tokengator wrote:watching a show on science channel about octopus (octopusses? octopussies? octopi?)...anyhow...I am quite astonished at the intelligence on display. How do they compare to other intelligent animals like the elephant, dolphins, apes (humans), etc?

Mr.Samsa wrote:

murshid wrote:

Fiona wrote:I think it might help if the OP gave the definition of intelligence he or she is using: it might then be possible to establish some criteria against which it might be judged.

The definition (it's a very loose definition, I agree) I am using is the ability of the mind to think rationally, learn new things, learn from previous experiences, communicate with the members of its species, solve problems etc. Now that definition does sound "self-serving" as gleniedee has mentioned. I would like to know what a definition of intelligence could be that is not self-serving.
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Generally the field of intelligence in animals is referred to as "animal cognition", and instead of trying to figure out which animals are the most intelligent, they just study how well they cope with individual tasks, like memory, language, tool-use, problem solving, etc. If you wanted a raw measure of intelligence that isn't self-serving, then usually in experimental settings researchers will put the subject in a choice task where they simply choose between two alternatives, but the rewards associated with these alternatives changes (without cues) and the measure of "intelligence" is the rate at which they learn to adapt to the new contingencies. This is the standard approach for testing how new products affect intelligence where we use animal testing as the first phase. (Some older labs still use things like the water maze, where you basically chuck a rat in a pool and time how long it takes to find the platform, or the T-maze, which is just a two-alternative choice situation that is made simply by moving left or right - but these are problematic, for various reasons).

If we use the method above, then you don't find much difference at all between all animals.

The assumption of humans being the smartest is fairly reasonable, but it needs supporting. For whatever aspect of humans you think separates us from the animals, there will be a piece of research that demonstrates we're not the only ones that do it, and usually we're not the best at it. What it seems to boil down to is that we have no particular gift or unique trait, instead our advantage is that we're a bit of a jack of all trades, but master of none.

Some people think you can form a hierarchy of intelligence based on the encephalisation quotient (brain-to-body-mass ratio) where the relative size of the brain is used as an indicator of the intelligence of the species. Even though some studies report a correlation here, it's mostly based on bad research - for starters, according to this principle, the shrew should be the most intelligent animal. The other problem is that the architecture of the brain seems to be what's important when assessing cognitive abilities, and the size is simply a function of this (rather than a cause itself), so the correlation of the EQ and intelligence might be produced by this third confounding factor. Most of the studies also use poor methods to assess intelligence, and I'm sure some just rely on "common-sense" (i.e. "humans, dolphins and apes should be at the top - yep they have the biggest brains, theory confirmed"). I haven't read any of these studies which have objectively tested intelligence though.

In another topic on a similar issue, somebody brought up the possibility of swarm intelligence too, and that led to quite an interesting discussion on the nature of what we consider "intelligent".

Animavore wrote:The plural is actually "octopods". Dawkins told me.

Animavore wrote:The plural is actually "octopods". Dawkins told me.

cavarka9 wrote:

Animavore wrote:The plural is actually "octopods". Dawkins told me.

when?, evidence!

worldslaziestbusker wrote:I have worked with them and they are clearly pretty bright for an invertebrate. Everyone who has anything to do with them has their cache of stories of cleverness, and my favourite is that an Octopus once stole a knife off a friend of mine who'd been poking around it's home.
"Hey, Matt, can I borrow your knife?"
"Why?"
"I want to get mine back. There's an octopus in there and it just took mine."
"Don't do it, man. It's armed. And now it's got a knife, too."
"Just give me your knife."
"What makes you think it's only got one so far? I'm keeping my knife. It might be collecting till it's got eight, and then it'll be looking to take over the world."


My boss worked at an aquaculture facility where disappearing fish were blamed on staff. Indignant and blamelss blamees set up a camera to trap the thief, and found out it was the resident octopus, getting out of its own tank, feasting, and returning to its home, closing lids on the way. This poor sucker died when, on a hot summer day, the cooling system shut down. It was found at the doorway to the aqaurium, where it had been trying unsuccessfully to wedge itself under the door in an attempt to reach the outside world and cool, tasty freedom. Not bad for a short lived sack of muscle whose closest relatives on the family tree are snails.