Multiple hominid species on Earth have had a technology gap on an unfathomable timescale. Indeed, the Denisovans developed stone tools tens of thousands of years before our own species.<p>We often look to the stars and wonder what other intelligent life is out there. I'm sure it's captured every one of our minds at some point. Dark Forest theory of the Fermi Paradox be damned, we want to share in the comfort of knowing that intelligent life exists. That we are not all alone.<p>But I wonder - had things been not much different, might we be cohabiting with an intelligent species, one perhaps tens of thousands of years ahead of us? Aliens on our own planet?<p>Would we even realize their sentience - would our minds even be comparable? Would their civilization fade to ruins before we came to sentience, and would we discover remnants of a long-lost civilization? Would they raze the planet to the ground and never provide us the opportunity to develop sentience?<p>So many questions. Are we in a similar situation right now with other hominids, who we've found to have a "theory of mind"? Are we morally obligated to not cut the nip of societal development in the bud for these species? And if this species suffers in developing and advancing, are we obligated to ease and accelerate their development?<p>For example, if a far advanced civilization was out there, merely observing us while they knew they had the cure to our dying loved ones and general suffering on this planet, would we not find the only ethical solution to provide said cure? As such, are we in a similar situation with other developing hominids?<p>When you think about it, it is possible that intelligent life developing on other planets is not a singular species but multiple species. And that's fascinating. I wonder what it must be like, to cohabit with a different species that is effectively your equal with respect to self-awareness/sentience, even if they are not your equal with respect to technology.
> After decades of research, it remains controversial whether any nonhuman species possess a theory of mind.<p>It should be important to note that whilst this result isn't particularly surprising, there is one giant glaring issue that can undercut this paper.<p>They define theory of mind based on past definitions and research, and base their methodology on methods that have arisen that seem to fit-for-purpose to those definitions.<p>Which would usually be fine.<p>However, during the Replication Crisis, basically everything to do with theory of mind was dashed to pieces. (Worth pointing out that more than 1/3 of psychological research was found to be un-replicatable.)<p>One of the main components of "theory of mind", "embodied cognition" was particularly badly hit by the crisis.<p>So whilst this paper may be unsurprising, it rests on the laurels of stuff that has turned out to be nothing more than a polished turd, making the result questionable until such time as psychology has managed to recover the massive amount of ground lost.
My parents had 2 dogs. The smarter one understood that when she buried some bones while the other dog watched - she later reburied it somewhere else when the other dog was at home.<p>She also knew not to go into the living room while father was there (because she was technically forbidden to do that), but went to that room when father was away.<p>I'm pretty sure she had some kind of theory of mind.
I recommend Carl Safina's "Beyond Words", which is an in-depth look at elephants, wolves, and orcas, and I recommend the audio book form, because he rants, with sincere anger, about how obvious it is that these animals display theory of mind.
For sure, apes are very intelligent. I've seen a few clips where orphaned apes have recognised humans years after they last met. I've also seen a case where an orangutang was spotted using a 'spear' to catch fish.
I recognize the value in doing these experiments, but is anyone surprised? I would have been far more surprised if our closest relatives could <i>not</i> demonstrate a theory of mind.
>For example, if a far advanced civilization was out there, merely observing us while they knew they had the cure to our dying loved ones and general suffering on this planet, would we not find the only ethical solution to provide said cure?<p>When we slaughter other animals by the millions (often in very painful ways) though it can be avoided, are we in a position to ask such questions?<p>We're basically a cruel species lacking empathy.
The first sentence of the article:<p><pre><code> Scientists can’t agree on how the intelligence of our primate relatives, but [...]
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What does this even mean? Is editing just not done any more? Something like this as the _first sentence_ of an article make me doubt the quality of the entire article, in fact the entire publication.
We need to genetically engineer all apes and monkeys towards human levels of intelligence. It's their only hope for survival and a great hope to change our politics for the better incorporating more of nature into our civilizations.
All humans learn in fundamentally similar ways <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles</a>
Inconclusive.(?)<p>It's like saying - there's a trained neural net with inputs: opacity of screen = 1 with expected output of searching target box. When tested, similar neural nets with similar training expected output of target box. Hence neural net has "theory of mind"<p>It'd be way more conclusive if the apes knew what was going on, and then decided to act to change the outcome.