Animal Intelligence

[Metsfanmax]

I'm going to maintain here a list of articles in the news that discuss the intelligence of non-human animals. This first one isn't recent but I just discovered it and it is fascinating.

Money-using monkeys give insight into human economics

The study found that loss aversion was a greater driving force in the monkey marketplace than the promise of a potentially greater reward. When presented with the option of a low-risk, minimal, but secure payout or a potentially high-yield but riskier purchase, the monkeys chose to play it safe at a rate of about 2.7 to 1-- a rate completely indistinguishable from what you might find in a trial using human subjects.

[Army of GOD]

inb4 Andy

[john9blue]

did you hear about the monkeys who would whore themselves out to other monkeys in exchange for the "coins" that the scientists were giving them?

[saxitoxin]

did you hear about the monkeys who would whore themselves out to other monkeys in exchange for the "coins" that the scientists were giving them?

reported for calling AoG a monkey

[nietzsche]

This thread has a lot of potential....


...for trolling

[Army of GOD]

did you hear about the monkeys who would whore themselves out to other monkeys in exchange for the "coins" that the scientists were giving them?

reported for calling AoG a monkey

Woah, what the f*ck.































I whore myself out for free...

[MeDeFe]

I whore myself out for free...

Also to monkeys?

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm going to maintain here a list of articles in the news that discuss the intelligence of non-human animals. This first one isn't recent but I just discovered it and it is fascinating.

Money-using monkeys give insight into human economics

The study found that loss aversion was a greater driving force in the monkey marketplace than the promise of a potentially greater reward. When presented with the option of a low-risk, minimal, but secure payout or a potentially high-yield but riskier purchase, the monkeys chose to play it safe at a rate of about 2.7 to 1-- a rate completely indistinguishable from what you might find in a trial using human subjects.

1. Compare (a) the market process (in the world of humans) with (b) the "planned monkey market" by the scientists.
2. Infer different conclusions from both thought experiments.
3. Ponder how much the article and its readers draw erroneous analogies from (b) as applied to (a).

[Metsfanmax]

I'm going to maintain here a list of articles in the news that discuss the intelligence of non-human animals. This first one isn't recent but I just discovered it and it is fascinating.

Money-using monkeys give insight into human economics

The study found that loss aversion was a greater driving force in the monkey marketplace than the promise of a potentially greater reward. When presented with the option of a low-risk, minimal, but secure payout or a potentially high-yield but riskier purchase, the monkeys chose to play it safe at a rate of about 2.7 to 1-- a rate completely indistinguishable from what you might find in a trial using human subjects.

1. Compare (a) the market process (in the world of humans) with (b) the "planned monkey market" by the scientists.

You don't think that the human money market is planned by the government? We communists clearly need to step up our game!

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm going to maintain here a list of articles in the news that discuss the intelligence of non-human animals. This first one isn't recent but I just discovered it and it is fascinating.

Money-using monkeys give insight into human economics

The study found that loss aversion was a greater driving force in the monkey marketplace than the promise of a potentially greater reward. When presented with the option of a low-risk, minimal, but secure payout or a potentially high-yield but riskier purchase, the monkeys chose to play it safe at a rate of about 2.7 to 1-- a rate completely indistinguishable from what you might find in a trial using human subjects.

1. Compare (a) the market process (in the world of humans) with (b) the "planned monkey market" by the scientists.

You don't think that the human money market is planned by the government? We communists clearly need to step up our game!

Bitcoin isn't, and neither are other media of exchange, nor was the nascent emergence of the rules and uses of various media of exchange planned by government. Anyway, you're conflating "market process" with "money markets"--specifically "government fiat money."


For your reading pleasure:

Market process. The voluntary and peaceful complex interaction of men deliberately striving toward the best possible removal of human dissatisfaction. The leadership in the process is assumed by promoters, speculators and entrepreneurs competing for the profits awarded to those who prove themselves superior in providing the most valued means for satisfying human desires. Every step in the market process depends on human decisions so that there is nothing automatic or mechanical in the process. By an inseparably interrelated series of human actions the market process determines the price structure of the market, the allocation of the factors of production and the share of each participating individual in the combined result.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?op ... Itemid=351

The market process. (a good enough source at greater length)
http://www.libertarianism.org/ex-9.html


Government fiat money:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp

For the more adventurous (I'd gladly discuss this little ditty by Rothbard with anyone):
http://mises.org/money/3s12.asp


Hopefully, your game has been 'stepped up'. Now, we might be able to continue with the 3-step solution to the problem of some people's inferences from the monkey market study.

[Metsfanmax]

Bitcoin isn't, and neither are other media of exchange, nor was the nascent emergence of the rules and uses of various media of exchange planned by government. Anyway, you're conflating "market process" with "money markets"--specifically "government fiat money."


For your reading pleasure:

Market process. The voluntary and peaceful complex interaction of men deliberately striving toward the best possible removal of human dissatisfaction. The leadership in the process is assumed by promoters, speculators and entrepreneurs competing for the profits awarded to those who prove themselves superior in providing the most valued means for satisfying human desires. Every step in the market process depends on human decisions so that there is nothing automatic or mechanical in the process. By an inseparably interrelated series of human actions the market process determines the price structure of the market, the allocation of the factors of production and the share of each participating individual in the combined result.

And yet despite this definition, the money we all use to conduct our business transactions on a daily basis was given to us by the government. Exchanges that we make are regulated by the government, and even if in principle we can barter with currency other than fiat money, how many of us do that regularly? The government controls the buying power of money through methods such as quantitative easing. I'd suggest that in practice, the human market doesn't actually look all that different from the monkey market.

Hopefully, your game has been 'stepped up'. Now, we might be able to continue with the 3-step solution to the problem of some people's inferences from the monkey market study.

What inferences do you think I drew, and what is problematic with them? I'd be delighted to hear what I thought about this study. What I thought was remarkable about this study was that it demonstrated that our micro-economic decision making capabilities are to a significant extent probably the result of evolution (as opposed to specific human learning). But if I am wrong about what I learned, please let me know.

[AAFitz]

There is a bird that remembers the individual location of around 30,000(I forget) pine nuts that it stores.

I realize this isnt intelligence per se, but and interesting bit thats related, perhaps?

[laughingcavalier]

There is a bird that remembers the individual location of around 30,000(I forget) pine nuts that it stores.

I realize this isnt intelligence per se, but and interesting bit thats related, perhaps?

Do you remember what the bird is called?

[Woodruff]

There is a bird that remembers the individual location of around 30,000(I forget) pine nuts that it stores.

I realize this isnt intelligence per se, but and interesting bit thats related, perhaps?

Do you remember what the bird is called?

No kidding - I would love to go read about this.

Then again...God seems like an odd bird, and he's got at least 30,000 individual nuts running around this place we call Earth. Maybe this explains why not all prayers are answered...he can only get around to the 30,000 nuts he remembers?

[BigBallinStalin]

Bitcoin isn't, and neither are other media of exchange, nor was the nascent emergence of the rules and uses of various media of exchange planned by government. Anyway, you're conflating "market process" with "money markets"--specifically "government fiat money."


For your reading pleasure:

Market process. The voluntary and peaceful complex interaction of men deliberately striving toward the best possible removal of human dissatisfaction. The leadership in the process is assumed by promoters, speculators and entrepreneurs competing for the profits awarded to those who prove themselves superior in providing the most valued means for satisfying human desires. Every step in the market process depends on human decisions so that there is nothing automatic or mechanical in the process. By an inseparably interrelated series of human actions the market process determines the price structure of the market, the allocation of the factors of production and the share of each participating individual in the combined result.

And yet despite this definition, the money we all use to conduct our business transactions on a daily basis was given to us by the government. Exchanges that we make are regulated by the government, and even if in principle we can barter with currency other than fiat money, how many of us do that regularly? The government controls the buying power of money through methods such as quantitative easing. I'd suggest that in practice, the human market doesn't actually look all that different from the monkey market.

Sure, there's influence among three sectors: market, polity, and society. I don't doubt this, but it's irrelevant to our discussion.

RE: underlined, it's different, and I don't understand why you don't see the difference.

After reading the article, ask yourself, "gee, is that how the market works? Do people hand me a coin and say, 'pick one of these fruits!'?" Maybe in centrally planned societies which took Marx too seriously, but at that point, we're not quite talking about markets... If you think the political economy of the experiment is similar enough to the market process in which humans interact, then you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.

Hopefully, your game has been 'stepped up'. Now, we might be able to continue with the 3-step solution to the problem of some people's inferences from the monkey market study.

What inferences do you think I drew, and what is problematic with them? I'd be delighted to hear what I thought about this study. What I thought was remarkable about this study was that it demonstrated that our micro-economic decision making capabilities are to a significant extent probably the result of evolution (as opposed to specific human learning). But if I am wrong about what I learned, please let me know.

It's becoming apparent that your analogous thinking has led you astray.

[Metsfanmax]

Sure, there's influence among three sectors: market, polity, and society. I don't doubt this, but it's irrelevant to our discussion.

RE: underlined, it's different, and I don't understand why you don't see the difference.

After reading the article, ask yourself, "gee, is that how the market works? Do people hand me a coin and say, 'pick one of these fruits!'?" Maybe in centrally planned societies which took Marx too seriously, but at that point, we're not quite talking about markets... If you think the political economy of the experiment is similar enough to the market process in which humans interact, then you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.

I did not say that our market works like the market constructed in the study. Why are you insisting that I started the discussion that way? The conclusions drawn in the study don't really depend on the type of market involved here. That is, the monkeys seem to make similar decisions that we would, despite the difference in how the money was obtained. This is probably because how the money was obtained doesn't strongly affect our psychological loss aversion tendencies. For example, take the case of someone who inherited their money instead of earning it. Then your argument vanishes. The point being made is that, just like the irrational actions of humans, monkeys tend to avoid losses even when they would come out the same on average. I don't see why your comment about how the monkey market is different from the human market, is at all relevant to the conclusions of this study.

[notyou2]

K is the only difference between money and monkey.


















































Did I win some free monkey sex?

[BigBallinStalin]

Sure, there's influence among three sectors: market, polity, and society. I don't doubt this, but it's irrelevant to our discussion.

RE: underlined, it's different, and I don't understand why you don't see the difference.

After reading the article, ask yourself, "gee, is that how the market works? Do people hand me a coin and say, 'pick one of these fruits!'?" Maybe in centrally planned societies which took Marx too seriously, but at that point, we're not quite talking about markets... If you think the political economy of the experiment is similar enough to the market process in which humans interact, then you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.

I did not say that our market works like the market constructed in the study. Why are you insisting that I started the discussion that way? The conclusions drawn in the study don't really depend on the type of market involved here. That is, the monkeys seem to make similar decisions that we would, despite the difference in how the money was obtained. This is probably because how the money was obtained doesn't strongly affect our psychological loss aversion tendencies. For example, take the case of someone who inherited their money instead of earning it. Then your argument vanishes.

That's a different context. The inheritance is consumed and invested within a real market.

(A) Suppose we remove the scientists and their central planning from the "market" of the monkeys. Would the monkeys continue using the currency? Would they engage in competition and entrepreneurship? Would prices over time reflect the consumer and producer preferences of the various goods? (all of this involves economic decision-making).

If "no" to all questions, then the activities of monkeys doesn't say much about markets, which is the concept continually used in the article, thus the difference between the real market and their monkey "market" matters. Those scientists (Santos) and the article have this basic misunderstanding, which is what I've been pointing out. It matters because of the problems of analogous thinking, which leads people to conclude something like "animal X is relatively intelligent to humans because they can do economic decision A, B, and C." Here's Santos:



“One of the things we never saw in the Monkey Market was savings—just like with our own species. They always just spent all their cash at once,” says Santos.


Is Santos an idiot? "Just like our own species." If that's true, then why do most humans save? Oops. Santos' understanding is devoid of context; therefore, when it comes to economics and humans, she's not that bright--based on this one opinion of hers, which of course lacks context. Hey, she could be joking...

Since the experiment is not analogous to a real market, then the activities expressed have limited impact on the relevance to humans engaging in market activities. In short, the analogy doesn't hold--much to the dismay of people like Santos and the millions of others who stretch that analogy too far. That kind of ignorance has been my concern up to this point.



(B) We're talking past each other, and it's why I have intentionally been vague about those who infer the wrong conclusions about this. You may be wrong for different reasons, so now we'll address your claims. Since the analogy doesn't hold, then is "economic decision-making" a good enough standard for estimating non-human intelligence? Let's keep that question in mind, but first we have to address the following:


Are those activities in the experiment relevant to what we understand about "micro-economic decision-making capability"? Perhaps, but in a limited context: (a) only after the monkeys have been taught about the use of currency, (b) when the prices are given (no real prices), (c) when they don't have to invest any time in producing their incomes (only one type of exchange occurs + a distorted valuation between opportunity cost and profit), (d) when we exclude instances of theft from the study. Note how limited the chain of decision-making capability has become. Sure, those monkeys are 'intelligent', but their intelligence is extremely limited compared to humans and their complex social networks and processes.

(1) Many living creatures exhibit cost- and risk- averse behavior, but are they capable of perceiving the relative values of activities without being given human-mandated prices? Are their preferences revealed through the price signals whereby others reciprocate accordingly? If not, then the experiment has very limited relevance to what I understand about the broader range and implications of economic decision-making.

Given the tight confines of the context, it's a stretch to say that the monkeys are capable of economic decision-making--without human assistance, which is the key phrase missing from your conclusion. Sure, the monkeys exhibit a portion of economic decision-making, but since they seem to be incapable of establishing and maintaining markets on their own, then how intelligent are they? Dogs and plants exhibit a portion of economic decision-making as well:


(2) Recall the relevance of distinguishing between real markets and the monkey "market." Economics is the study of market activities, but economics can be applied to non-market activities (central planning, public choice, etc.). Now, one can apply economic concepts like "diminishing marginal value" to a scenario where a dog is offered a pound of steak every 8 minutes. Eventually, it stops eating. Diminishing marginal value! Now, does the dog exhibit "economic decision-making" or are the concepts within economics so broad that they're easily applicable to anything? Even plants are profit-seeking, cost-averse producers and consumers which calculate the required quantities of future production, but does this mean that since plants are capable of economic decision-making, then they are intelligent?


(3) Since (a) the monkeys were taught to temporarily* barter, then is the following true?

[list]*The 'monkey market' would collapse without the constant guidance of the scientists (for reasons a through d and more), so did the monkeys actually learn anything? Or were they simply being trained through treats--like a dog? If so, then (2) is at play.

What I thought was remarkable about this study was that it demonstrated that our micro-economic decision making capabilities are to a significant extent probably the result of evolution (as opposed to specific human learning).

I disagree because learning and evolution are complementary processes, and they occur simultaneously, so the conclusion can not be "either-or." If I had to pick, I'd side with "learning," but there are two kinds of evolution: evolution as explained in biology, and evolution as applied to economic activities (see: David Sloan's blogs or read Tim Harford's Adapt), so it depends on what we mean by evolution.

It appears that in conducting the study, humans tapped into to "specific monkey learning," so what's evolution got to do with it? Up to some point of evolution, some animals develop enough of a brain/intelligence (biological evolution) to be able to learn how to exchange favors ("economic evolution"), or to exchange coins (not evolution; it's learned behavior). Exchange is a result of evolutionary phenomena, yet it is learned within a specific context.

Recall that girl who was raised by wolves. She didn't know the human language, but did she understand exchange? I'm not sure, but if a 4chan denizen offered her $10 million for a blowjob, would she understand what $10 million means? She may understand that there is an exchange, but I don't think she'd understand the value/meaning of $10 million, which means that the "economic decision-making capabilities" can be learned yet can also be untapped (thus is a latent product of biological evolution).

Those monkeys were given a specific context within which they learned a means for expressing one example of economic decision-making. The environment was heavily managed by the scientists who seemed to have cherry-picked the results which they wanted,** and if not, their conclusion is not far-reaching beyond the experiment itself---when (a) the confines of the context are properly highlighted, (b) the general applicability and limits of economic concepts is understood, and (c) the implication of (b) provides a lackluster standard for measuring intelligence.


If it was purely evolutionary, then wouldn't monkeys create their own markets? Either not enough trial-and-error/adaption/duration of evolving traits has passed, or they're incapable of doing so, until a new species is formed. Matt Ridley says they can't or simply don't exchange ideas beyond the family/tribe--unlike humans. If that's true, then it's not just evolutionary--in the strict, biological sense.


**

show

[nietzsche]

Ladies and gentleman, place your bets!!

I'm gonna put my money on Mets.. I just hope BBS is not on aderall again.

[BigBallinStalin]

~1500 words within 1.5-2 hours. That's why I don't spend much time explaining myself on the fora, so I apologize for getting impatient with or for ignoring certain responses of various people whose opinions I find enjoyable and challenging.

[BigBallinStalin]

Ladies and gentleman, place your bets!!

I'm gonna put my money on Mets.. I just hope BBS is not on aderall again.

You read quickly! You're english is so goood!

[nietzsche]

Ladies and gentleman, place your bets!!

I'm gonna put my money on Mets.. I just hope BBS is not on aderall again.

You read quickly! You're english is so goood!

Me give you sucky sucky five dolla. I love you long time five dolla

[jonesthecurl]

K is the only difference between money and monkey.

I am the only difference between prate and pirate.

[nietzsche]

So, BBS wins? I'm disappoint.

[Metsfanmax]

So, BBS wins? I'm disappoint.

I'm going to respond, I promise, I just haven't had time to sit down and write the response it deserves because I am working a summer camp right now. Will be back for real next weekend.