This reminds me of an interesting thing I read about intelligence where there's an important level of intelligence that very few animals exceed where basically you can't conceive of the concept of others knowing something that you don't or vice versa.
The example used in the study I read about it went like this: Christine has a cookie and she walks into the kitchen and puts it in the first of two cookie jars, then she leaves the room. Justin goes into the kitchen and moves the cookie from the first jar to the second jar. Christine comes back to look for her cookie, in which cookie jar will Christine look?
If an animal fails this test then they'll guess that she'll look in the second jar because they can't comprehend that she doesn't know what they know -- that Justin moved the cookie. As a result, any animal that has failed this test and can communicate with us -- mostly apes who communicate with sign language -- have never asked us a question for information because they can't conceive of the concept that we know anything that they don't.
Until You mentioned chimps I couldn't comprehend how someone was talking to animals to ask them anything, and I still ponder how effectively we can convey the syntax concept of a subjunctive "Where would Christine Look?" to chimps.
Are we sure for example the chimps aren't just getting "where" and "cookie" signs and answering correctly?
Put them directly in the situation and see what they do. “That other chimp will beat my ass if I take the cookie. But he didn’t see it get moved. He thinks it’s over there but it’s really here. I’m gonna grab it!”
You know, I've never seen a chimp beat another chimp's ass and know I wonder what animal ass whoopings look like across various species.
NOT killing, that's easy. I just want to know what and animal getting it's ass beat is like for various animals. What do various species do when they want to hurt but not kill one another.
I also am not talking about fighting as with goats butting heads. That's sparring.
What does an animal do when another animal has it fucked up but not fucked up enough to try to kill it.
All I've seen is that GIF of the penguin shoving another penguin.
Guess I've also seen cats bat at one another.
I think the study I read they considered animals to have failed the test if they found it funny that Christine looked in the first jar. Because it's "silly" for her to look there.
Ive dealt with many humans who fail this test frequently. Like theyll give you instructions with half the necessary details missing because they assume you have the pre-requisite knowledge that happened inside their head.
Yes exactly! They even mentioned in the study I wrote that although this concept sounds like it's quite simple, we often fail it ourselves. Like:
Person 1: Can you move my car?
Person 2: Sure, what does it look like?
Person 1: It's the black one!
Person 2: Sorry, which black one?
Person 1: What are you stupid? THAT ONE! points
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