[User23]

I think you're vastly underestimating the cognitive capacities of humans. It's not a matter of respect. A healthy three year old already meets or exceeds any animal in cognitive ability, including the ability to improvise tools to solve multi-step problems, pass the mirror test, and know some words.

Human supremacy is an empirical fact. A little 120 pound guy can hop on the back of an elephant and boss it around for life. I've seen 100 pound women make killer whales beg for treats. If anything we don't have near enough respect for our own awesome power over the other creatures we share this world with.

[IMTDb]

> I've seen 100 pound women make killer whales beg for treats

Just like I have seen 3 pound kittens make 300 pounds women’s rush for treats

[stavros]

If we're wondering whether animals dream, I'll go with "overestimating" too. Yes, we're smarter than all other animals. No, we aren't that much smarter.

[User23]

I’m comfortable claiming that building rocket ships and flying to the moon and back[1] counts as “that much smarter” than maybe using a twig to get termites out of a mound or escaping a fish tank in an aquarium.

[1] including of course inventing the necessary physics, math, logic, and actually doing the engineering in addition to pulling off the mission. And, of course, dreaming of doing it.

Edit: If octopuses or dolphins or whatever animal people think is so clever is in fact so clever, then someone should prove it by teaching them some form of durable symbolic information storage system and teach them to teach other members of their species what they have learned. If they can't do that, then they're not even close to as smart as we are, full stop.

[danparsonson]

To that I say - if you're so much smarter than an Octopus, then make yourself look exactly like a rock.

I would also venture that the apparent gulf between us and other animals is largely due to writing things down as you have inferred - but the ability to create an external persistent knowledge store is the cause more than the effect; the ability to store and share knowledge likely doesn't require a huge leap in brain power, but it does grant us a huge bonus, and builds on itself.

[User23]

> To that I say - if you're so much smarter than an Octopus, then make yourself look exactly like a rock.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghillie_suit

[danparsonson]

Meh, that's up there with the best we can do and an Octopus is still miles better without even trying - can you build and don such a suit tailored exactly to your current environment in a matter of seconds?

[lostlogin]

Great until thermal detection is used: “the warmth of the heavy suit can make a wearer stand out more than a standard soldier when viewed”

[evandale]

An octopus won't show up on thermal imaging?

[BirAdam]

You should keep in mind that octopuses don’t live very long. The intelligence they gain in their very short lives is remarkable. Add to this that they live in water and therefore can’t have fire and can’t have writing. It’s not just brain power that matters… I don’t know that humans are the smartest critter on the planet, we may just be the most learned and the most able to exploit our surroundings. It’s cool and all, but I really don’t know for sure that humans are “smarter” than octopuses, porpoises, or orcas. We’d need evidence that didn’t rely on particularly human stuff.

[j5155]

I think that the crucial difference between animals and humans there is not necessarily one of definite intelligence but that we have a civilization and written language; no one person or group of people could have gone from discovering things like gravity, energy, algebra, etc all the way to spaceflight in one lifetime, but because we have long-term records we can work on things across generations.

[waboremo]

What makes you think they don't already have such and we're simply too dumb to grasp how it works for them?

Don't you get the problem with your view? You're testing for human cleverness and then assuming all else is generally incompetent. This gets even more tricky when you start actually contemplating consciousness.

Also, can you build a rocket ship and fly to the moon and back? Why do you get to claim the feats of the smartest but other groups of beings do not get that benefit?

[mattgeo_j]

Orcas do teach their young to hunt and speak in the manner of their group, or clan, or pack. Different groups of orcas have their own culture. I wouldn’t be surprised if dolphins do the same

[ok_dad]

Just because we got here first doesn’t mean another species couldn’t eventually do those things. It took us a while to get to rockets.

[User23]

Sure, perhaps in 60 million years we’ll be extinct and Octo Sapiens will be colonizing Alpha Centauri, but today right now on this planet the gulf in intelligence between humans and the other creatures is gigantic.

[ok_dad]

The point is that intelligence isn’t measured by thing you know or what your society can do.

[evandale]

.. but it is measured that way because we say it's measured that way.

If an octopus wants to come up with a better measurement they are welcome to do that but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[SanderNL]

Ever met a three year old? It’s a complete mystery the human race survived this state of complete suicidal insanity. For all their beauty and cuteness I would be careful with claims of intelligence. It’s very narrow and very specific.

By having kids myself I actually started to demote human intelligence. We are smart eventually but it takes a long, long time and there is a mind boggling amount of stupidity before that stage is reached. Our final stage is indeed very impressive, I agree.