Where does intelligence come from?

Add caption

It is amazing how intelligent we can be. We can construct shelter, find new ways of hunting, and create boats and machines. Our unique intelligence has been responsible for the emergence of civilization.

But how does a set of living cells become intelligent? How can flesh and blood turn into something that can create bicycles and airplanes or write novels?

This is the question of the origin of intelligence.

This problem has puzzled many theorists and scientists, and it is particularly important if we want to build intelligent machines. They still lag well behind us. Although computers calculate millions of times faster than we do, it is we who understand the big picture in which these calculations fit. Even animals are much more intelligent than machines. A mouse can find its way in a hostile forest and survive. This cannot be said for our computers or robots.

The question of how to achieve intelligence remains a mystery for scientists.

Recently, however a new theory has been proposed that may resolve this very question. The theory is called practopoiesis and is founded in the most fundamental capability of all biological organisms—their ability to adapt.

Darwin’s theory of evolution describes one way how our genomes adapt. By creating offspring new combinations of genes are tested; the good ones are kept and the bad ones are disposed of. The result is a genome better adapted to the environment.

Practopoiesis tells us that somewhat similar adaptation mechanisms of trials and errors occur while an organism grows, while it digests food and also, while it acts intelligently or thinks.

For example, the growth of our body is not precisely programmed by the genes. Instead, our genes perform experiments, which require feedback from the environment and corrections of errors. Only with trial and errors can our body properly grow.

Our genes contain an elaborate knowledge of which experiments need to be done, and this knowledge of trial-and-error approaches has been acquired through eons of evolution. We kept whatever worked well for our ancestors.

However, this knowledge alone is not enough to make us intelligent.

To create intelligent behavior such as thinking, decision making, understanding a poem, or simply detecting one’s friend in a crowd of strangers, our bodies require yet another type of trial-and-error knowledge. There are mechanisms in our body that also contain elaborate knowledge for experimenting, but they are much faster. The knowledge of these mechanisms is not collected through evolution but through the development over the lifetime of an individual.

These fast adaptive mechanisms continually adjust the big network of our connected nerve cells. These adaptation mechanisms can change in an eye-blink the way the brain networks are effectively connected. It may take less than a second to make a change necessary to recognize one’s own grandmother, or to make a decision, or to get a new idea on how to solve a problem.

The slow and the fast adaptive mechanisms share one thing: They cannot be successful without receiving feedback and thus iterating through several stages of trial and error; for example, testing several possibilities of who this person in distance could be.

Practopoiesis states that the slow and fast adaptive mechanisms are collectively responsible for creation of intelligence and are organized into a hierarchy. 

• First, evolution creates genes at a painstakingly slow tempo. Then genes slowly create the mechanisms of fast adaptations. 
• Next, adaptation mechanisms change the properties of our nerve cells within seconds. 
• And finally, the resulting adjusted networks of nerve cells route sensory signals to muscles with the speed of lightning. 
• At the end behavior is created.

Probably the most groundbreaking aspect of practopoietic theory is that our intelligent minds are not primarily located in the connectivity matrix of our neural networks, as it has been widely held, but instead in the elaborate knowledge of the fast adaptive mechanisms. The more knowledge our genes store into our quick abilities to adapt nerve cells, the more capability we have to adjust in novel situations, solve problems, and generally, act intelligently.

Therefore, our intelligence seems to come from the hierarchy of adaptive mechanisms, from the very slow evolution that enables the genome to adapt over a lifetime, to the quick pace of neural adaptation expressing knowledge acquired through its lifetime. Only when these adaptations have been performed successfully can our networks of neurons perform tasks with wonderful accuracy.

Our capability to survive and create originates, then, 

• from the adaptive mechanisms that operate at different levels and 
• the vast amounts of knowledge accumulated by each of the levels.

 The combined result of all of them together is what makes us intelligent.

ORIGINAL: Singularity Web Blog

by Danko Nikolić

May 16, 2016

Danko Nikolić

About the Author:

Danko Nikolić is a brain and mind scientist, running an electrophysiology lab at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, and is the creator of the concept of ideasthesia. More about practopoiesis can be read here

Electric Eels Found To Leap Out Of Water To Shock Predators

Main image credit: Josh More/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

ELECTRIC EELS HAVE BEEN FOUND TO SHOW SHOCKING LEAPING BEHAVIOR.

As if growing up to 2 meters and being able to produce an electric shock equivalent to that of a Taser isn’t impressive enough, researchers have confirmed a more unusual aspect about the electric eel. It seems that the animal, which isn’t actually an eel but a type of knife fish, isn’t content with just shocking its attackers underwater, but that under the right conditions they will leap out of the water to stun predators. 

More than 200 years ago, when the famous Prussian naturalist and geographer Alexander von Humboldt made the first scientific exploration to describe Latin America he faced many difficulties. But one of his most famous encounters occurred on March 19, 1800, when he described how locals caught electric eels by driving horses into the river, where the fish would then leap out of the water and stun the poor animals. This dramatic description quickly entered into legend, but in the centuries that followed no one had seen this unusual behavior repeated, leading most to think that von Humboldt exaggerated his electric experiences with the eels.

Yet it seems that there is far more truth to these accounts than anyone had previously given credit for. “The first time I read von Humboldt's tale, I thought it was completely bizarre,” explains Kenneth Catania, who has described this behavior for the first time in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Why would the eels attack the horses instead of swimming away?” 

The eel jumps up to place its chin on the "predator" before shocking it. Kenneth Catania/Vanderbilt University

He actually corroborated these original accounts in the first place by accident. Studying the eels at Vanderbilt University, he was attempting to catch them from their tank using a metal rimmed net (“In hindsight, probably wasn't the best design to use,” he notes). He found that every so often, the eels would leap from the water and press their chins against the net, while at the same time generating a series of high-voltage pulses.

By measuring the power of the shocks used during this electric behavior, Catania was able to determine that the eels used a different shocking pattern than they used to stun prey. He found that they only leap from the water to attack living animals that are partially submerged, and did so with more frequency when the water level in their tank was lowered. This, suggests Catania, implies that the behavior is used to protect themselves against land-based predators when the eels feel cornered or threatened, such as in the dry season when the water levels are much lower. This is also the time when some of the eels breed.

But why leap from the water, rather than just sidling up close? Well, it seems that the higher up the intruder they can get, the more powerful the shock they deliver. When shocking in the water, the electric current dissipates through the water, but by hitting the target with its chin and then shocking, the current travels through the target's body. “This allow the eels to deliver shocks with a maximum amount of power to partially-submerged land animals that invade their territory… [while] also allow[ing] them to electrify a much larger portion of the invader's body,” says Catania.

So after over two centuries of doubt and despite great interest in the animals, it seems that von Humboldt has finally been proven to be right, and that electric eels really do jump from the water to attack predators.

ORIGINAL: IFLS
By Josh Davis
06/06/2016, 20:00

3 ways ravens are among the smartest animals on the planet

Photo: Teri Franzen/MNN Flickr Group 

1) Ravens can keep track of the social status of other ravens both in their own group and in groups of unfamiliar ravens.

This is a useful strategy particularly if a raven has any plans to leave their own group and join another — they'll know just where they fit in the pecking order and also who to be submissive to in order to work their way into the group.

Researchers discovered this by experimenting with playing conversations between ravens to a subject raven, conversations that reversed the social ranking that the subject raven was familiar with.

IFLScience writes, "They found that ravens paid especial attention and seemed stressed -- displaying behaviors like head turns and body shakes -- when they hear playbacks that simulate a rank reversal in their group. They just didn’t expect a low-ranking bird to show off to a higher-ranking one -- this violates their rank relations. They were fine when the dominance structure in the playback reflects their hierarchy accurately. The ravens also responded to simulated rank reversals in neighboring groups, suggesting that they’ve figured out who’s boss among unknown birds just by watching and listening to them (since there was no physical contact between groups). It’s the first evidence of animals tracking rank relations of individuals that don’t belong to their own group -- a useful skill for a bird switching foraging units."

So, ravens learn social ranks well enough to even figure out what's what in foreign groups of ravens with whom they've never actually interacted. In other words, ravens are savvy politicians.

2) Ravens can remember individual human faces.

Researchers have experimented with wearing masks while trapping and tagging crows (extremely close relatives to ravens and also shockingly intelligent). They wore a particular mask when trapping and releasing crows, and then had another neutral mask that wasn't used when trapping. They discovered that crows learned and recognized the "face" of the trapper. And not only that — they teach their offspring and other group members just who is who so that their friends and family could avoid being trapped by the masked person.

The New York Times writes, "In the months that followed [the trapping and tagging], the researchers and volunteers donned the masks on campus, this time walking prescribed routes and not bothering crows. The crows had not forgotten. They scolded people in the dangerous mask significantly more than they did before they were trapped, even when the mask was disguised with a hat or worn upside down. The neutral mask provoked little reaction. The effect has not only persisted, but also multiplied over the past two years. Wearing the dangerous mask on one recent walk through campus, Dr. Marzluff said, he was scolded by 47 of the 53 crows he encountered, many more than had experienced or witnessed the initial trapping. The researchers hypothesize that crows learn to recognize threatening humans from both parents and others in their flock."

3) Ravens can solve puzzles.

Ravens have incredible problem-solving skills. In some experiments, they are presented with a new puzzle, which they study for a bit and then speedily solve.

Science Blogs writes about one set of experiments by researchers Bernd Heinrich and Thomas Bugnyar, "They found that some adult birds would examine the situation for several minutes and then perform this multistep procedure in as little as 30 seconds without any trial and error — as if they knew exactly what they were doing. Because there was no opportunity for the birds to be confronted with a similar problem in the wild, the simplest explanation is that they were able to imagine the possibilities and to perform the appropriate behaviors. The authors also found that successfully performing this behavior required maturity: immature birds were unable to do it while year-old birds performed a variety of trials before they were able to succeed."

So not only can they figure out puzzles surprisingly quickly, but they learn from past experience to build on their conclusions about how to get what they want. In this PBS video, a raven figures out how to pull up a fishing line to steal the catch.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how ravens have displayed their intelligence and strategizing abilities. If you'd like to learn more, check out the book In the Company of Crows and Ravens. By the time you finish the last page, you'll never look at ravens in the same way again.

* * *

Jaymi Heimbuch is a writer and photographer at Mother Nature Network. Follow her on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

ORIGINAL: Mother Nature Network
Jaymi Heimbuch
January 26, 2015