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| The brain of a Crow |
In addition, this article is also supported by new facts discovered from the Bowlingual Experiment where dogs can communicate behavioral information from one species to another, as in this example from a malamute to a chihuahua or vice versa, and the observable experiences I encountered with birds that can communicate with humans and use tools in their day to day lives.
As a starter, one factual event that I discovered on this particular day was when I mimicked a bird's singing and instantly got a response from the same bird by mimicking my song. Another special encounter was when a crow used the tool of gravity to crack the shell of a nut while dropping it several times from the air at the same height as the electrical lines down to the asphalt road as I was watching it from the porch. From all these dogs and birds encounters, the bottom line of their realities suggests that all animals for that matter perceive the world just like humans do because we simply all live and acquire information in the same natural habitat we call Mother Nature (Lawsin 1988).
In the PBS episode, the scientists involved in the Bird Brain project provided various experiments and interesting outcomes that guided viewers through the following questions:
1. Could birds be smart?
2. Can birds solve problems?
3. Do they feel emotions?
4. Can they cooperate or work as a group?
The String Reward Experiment is one of the experiments where Rios a parrot, who does lots of tricks at children's parties, was tasked to solve a puzzle that she had not seen before. She has to figure out what needs to be done to get the reward, a peanut tied on one end of the string dangling in a t-shaped wooden structure.
Since the parrot has not seen this problem before, she learned how to solve the problem by watching her trainor (through encouragement) how to do it. Once she figured out the solution from her master, she managed to get the reward by herself without any trial and error the first time and made it short the second time.
Many researchers believe that animal behaviors are ruled by instinct. This is a false notion. According to I.M., there is no such thing as instinct but an inlearned instinct. An Inlearned Instinct is a task or information that was copied or discovered beforehand and eventually executed when the situation has occurred again a learned instinct.
Meanwhile, Imprinting, which is a behavior of following instructions based on what one sees that usually originates from one's parents in particular with one's mothers is a good example of an inlearned instinct.
The goose in the video who retrieved her egg rolling away from the nest is not an instinct but an inlearned instinct that she acquired by following what her mother does when something white rolls away from the nest. A learned behavior.
The significance of the experiment in the video was that it shows that learned behavior is an inlearned instinct (Lawsin, 1988). The behavior of the geese might look like an intelligent action, but in reality, it is just an automatic response just like retrieving your finger quickly from a candle flame when you experience the incident the second time around, an inlearned instinct.
In the second experiment, a raven was tasked to remove the food inside a water bottle with a basin of water next to it. The bird successfully retracted the worm inside the bottle by filling it up with water. However, the presenter claimed that he did not teach the raven how to solve the problem. He just gave the bird the challenge to figure out how to solve the problem.
Again, there is something wrong with the picture. According to IM, the brain is completely an empty slate from birth. Information only exists when information is available. The brain needs to acquire information before it functions like a hard drive that needs data for a computer to work. Information is acquired only in two ways: by choice or by chance. The raven has only these two options. Either the bird knew already how to solve this trick learning it from the wild or from its master; or, the bird just discovered how to remove its reward from the bottle accidentally that day. The latter is questionable because previous mental skills are needed to pull this trick due to the various variables such as the bottle, the water in the basin, and the worm present during the experiment.
With regards to the group of birds flying in synchronicity, social behavior actually involves what I call Silent Thinking. It is a phenomenon that doesn't need the brain to function. It is a reflex behavior that executes automatically in an instant when learned beforehand. Again, this is an inlearned instinct in steroids, a multitasks procedure unknowingly executed (Lawsin, 1988).
In the third experiment, known as the Multi-access Box Challenge, a crow is put to the test by solving a problem in four different ways. Once the problem is solved, the option that has been used is removed. Since there are four different ways to solve the problem, there are four different solutions in place.
The challenge was to remove the reward inside the box using the following access:
1. drop a ball in a chute
2. pull a door's handle
3. pull a string
4. poke a stick inside the box
According to Originemology, Nature is the Mother of all information. Information is acquired by living things, both animals and plants, from their natural habitat by copying or discovering. As predicted, based on these principles, the bird will obviously solve the problem in the following sequence:
(1) string --- looks like a worm
(2) stick --- they use a stick in the wild
(3) ball --- looks like a stone
(4) door --- not found in the wild, the last option that was chosen.
Again, these behaviors are inlearned instinct. The environment makes one's brain function. By exploring and adapting to one's environment, the brain becomes better and more intelligent. Using countless approaches to solve difficult problems or by studying problems from all angles makes animals able to think intuitively and flexibly. It is not all about the small brains, but the more information the more neurons the more the brain becomes smarter and powerful.
In the fourth experiment, a group of birds in social settings were subjected to play with colorful cubes and cylinders of all sizes. The aim of the experiment is to find out if birds can use previous skills in new different situations. Will they differ in approaching the problem? Could they cooperate or work as a group to solve problems? Will birds learn from each other in a group setting by simply watching (caveman in the Box trilogy)?
From the results, the experiment implies that :
1. Dropping the stone instead of using a stick provides the same outcome (learning options).
2. Complex sets of relationships occur when birds live in a group (building hierarchy).
(e.g. geese form flying v formation)
3. Social learning provides a high level of thinking (problem-solving by sharing)
4. By watching in groups, the same mental task can be repeated individually
(e.g. pulling or inserting the ball with a string to get a reward)
In these two last experiments, birds were tested to a seven-color hierarchy and gazing experiments that determine if they can communicate individually and in groups the same way as humans do. The Gazing experiment is about the ability to search for food inside a cup using eye movements. The Color Hierarchy is about the ability to plan ahead of time and the rewards it provides in the future. The mechanics:
1. colored cards: R O Y G B I V
2. higher color comes with rewards (R - O)
3. relative values of the colored cards (R - Y)
4. Card Red < Card Orange < Card Yellow ....
From these experiments, the result suggests that birds can communicate. They also understand the concept of trade-off (better is best), planning ahead (e.g. caching), and recognition (bad and good). However, these behaviors only happen when they have been equipped beforehand with such information either copied or discovered according to Associative Intelligence. Communication doesn't happen without information acquisition. Babies cry when hungry because they learn that by crying, milk is served next. They associated crying with food and eventually with necessity.
The theory of mind is a hypothesis that animals are capable of mentally putting themselves in the perspective of other animals. Do birds have a theory of the mind? Do they have emotions similar to humans? Do they perceive the world just like we humans do? How much do their minds resemble ours?
According to Joey Lawsin, the author of Originemology, due to the fact that all animals live in the same environment as us humans, each one of them also receives information as everyone else. Since everything around us is all but pieces of information, then it is just logically sound that all animal senses in one way or the other will acquire the same information much like humans receive. Since the sun, sky, rain, plants, animals, air, and people are all pieces of information, then they fill our brains and make who we are today. Since we learn and explore new things from our natural habitat by copying or discovering, we gain fresh countless information. Yet, some of us don't need too much information, like animals simply chill out. Some of us have too much information, like humans specifically. Because of too much knowledge, the consequence is too high as well. WE, humans, are destroying Mother Earth! WE, humans, are polluting Earth! WE, humans, need to stop!
Reference:
Auguste von Bayern is a zoologist who seeks to understand how animals, in particular, corvids (birds of the crow family) and parrots think. Her research interests comprise socio-cognitive abilities as well as the flexible problem-solving skills and vocal learning abilities of these birds. (WIKIPEDIA)
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