the researcher documented a cow using a stick to scratch itself. no doubt they're intelligent animals but describing them as using 'sophisticated tools' is a bit of a stretch.
this behaviour is quite common in cattle and other animals, often seen rubbing or using sticks to scratch spots. sometimes it is dangerous as they find fences with nail poking out and cut themselves when rubbing to to calm an itch.
"This behavior is quite common..." is very misleading. This specific behavior is not common. Scratching an itch does not equal using a tool to scratch an itch. Every animal I've seen in nature knows how to use external static objects to help them scratch somewhere they can't reach. Dogs cats, bears, pigs, cows... etc. I think my cats are very intelligent, I've seen them use the bristle brush attachment we have on the wall to scratch themselves. If I ever watched one of them pick up a fork with their mouth and orient it in a way to scratch their back I would absolutely lose my mind. These are not the same behaviors.
If your cats picked up a fork, it would be to eat you after they killed you in your sleep; but, I could see how that could be considered “scratching an itch.”
I've seen my cats pull on a cord in order to reel in the toy at the end. I don't find that to be all too different from the cow orienting a scratcher. Should I?
Idk I guess that's really up for you to decide. My opinion is that behavior seems very uhhh instinctual? Like if they were eating something that was running away from them I'm sure they would employ a similar tactic/behavior. Thing far away from me I need it closer. The logical steps to use a tool that would have 0 instinctual context seems leaps and bounds more "complex". I'm no animal/evolutionary scientist, just my opinion. It very well could be!
Having spent my childhood around cows, I can say there's a great deal of doubt in my mind on that point. I know from extensive first-hand experience that cows are quite stupid.
Having spent my entire life around cows I can say there's a great deal of evidence that cows are quite intelligent. Most of the time when people say they're dumb it's because they're hindering a human from forcing them to do something. Why should a cow "know" to go one way or the other or to not stop in a chute, or to not back up...these are just human constraints. We know what we WANT the cow to do and if they don't do that they're dumb. Sure I've seen cows do dumb things. If I was an outside observer looking at the severity and frequency that humans do dumb things I would come to the same conclusion, they're dumb.
I'm with both of you. Growing up on a beef farm taught me that cows can be very dumb (no, you can't walk through the barbed wire, and no, you can't get to the water in the cistern without falling in and drowning) but also do show intelligence in some ways (the personal vendetta against the veterinarian's truck, or seeing their best friend in spring pastures and absolutely going apeshit).
I have Cows and Pigs, raised for show and meat. I would not call either animal "intelligent". I would call them stupid determined. They have all the time in the world to push, pull, grab and generally implement mayhem.
Defining tool use is subtle. Here's one defintion:
"... the tool is a detached object (rock) used to procure some thing (food) ordinarily incapable of being accessed without a tool.". Also it is "manipulated independent of its location." [0]
Rubbing against a tree is not tool use. Similarly, dropping a nut on a rock is not tool use, but dropping a rock on a nut is.
It gets a bit more complex: You can pickup a stick and use it (similar to the cow); you can first prepare the stick by stripping leaves and branches off (some primates); you can bend the stick into a useful hook (New Caledonian crows).
Look up corvids and especially New Caledonian crows. they are pretty amazing; in some tasks they apparently outperform all primates except one particular species.
i wonder if how many people actually spoke up and said 'um i don't think many people actually want to use this product' or did they just think it was easier kept their head down, collect their paycheck and go home.
I think honestly the story would be much different with more product sense and better market intuition, Horizon is just a perfect example of pure idiocy. They may as well have just ported chat roulette.
Once Apple Vision Pro released I finally understood what VR really could be which is an incredible immersive escape. Once I watched an Apple Immersive movie, and then even a completely regular old 2D movie in theater mode at night in Joshua Tree, I got it. Obviously completely unattainable but it to me was very smart: low volume but execute the best version of your vision that you possibly can, and see how people respond to it. It proves out the vision and then you can start working down the price.
The only thing Meta VR got right is gaming: it's the only use case that works with the resolution & hardware at the price point that they're trying to occupy. AVP could obviously work too but look: I've nearly punched out a window with my quest pro. Sitting and playing a game is weird, standing and playing is tiring. What I like infinitely better is just: watching a movie. Escaping. Relaxing.
I still use my Quest after a year but it is mostly on the web and youtube 360. youtube 360 is actually quite cool given the fact no one really makes content for it.
I have no interest in games and anything inside Horizon is just not impressive.
I just don't understand how Meta spent this much money to get so little in return. VRChat has immense worlds compared to anything in Horizon. Everything in Horizon is just so amateur looking and lacking any kind of imagination.
I got the Quest because I wanted to try developing for VR but that is a total nightmare. Horizon/Unity/Unreal are all different forms of a nightmare. I suspect this is actually the problem. Development is just too hard to do much of anything interesting. Anything interesting I have made has been in vanilla javascript/three js/react three fiber.
Vision Pro level resolution + webxr I think has a huge amount of potential. I even like wearing the Quest. The physical act of wearing the headset is really no issue to me at all. That was what I figured I would get tired of.
The Quest is ultimately an amazing piece of hardware with amazingly bad software.
for a company that keeps boasting how they can collect intel, know everything and control the narrative/future, they seem quite insecure to criticism and overcompensate for any negative feedback
this behaviour is quite common in cattle and other animals, often seen rubbing or using sticks to scratch spots. sometimes it is dangerous as they find fences with nail poking out and cut themselves when rubbing to to calm an itch.
reply