Okay, forget about chimps, rhesus monkeys, or the great apes. Clearly humanity has evolved not from primates, but from crows. In a paper in Science last year, a few scientists observed a crow using a piece of wire to retreive food from a flask. There's a totally mind-bending video of it here, and the description is thus:
Christ, it's a good thing they didn't leave a Palm Pilot lying around that room. That crow'd probably have venture-capital financing lined up for a company by now.
Posted by Clive Thompson at July 16, 2003 10:15 AM
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Diane Ackerman describes the amazing play instinct of Crows. The must have some pretty highly developed feedback loops for aleatoric interaction with their environment -- just like us hairless monkeys, they really enjoy playing with stuff that plays back in unpredictable ways, or ways that appear unpredictable but whose underlying principles can be learned and controlled. Frex: they loved collecting sparkling nuts and bolts (the scintillating shimmer catches their eyes and minds) then they got fascinated by how they bounce and clatter when dropped on Ackerman's sun roof. Then they got into driving Ackerman nutty by dropping nut and bolt after nut and bolt.
Capacity for play (feedback from aleatoric interaction) = learning = interaction
.... I need more coffee now
Posted by: Erik W at July 17, 2003 9:03 AM
Talking about creativity/intellect/language usually takes a short route to mystical soul mumbo jumbo. But any sociology/lingusitics/ anthropology that doesn't allow for creativity -- creativity located in individual beings -- is seriously hollow.
So, yeah, language and thoughts are sign systems -- but they are not closed sign systems (no matter what Saussure or Levi-Strauss might say). They are open, evolving networks.
A crow might not be "intelligent": it can't rhapsodize about Sanskrit poetrry or Zen philosophy. But there is no substantive difference between it's learning/play process and ours.
Posted by: Erik W at July 17, 2003 10:53 AM
That is incredibly messed up about the crows in Ackerman's book. Which book? I wanna read it!
Posted by: Clive at July 21, 2003 9:20 PM
Deep Play is the book. I think I fudged some of the details of the anecdote. In any case I have been thinking a lot about this stuff. It was pretty early in the day and I was uncaffinated.
As a pragmatist, I approach any theory with an open mind, with a view to its practical use. So some philosophers with a metaphysical bent (Gadamer, Huizinga, Caillois) talk about play as a trans-species phenomenon.
Some anthropologists, biologists, sociologists talk about play and learning from a game theory and information science perspective. You could have automata executing strategies and learning from their consequences -- you don't need to think about intellegences or the spirit of play or the movement of the soul or whatever. I have ceased giving myself headaches trying to determine who is right.
The composite philosophical/sociological metaphors that I am starting to thrash out are getting me out of the trap of thinking of creativity as an emanation of a playful individual or as the recycling of the ideological crud that various power structures have deposited into the empty vessels of our noggins.
I think I will quit my job today.
Posted by: Erik at July 25, 2003 11:42 AM
Cool, I'll read it!
I feel like quitting my job today too, for some reason.
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Whoo hoo ... lets go ordo corvo
Diane Ackerman describes the amazing play instinct of Crows. The must have some pretty highly developed feedback loops for aleatoric interaction with their environment -- just like us hairless monkeys, they really enjoy playing with stuff that plays back in unpredictable ways, or ways that appear unpredictable but whose underlying principles can be learned and controlled. Frex: they loved collecting sparkling nuts and bolts (the scintillating shimmer catches their eyes and minds) then they got fascinated by how they bounce and clatter when dropped on Ackerman's sun roof. Then they got into driving Ackerman nutty by dropping nut and bolt after nut and bolt.
Capacity for play (feedback from aleatoric interaction) = learning = interaction
.... I need more coffee now
Posted by: Erik W at July 17, 2003 9:03 AM
Talking about creativity/intellect/language usually takes a short route to mystical soul mumbo jumbo. But any sociology/lingusitics/ anthropology that doesn't allow for creativity -- creativity located in individual beings -- is seriously hollow.
So, yeah, language and thoughts are sign systems -- but they are not closed sign systems (no matter what Saussure or Levi-Strauss might say). They are open, evolving networks.
A crow might not be "intelligent": it can't rhapsodize about Sanskrit poetrry or Zen philosophy. But there is no substantive difference between it's learning/play process and ours.
Posted by: Erik W at July 17, 2003 10:53 AM
That is incredibly messed up about the crows in Ackerman's book. Which book? I wanna read it!
Posted by: Clive at July 21, 2003 9:20 PM
Deep Play is the book. I think I fudged some of the details of the anecdote. In any case I have been thinking a lot about this stuff. It was pretty early in the day and I was uncaffinated.
As a pragmatist, I approach any theory with an open mind, with a view to its practical use. So some philosophers with a metaphysical bent (Gadamer, Huizinga, Caillois) talk about play as a trans-species phenomenon.
Some anthropologists, biologists, sociologists talk about play and learning from a game theory and information science perspective. You could have automata executing strategies and learning from their consequences -- you don't need to think about intellegences or the spirit of play or the movement of the soul or whatever. I have ceased giving myself headaches trying to determine who is right.
The composite philosophical/sociological metaphors that I am starting to thrash out are getting me out of the trap of thinking of creativity as an emanation of a playful individual or as the recycling of the ideological crud that various power structures have deposited into the empty vessels of our noggins.
I think I will quit my job today.
Posted by: Erik at July 25, 2003 11:42 AM
Cool, I'll read it!
I feel like quitting my job today too, for some reason.
Posted by: Clive at July 25, 2003 12:00 PM
Where can I find more information about this ?
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Posted by: julia at January 24, 2004 8:49 PM
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