octos intelagent arms!!!

[chrono_war01]

nope, it's never too much on TONMO.com!

 

[monty]

stomatopods and jumping spiders

Thanks for the references on other forms of intelligence in inverts-- certainly quite interesting.

One thing that I find particularly interesting about octos is that, in addition to complex emergent behavior, they seem to have quite advanced learning behavior and cognitive problem solving abilities compared with most inverts, the "learning by example" study being one example of that. It sounds like stomatopods (where does that name come from, anyway-- stomach-foot??) exhibit some of that.

A distinction I tend to make is that a lot of inverts have evolved very complex specialized behaviors, some of which require complicated behaviors, but what I find intriguing about octopuses is that as individuals, they can learn complex cotextual behaviors and make intelligent decisions. Although it's possible that the jumping spiders can do that too, it sounds possible that they evolved the specific abilities to mimic other species as a hard-wired instincual behavior, or at least a predisposition for mimicing other jumping spider types. At least, I can imagine very specific subsets of learned behaviors that they can exhibit without having generalized cognitive and learning abilities.

Another example I've heard is that bees do some amazing things, particularly the behavior that when they find some good flowers, they come back and do a "dance" that communicates the directions to navigate to those flowers to the other bees. That's a really neat thing, that clearly requires some complicated cognitive processing, but I see it as distinct from tasks that require generalized cognitive abilities... I would imagine that the bees have developed some specialized neuroanatomy to do this particular task well, but that doesn't mean, say, that they could use that to learn unrelated tasks. It seems like octopus experiments have shown that they can learn things that require some amount of abstraction or conceptualization as well as longer-term learning, which are the bases for things that make intelligent vertebrates "smart." I'm not ruling out that stomatopods and jumping spiders have this, I just don't know enough about experiments on them to be 100% convinced yet (although I'm writing this before I've looked at all the links above, so maybe I'll be convinced soon!)-- if they do, I'm pleased that people are studying them for the same reasons I am about cephalopods-- understanding the diversity of intelligent behavior in evolutionarily disparate organisms is, in my mind, the best way to learn about the span of possible ways to implement intelligence, whereas studying only vertebrates' intelligence risks taking "evolutionary baggage" as evidence that "this is the only way to get to these behaviors."

(studying the communication modes in more communal cephalopods like cuttles and sepioteuthis is, of course, interesting as well, as is the camoflauge in cuttles, all of which are also interesting applications of intelligence, but which may be more of the type of evolved specialized behavior I mentioned, or not. I'm certainly all for studying these, and other interesting animal behavior; I just have a particular interest in the "generalized rather that specialized" cognitive functions)

 

[Fujisawas Sake]

Monty,

In The Growth of Biological Thought Dr. Ernst Mayr makes an interesting point of Aristotle's idea of Scala Naturae , or the typical evolutionary cladogram that most zoology textbooks still try to sell us as the "natural order" of life. Its like sponges to cniarians, cniarians to something else, etc.. I understand why that has been the way things were taught in the past, but unfortunately that is the way they are still being taught to this day.

Though it is a sound scientific theory, evolution is still very hard to understand given the many factors, both external and internal, that have an influence on its progression. We, as a species, have always believed that evolution was a direct-line progression; that all species wanted to be 'us'. It is the ultimate in human vertebrate phallus-waving if you ask me.

Intelligence is hard to measure by most means. Often you will hear the complaint that IQ tests are culturally biased. I would argue that most intelligence tests are Homo-biased, made for us and our own perception of intellect. Also, you made an excellent point about the idea of sensation vs. perception; octopus may not percieve mass like we do, but they may have an altogether different way of doing so.

Monty, have you ever heard of the theory that large Jurassic sauropods like Diplodicus used a "relay" of ganglion in their spines to regulate back leg function? I find that interesting, considering dinosaurian evolution in relation to the rest of the Reptilia.

Just my philosophical ,

Peace and sushi forver,

John

 

[monty]

In The Growth of Biological Thought Dr. Ernst Mayr makes an interesting point of Aristotle's idea of Scala Naturae , or the typical evolutionary cladogram that most zoology textbooks still try to sell us as the "natural order" of life. Its like sponges to cniarians, cniarians to something else, etc.. I understand why that has been the way things were taught in the past, but unfortunately that is the way they are still being taught to this day.

Yeah, it has not escaped my attention that things in that cladogram are getting re-worked every time someone makes a new genetic discovery like homeobox genes or blood typing or whatever. We live in primitive times, as far as real understanding of biology goes.

There was a NY Times article a few weeks ago saying that genetically, cniderians are not as far from us as has generally been thought; most likely they and we descended from some common worm-like thing, rather than radiates having arisen much earlier as had been thought. I haven't read the real article yet, though; just the pop-science version.

Unfortunately, it's gone into "pay-to-read archive mode" but here's the URL for the first paragraph:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB081EF6395F0C728EDDAF0894DD404482

this might work better:

Plain, Simple, Primitive? Not the Jellyfish (Published 2005)

Though it is a sound scientific theory, evolution is still very hard to understand given the many factors, both external and internal, that have an influence on its progression. We, as a species, have always believed that evolution was a direct-line progression; that all species wanted to be 'us'. It is the ultimate in human vertebrate phallus-waving if you ask me.

bonus points for using "phallus-waving" in an intellectual acticle. Yeah, I completely agree with you; I'm interested in "hypothetical biology" quite a bit, and I'm always astounded at how human-centric and earth-centric some of our views are-- not that it's inappropriate, because that's what we have to study, but nevertheless, if one imagines that life arose in some other solar system, I expect by luck of the draw it could easily be quite different than ours (note that I distinguish life arising separately from, say, travelling frozen on meteorites and such).

Intelligence is hard to measure by most means. Often you will hear the complaint that IQ tests are culturally biased. I would argue that most intelligence tests are Homo-biased, made for us and our own perception of intellect. Also, you made an excellent point about the idea of sensation vs. perception; octopus may not percieve mass like we do, but they may have an altogether different way of doing so.

Right, which is why I find it so interesting to look at similarities and differences among disparate organisms. But it's sometimes hard to differentiate between cognitive intelligence like learning or problem solving and evolved-but-hardwired "clever" behavior, where it just happened that some inherited mechanism was a big win for survival, and became instinctual, but had no "learning." Of course, one could make the definition of "learning" broad enough to include genetic racial memory, I suppose, too.

Monty, have you ever heard of the theory that large Jurassic sauropods like Diplodicus used a "relay" of ganglion in their spines to regulate back leg function? I find that interesting, considering dinosaurian evolution in relation to the rest of the Reptilia.

I think I've heard a "simplified for pop culture" version of that theory, but I don't know the details or why that's thought; I assume it's more because there's a suspcious cranium-like cavity in the posterior spine somewhere, since I assume we don't know this from behavioral or soft-tissue studies...

 

[nini]

thats kl

 

[chalcosoma]

Portia Link and "Genetic Intelligence"

One of the links didn't work last time, so I'm quoting it here:

http://inside.binghamton.edu/September-October/23Oct97/spider.html

>For Portia, trial-and-error learning is part of what appears to be a dynamic feedback system between predator and prey.

"Portia is so versatile in ferreting out in trial-and-error fashion what works to kill another spider that we've never put Portia up against any web-spinning spider that Portia hasn't been able to kill, whether that spider was one Portia had ever before been associated with in nature or not," he said.

Wilcox and Jackson also have evidence of Portia's limited ability to "think," that is, to assess a problem, plan a strategy to solve that problem and carry out its plan. In field and laboratory experiments, Portia has demonstrated an incredible ability to "figure out" how best to sneak up on prey.

Even when to do so demands that the spider create a three-dimensional cognitive map of where it plans to go and maintain that map for an hour or more, Portia has proven itself capable of "detour behavior"the ability to successfully execute, with a high degree of flexibility, pathways that require it to lose sight of and at times even travel away from its prey in order to improve its chances for a kill.
…..

Portia, in fact, is such a formidable predator that, in a sort of "evolutionary arms race," some prey spiders have actually "learned" through natural selection to recognize its walk on their web, Wilcox said.

When Portia's presence is sensed, these particular prey spiders panic and abandon their web a drastic response no other spiders tested could provoke in them. The response is aptly termed " Portia panic" by Wilcox and Jackson.<


So this looks like bona fide learning behavior, yet the "programs" that allow this behavior are hardwired and instinctual. I think it's a complex issue, because intelligence is always a dynamic interaction between genetically predetermined patterns and how they interact with changing situations. It is not as cut and dried as either learned, or genetically determined. Like the Nature Vs. Nurture problem, which is really BOTH interacting every step of the way.

My feeling is that more and more, it will found that human intelligence also depends on genetically hardwired programs for interaction. There's no reason I can think of that a vast system of interconnected programs couldn't lead to very complex and intelligent behavior. What do you "think"?

 

[monty]

So this looks like bona fide learning behavior, yet the "programs" that allow this behavior are hardwired and instinctual. I think it's a complex issue, because intelligence is always a dynamic interaction between genetically predetermined patterns and how they interact with changing situations. It is not as cut and dried as either learned, or genetically determined. Like the Nature Vs. Nurture problem, which is really BOTH interacting every step of the way.

My feeling is that more and more, it will found that human intelligence also depends on genetically hardwired programs for interaction. There's no reason I can think of that a vast system of interconnected programs couldn't lead to very complex and intelligent behavior. What do you "think"?

Yeah, I think this boils things down to some interesting questions. Certainly, human intelligence is also made of hardwired subsystems, yet somehow humans and other "intelligent" animals have transcended specific task-oriented hardwired systems and seem to have developed general problem-solving that can address scenarios that we've never seen before in our evolutionary history, like programming computers or building space shuttles or making movies or composing symphonies. I guess I see three interesting open questions relating to these other animals: which animals have this "general" rather than "task-specific" problem solving ability (or is there a gray area between these?)? And can we look at less-general abilities that still seem to involve learning, and see how those subsystems could be precursors or building blocks of the generalized problem solving abilities. And, of course, the thing that sparked this discussion in the first place, in what different ways did various parallel-evolved animals develop means to solve these sorts of cognitive tasks?

 

[chalcosoma]

PORTIA on Discovery Channel: "CYBERPORTIA"

Monty, those are exciting questions. Intelligence is still a mystery. Many of the behaviors we used to think of as so human - making friends, political manipulation, deliberate deception, and so on have turned up in one form or another in other members of the animal kingdom.

There was recently a show on spiders on Discovery Channel that featured Portia. Great footage of Portia stalking and killing the small male Giant Orb Weaver, while avoiding the detection of the massive female. In the lab they have created "Cyberportia", a graphic simulation of portia that is shown on a screen to the real portia. By mimicking the spider's signals they get it to respond, and have a kind of "conversation" to try and decipher what it is communicationg.