[finid]

What most people don't realize is that most live forms lower on the chain can read our minds. So if the crow's reaction was different based on what you wanted to throw, it's because it knew what you wanted to do before you did it.

It was reading your thoughts.

Dogs and cats do it too.

A few years ago I went to a farm to buy a goat. The younger goats did not know why I was there, but when an older goat saw me and our eyes met, it knew, and took off.

[frankquist]

Okay, so these are the kinds of things that definitely need a citation ;)

In what sense do you mean reading minds? Genuine mind reading, or basically a kind of intuiting about human intention based on say, body language?

[kawsper]

Not OP, and I am not talking about mind-reading.

But we have domesticated dogs for a long time, and some might argue that they are a lot better and quicker to pick up on our body language, than we are at picking up on theirs.

Dog Behaviorists spend a lot of their not training dogs, but training dog owners to understand and read their dog.

[tripzilch]

> In what sense do you mean reading minds? Genuine mind reading, or basically a kind of intuiting about human intention based on say, body language?

And by "genuine", he means "magical" ... :-)

[praptak]

Intuiting is pretty well described in the case of the Clever Hans horse (googleable).

[finid]

Sorry, no citation. Just my personal knowledge and experience.

And it's not just reading body language, but actual reading your thoughts. In the case of the crow, what body language tells it that the guy is about to throw a piece of rock or a bone when it can't SEE the object?

I know it's not something I can prove to you, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.

[icelancer]

>I know it's not something I can prove to you, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.

Come on man.

[coldtea]

>what body language tells it that the guy is about to throw a piece of rock or a bone when it can't SEE the object?

Tons of things, from being able to understand body cues that the guy is up to some BS (like we can tell a liar), to smelling the thing he has in his hands...

Plus who said it "couldn't see the thing" in the first place? Even if it couldn't see what in his hand, it could have watched his moves before, as he left the apple and picked up the rock etc.

[duncan_bayne]

No, that is pretty much the definition of "not happening".

[bitJericho]

Smaller animals are incredibly faster than humans in reaction times because of the difference in the length of their nerves. Birds are also far smarter than people give them credit for. Nothing can read minds tho. That's pure fantasy.

[andrepd]

I'm just curious what your thought process is. I mean, what makes you think something so wacky as reading minds is happening (come on..) when the explanation is probably just that the birds have quick reflexes.

[coldtea]

>A few years ago I went to a farm to buy a goat. The younger goats did not know why I was there, but when an older goat saw me and our eyes met, it knew, and took off.

It could have took off for 100000 reasons, non of which end being "because it read your mind".

For example: it got scared, it did it randomly, is afraid of strangers because it had some bad experience, etc...

[vidarh]

The most "advanced" behaviour I'd attribute that to would be possibly having recognised that when strangers come, other goats disappear and don't come back.

But I'd expect it to be more likely to just be one of your simpler suggestions.

It's just bizarre to attribute it to mind reading, when we'd apply far more mundane reasons if we saw the same behaviour in people.

[carapace]

Don't downvote, it's true. Animals can read your thoughts. The mechanism seems to be that they can see your visualizations: I can call my sister's cat in from outside "telepathically" by clearly "seeing" in my mind's eye the cat walking in the back door and "sending" the imagery to him.

Sometimes the if the back door is closed and I'm not distracted by computer or something he "calls" me to open the door. Subjectively, I get this subtle "ping" that feels like "I should open the door for the cat" so I do and he's there waiting.

This sort of thing is pretty easy to develop. It's innate, you're already doing it, you just have to learn to pay attention and calibrate.

[LyndsySimon]

> Sometimes the if the back door is closed and I'm not distracted by computer or something he "calls" me to open the door. Subjectively, I get this subtle "ping" that feels like "I should open the door for the cat" so I do and he's there waiting.

I've experienced similar things, as I have both small children and a very fat cat that doesn't like to jump over our toddler gate. I've been playing games with headphones on in an entirely separate room and suddenly felt that the cat wanted me to go open the gate. Sure enough, when I got there, he was waiting by the gate.

That said... I don't attribute this to telepathy. Animals get on schedules after a while, and perhaps it's likely that I merely intuited that the cat was very likely to want to go through the gate at that specific time.

It's like that episode of the Office where they put an increasing number of nickels in Dwight's phone handset over a long period, then take them out all at once and he smacks himself in the face with it - we humans often exhibit behaviors that are primarily driven by unconscious stimuli.

[cr1895]

>Don't downvote, it's true. Animals can read your thoughts. The mechanism seems to be that they can see your visualizations: I can call my sister's cat in from outside "telepathically" by clearly "seeing" in my mind's eye the cat walking in the back door and "sending" the imagery to him.

Unsubstantiated nonsense. Your perception that this is a real phenomena is not evidence that it actually exists.

[lxxxvi]

So you're saying the cat is Branning your Hodor? :p

[thedoctor79]

No, I'm sorry, you got this wrong. When you do that, you are not "calling" the cat, you are effectively controlling it with your mind eye. You need to be very careful with that, doing it long term can result in damage to the cat.

[logfromblammo]

I am picturing in my mind's eye someone beating you on the dome of your skull with an oversized elementary science textbook.

It is not generally useful to say someone else is "wrong" about their religion or superstitions, unless you have statistically significant data from a controlled, reproducible experiment that contradicts their implied hypothesis. Without the support of facts, you're just in a pissing contest over who writes the best fiction.

If you're going to talk about this on HN, in terms of correct or incorrect, you're going to need to show the differences in medical scanner images between cats that have been continually mind-controlled by psychic humans over their entire lifespans and control cats with similar breeds and ages.

Because of that, I'm not going to say that your hypothesis is wrong, as it remains untested, but I will say that it is so implausible that any research experiment intended to test it is very unlikely to get public funding.

[tripzilch]

> I am picturing in my mind's eye someone beating you on the dome of your skull with an oversized elementary science textbook.

Yeah well that's not going to work, obviously. You can't have both elementary science textbooks and mind-projecting them through a non-physical mystical plane of existence.

And even if it could be done, it'd be highly unethical. Imagine a non-corporeal entity finding out they've been violating physical conservation laws during their whole existence.

[someone7x]

I don't know what to say other than I'm sad when I see reddit-ish comment chains like this on HN. Someday I'll be a big kid and be able to downvote, but in the mean time I shake my head.

[LyndsySimon]

I've not seen KenM show up yet, but it's just a matter of time.

[tripzilch]

Okay let's get one part straight here. I don't believe any of this bullshit but I'm pretty sure I know a lot more about it than whatever you're making up right now.

The "mind's eye" is strictly input-only. Associated image of a silver mirror (or the Moon or my favourite, the pineal gland), which carries a reflection of the realm(s) of the Gods (or Godlike), which are beyond comprehension of mortal Man yadda-yadda etc, you can only witness the reflected image, which can be a divine/true vision or a false vision/hallucination (or a meaningless vision, or any combination thereof). Hence why the moon is associated with insanity.

I like reading about these kinds of things for fun, and because it has some weird and twisted yet surprisingly consistent logic to it (by which I mean, not very consistent but still surprisingly so). I've never read anything (outside the explicitly fictional) about it being hurtful to cats, though. And somehow I doubt you'd be able to provide me with a source either :)

[carapace]

I understand your concern. I am very careful. Ahimsa and non-coercion are primary to my nature. <3 ;-D

The cat will "blow me off" sometimes if he's stalking or napping and doesn't want to come in.