moment. Not that we can't be surpassed in some respects by other animals, though, just try the test with a sequence of six different colored lights that blink on and off one at a time, in random order, continuously and then stop. Humans can remember an average of six or seven lights correctly after the sequence is done, at best between 12 and 20, while dolphins average above 30.

I stand corrected.

[Spoonist]

Crows are known to use tools better and more often than chimps.
Toolmaking
Fishing
etc

It seems that intelligence develops faster in pack animals.
The drawback seems to be that all the pack animals that display intelligence also have a mean streak. They bully those that are smaller. They steal. They decieve.

[neoolong]

Crows are known to use tools better and more often than chimps.
http://www.vegsource.com/animal/birds/m ... /3458.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~lisamhutchin ... _crows.htm
etc

It seems that intelligence develops faster in pack animals.
The drawback seems to be that all the pack animals that display intelligence also have a mean streak. They bully those that are smaller. They steal. They decieve.

Hey, just like humans.

[SirNitram]

What dilemma? We rule this planet absolutely and can chose to destroy it at will. We've gotten further with "survival of the fittest" then any other species.

You've read too much Green Peace nonsense if you think we can do anything to this planet that hasn't be done dozens of times before.

Of course, the ability to think to this level means we should realize our own descendents must live in this world.. We better not fuck it up too badly. I'm trusting you're not so incredibly ignorant about survival of the fittest to not realize this is important...

[SirNitram]

Crows are known to use tools better and more often than chimps.
http://www.vegsource.com/animal/birds/m ... /3458.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~lisamhutchin ... _crows.htm
etc

It seems that intelligence develops faster in pack animals.
The drawback seems to be that all the pack animals that display intelligence also have a mean streak. They bully those that are smaller. They steal. They decieve.

Sounds just like humanity, if you ask me.

It also makes sense to me that pack animals are intelligent. What does a lone creature, with nothing to communicate with, have to be intelligent about? At that point, it becomes unnecessary, and breeds out.

[Spoonist]

Communication per say is not why pack animals develops intelligence. It is rather learning and teaching that does.
The ability to watch another individual and then copy it's behavior is what develops intelligence. Communication just spees up the process.

Most pack animals have 'cultures'. Even though they have the identical genetic set, they have learned to behave differently by other individuals. Orca's come to mind.