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Article 6744 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Estimating intelligence
Message-ID: <1992Aug31.181752.5565@spss.com>
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References: <1992Aug29.143021.8163@Princeton.EDU> <1992Aug29.151333.24453@u.washington.edu> <BILL.92Aug30205053@cortex.nsma.arizona.edu>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 18:17:52 GMT
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In article <BILL.92Aug30205053@cortex.nsma.arizona.edu> bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>I'd like to tell a little story that relates to this.

Thanks for doing so.  I like bear stories.

>In fact, I realized that it amounts to what Dennett would call a
>"demoting" act.  A large fraction of the apparent cleverness of bears
>can be accounted for by a very simple rule: "If you see a rope, chew
>on it."  Any food protection method that leaves the rope reachable
>will fall victim to this technique, and double-bagging is the only one
>that does not.  Note that the technique requires no understanding
>whatever of the *way* the rope supports the food -- all the bear needs
>to know is that chewing on ropes is a useful thing to do.

>And the moral of all this, I think, is that it's not so hard to create
>the appearance of more intelligence than actually exists.

I'm not sure your story lessens my estimate of bears' intelligence.
Perhaps the bears are relying on just one rule, but that only raises the 
question: where did they get that rule?  The bears have had to be 
adaptable enough to discover that garish-colored canvas sacks contain
food, and that chewing on ropes is a good strategy to get at sacks that
are out of reach.  I think that would be beyond a lot of animals.

Another interesting question is whether each bear has to learn the rule
for itself, or whether it can be communicated between bears (perhaps by
observation).  Also, how long did it take the bears to discover this
strategy?


