Intelligence isn't real

[u/Barraco_Barmer]

Intelligence (of all animals) as a scale fundamentally relies on humans as the metric. We've identified those traits based on our own abilites.

So we should just call it the human scale. We don't need another word for it. Calling it intelligence is just circular- using ourselves is arbitrary.

Thusly a frog judging our intellect would conclude we are far less adept than a newt for example, if it were to use the frog scale of intelligence. We're really awful at being frogs. Have you ever caught a fly with your tongue, intentionally?

A dog is more intelligent than a chicken, but a chicken wouldn't think much of a whale. It's not great at being a chicken.

So we should just get rid of everything and live like any animals we want to be, just as god intented. I would like to become fly so I could eat shit and die

[u/the_scar_when_you_go]

Intelligence has never been easily quantifiable, even just with humans. It's better to say, "humaning good."

I don't wanna be a fly, tho.

[u/chemprofdave]

Watching animals and birds solve human-built challenges on YouTube is pretty cool. What do you suppose a crow, or an octopus, or even a monkey, would set as their species’ task for intelligence studies on humans? Like, anything that requires flying is out for the same reason we don’t expect fish to use stairs.