Comments on: Tools Don’t Suffer Fools

By: Tooling Around : The Beautiful Brain

Tooling Around : The Beautiful Brain — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 21:22:28 +0000

[...] Tool use is extremely important to humans. Much research has suggested a complex neural underpinning of tool-using behavior: it involves real-time 3D mapping of objects, extreme tactile sensitivity, planning ahead, and, well, patience. [...]

By: dave

dave — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:25:13 +0000

Jeremy, I’d suggest the coolness is rather the other way round, for this reason:

The crow poking a grub and ‘hooking’ it is learning “oh, if I do this, it works to get me food”. However, the crow poking a grub until it bites into the stick is learning “oh, if I do this, then it will do that”.

In short, its not only a self-aware crow, but also aware of the behavioral tendency of the grub (“other” awareness). That is something it does not need to grab a bug or seed out of the grass; and just as self-awareness is considered a high-order behavior, I believe being able to understand and predict the behavior of a different species is also a high-order level of awareness.

By: Tweets that mention Tools Don’t Suffer Fools : The Beautiful Brain -- Topsy.com

Tweets that mention Tools Don’t Suffer Fools : The Beautiful Brain -- Topsy.com — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:40:32 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Yosuke YANASE　（柳瀬陽介）, Noah Hutton. Noah Hutton said: New re:COG on clever crows using tools. Any similarities between the evolution of tool-use in crows and humans? http://bit.ly/bUdWzW [...]

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 02:39:31 +0000

Nice article. I agree that crows are very cool.
But I found that instead of ‘hooking’ the larvae, the crows have just learned to poke them until they get annoyed and grab onto the stick, thereby enabling the crow to pull the larvae out. Not as cool as I’d hoped, but still pretty cool.