animal cognition
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On the apparent rarity of human-like intelligence.
When we look around, we see such a small sliver of our planet’s total life.
ancient world, animal cognition, animal intelligence, archaeological evidence, archaeology, bird brains, birds, brain, brain construction, cognition, deep time, dinosaur, evolution, evolution of intelligence, evolutionary time, fossil evidence, fossils, human extinction, intelligence, lifespan of the sun, neuron counts, neuron numbers, non-human animal cognition, Oded Galor, rocks, stone age, stone tools, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, t-rex, The Journey of Humanity, The Origins of Wealth and Inequality, time as a twenty-four hour day, Tyrannosaurus rex
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On empathy and the color red.
We can care about others’ lives even if we’re not entirely certain how those lives feel.
AI, Ai poet, Americanah, animal cognition, animal consciousness, animal perception, anti-racist, bat, bat perception, bats, bee vision, Being a Beast, building empathy, Charles Foster, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, cognition, color perception, color red, color vision, dismantling racism, empathy, evolution of vision, frog vision, imagination, infrared vision, IR vision, literature, Nagel, non-human animal cognition, persona poem, persona poetry, philosophy, poet Ai, Racial oppression, racism, red, Robert Jackson Bennett, Shorefall, theory of mind, Thomas Nagel, ultraviolet vision, UV vision, vision, What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, what red means, why we see color, why we see red
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On worms.
Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. But what happens if you ask again?
animal cognition, annelid, annelids, Charles Darwin, earthworm, earthworm cognition, earthworm intelligence, earthworms, Eileen Crist, mole, moles, schooling during the epidemic, schooling during the lockdown, schooling during the pandemic, schooling during the shutdown, The Inner Life of Earthworms, TikTok, trolling students, worm, worm cognition, worm experiments, worm intelligence, worm loves worm, worm thoughts, worms
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On birds watching.
We humans have massive brains, but will our kind be more successful than the dinosaurs?
animal cognition, animal communication, animal intelligence, animal research, animals, bird brains, bird cognition, bird intelligence, birds, brain soup, chickens, corvids, crow communication, crow facial recognition, crow intelligence, crows, dinosaur, dinosaur brains, dinosaur cognition, dinosaur intelligence, dinosaurs, evolution of birds, evolution of dinosaurs, extinction, facial recognition, how smart are birds, how smart were dinosaurs, jail, lab animals, laboratory animals, neuron counts, neuron density, oncology, pigeon, pigeon diagnosing biopsy, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, teaching in jail
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On octopus art.
We humans make art for humans, but octopuses might make art for others.
Andy Warhol, animal art, animal cognition, animal theory of mind, art, art criticism, art theory, audience, Baphomet, board games, do animals make art, elephant art, elephant painting, emotional intelligence, empathy, evolution of brains, evolution of cognition, evolution of intelligence, free will, function of art, gossip, how does consciousness work, narrative explanation, non-human animal cognition, non-human animals, octopus art, octopus brains, octopus literature, octopus theory of mind, poetry, purpose of art, Satan, The Optic Wraith, The Sri Lankan Loxodrome, theory of mind, timing of consciousness, what counts as art, what is art, what qualifies as art, why do we make art, why is art beautiful, Will Alexander
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On Ann Leckie’s ‘The Raven Tower.’
You should read Ann Leckie’s ‘The Raven Tower,’ a beautiful novel set in a fascinating world.
A Century of Denial in Medicine, animal cognition, animal communication, animal language, animal welfare, Ann Leckie, Aristotle, babies, Babies Don’t Feel Pain, battle of the gods, biology, children, circumcision, compliments, confirmation bias, David Chamberlain, difference between gender and biological sex, do fish feel pain, elective surgery, fantasy novels, fish, fish pain, flawed assumptions, Frans de Waal, gender, genital mutilation, gods battling, human infants, hurting infants, hurting newborns, infant, Irad Kimhi, language, Mama’s Last Hug, mathematics, non-human animal cognition, non-human language, objectification, objectification of non-human animals, observational biology, philosophical argumentation, philosophy, prayer, primacy of language use, progressive fantasy, quantum computing, scientific ignorance, set theory, superposition of states, the emotions of babies, The Raven Tower, Thinking and Being, translating mathematics into words, vaccination, world building
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On animals that speak, including humans.
Tom Wolfe & Noam Chomsky both claim that no other animals are capable of anything like human speech … while scientists are finally learning to listen.
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On naked mole-rats.
Naked mole-rats shrug off pain, & cancer, & even time itself… but can they withstand the curiosity of Homo sapiens?
age-related diseases, age-related mortality, aging, animal cognition, animal research, animal welfare, anoxia, anoxia resistance, apoxia resistance, breeding, caloric restriction, cancer, cancer immunity, cancer resistance, cancer susceptibility, carbon dioxide poisoning, chemotherapy, Christopher Byrd, civil war, compassion, cooperation, cooperative childcare, Creep, cruelty, David Stipp, death curve, Eliot Weinberger, environmentalism, eusocial, eusocial mammals, eusociality, evolution, evolution of eusociality, food insecurity, fructose, Fructose-driven glycolysis, glucose, good stewardship, high-molecular-mass hyaluronan, hit single, hyaluronan, hypoxia, immortality, jail poetry, Jennifer Jarvis, Karmic Traces, lab mice, Laboratory Animal Welfare Act, laboratory animals, laboratory research, lifespan, lifespan elongation, limited senescence, longevity, mating habits, metabolism, mutation, Naked Mole-Rats, naked molerats, New Yorker, Norman Dubie, observation, opiates, Orange and Peanuts for Sale, Oranges and Peanuts for Sale, oxidation, oxidative stress, oxygen deprivation, pain, painkillers, Park et al., poetry, prison poetry, Radiohead, recycling, research animals, Richard Alexander, Selective Inflammatory Pain Insensitivity, Stalin, starvation, stroke, The Biology of Naked Mole-Rats, The Ghosts of Birds, The Marshall Cloud, Thomas Park, Tian et al., tumor, tumor resistance, tumorogenesis, What Happened Here, Xiao Tian
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On elephants.
We humans have treated elephants abysmally — not in spite of their magnificence, but because of it.
animal abuse, animal cognition, Animals Strike Curious Poses, broken families, Ciaran Berry, circus, dance, ecotourism, electricity, electrocuting an elephant, Elena Passarello, elephant brains, elephants, environmental destruction, exploitation, high school, hippocampus, Jumbo II, male role models, memory, post traumatic stress disorder, prom, PTSD, Ringling Brothers, tool use, torture, wayward youth
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On perception and learning.
We adults can’t fix the world until we learn from children that it’s okay to be wrong.
analytical philosophy, animal cognition, automated image analysis, Brendan Wenzel, Bring me a slab, childhood development, children’s books, chimpanzee learning, computer learning to find cats, computer science, data clustering, David Lancy, falsifiable theories, Google, human development, identification, language acquisition, learning, Liu Cixin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, mental filters, neural networks, New York Times, parenting, perception, personhood, Philosophical Investigations, principal component analysis, Quoc Le, science, scientific method, Slab!, Stanford, teaching, The Anthropology of Childhood, The Three-Body Problem, They All Saw a Cat, unsupervised learning, Upshot, what is a cat, what is red, Youtube cat videos
Frank Brown Cloud 