虎鲸的大脑比我们的更复杂,这说明虎鲸比我们聪明吗

【来源龙腾网】

正文原创翻译:

500

Orcas' brains are more complex than ours. Are orcas smarter than us, or do they not get as much blood flow to their brains as we do?

虎鲸的大脑比我们的更复杂,这说明虎鲸比我们聪明吗,还是它们的大脑血液流量不如我们?

评论翻译

Amyas Cavit

Excellent question!

Brain complexity and intelligence are closely correlated. In simple terms, the more folds and convolutions a brain has, the more intelligent the possessor of that brain is. Orca brains are densely folded and convoluted, much more so than human brains. Some sections of their brain are much larger than the corresponding areas of our brains, notably the regions associated with emotions and social intelligence. Their brains also have some features that ours lack entirely, such as the region associated with processing sensory data from their echolocation.

One rough measure of relative intelligence is to compare brain-to-body-mass ratios. In humans this ratio is 1:40, about seven times larger (relatively) than the average mammalian brain. Orca brains, at a ratio of around 1:100, are about 2.5 times larger than the average mammalian brain, which is comparable to great apes like chimpanzees, but also to house cats. So using this measure we would say that humans are “more intelligent” than orcas.

Below: An orca brain compared to a human brain.

好问题!

大脑的复杂性和智力密切相关。简单地说,一个大脑的褶皱越多,这个大脑就越聪明。虎鲸的大脑密集地折叠和弯曲,比人类的大脑更复杂。他们大脑的某些部分比我们大脑的相应区域大得多,尤其是与情绪和社会智力相关的区域。它们的大脑也有一些我们完全没有的特征,比如与处理来自回声定位的感官数据相关的区域。

相对智力的一个粗略衡量方法是比较大脑与身体质量(体重)的比率。人类的这一比例是1:40,大约是哺乳动物平均大脑的7倍(相对而言)。虎鲸的大脑比例约为1:100,是哺乳动物平均大脑的2.5倍,这可以与黑猩猩等类人猿媲美,也可以与家猫媲美。所以用这种方法我们可以说人类比虎鲸“更聪明”。

下图:虎鲸大脑与人类大脑的对比。

 

But it’s not that simple. Intelligence is a tricky thing to quantify. An ant’s brain-to-body-mass ratio is about 1:7, and no one believes that ants are more intelligent than humans. If you play chess with a squirrel (ratio 1:150) you are probably going to win. But if you had to keep track of hundreds of nut caches in your head, how well would you do? What about things like memory? Problem solving? Language? These things are all difficult to measure, and any comparison between animal brains and human brains must necessarily fall victim to the apples-and-oranges fallacy.

Confused yet?

Perhaps the best way to think of it is that orcas have different intelligence than humans. Their social intelligence seems to be far more advanced, but on the other hand orcas have never developed algebra or string theory. Orcas are self-aware, intelligent creatures with brains that are distinct from human brains in many respects. And while humans may be more “intelligent” based on measures that we ourselves created, it is worth noting that orcas can learn our language, but so far we have been unable to learn theirs. Food for thought.

Seafood, in this case.

但事情没那么简单。智力是一个很难量化的东西。一只蚂蚁的大脑与身体质量之比约为1:7,但没有人相信蚂蚁比人类更聪明。如果你和一只松鼠下棋(比例为1:150),你很可能会赢。但如果你必须在头脑中记录数百个坚果储藏地,你会做得多好?记忆?问题如何解决?语言?所有这些都很难去测量,任何对动物大脑和人类大脑的比较必然会成为苹果和橘子谬论的牺牲品。

还是感到疑惑吗?

也许最好的解释就是虎鲸的智力与人类不同。它们的社交智力似乎要高得多,但另一方面,虎鲸从未发展出代数或弦理论。虎鲸是有自我意识的智慧生物,它们的大脑在很多方面都与人类的大脑不同。虽然根据我们自己创造的衡量标准,人类可能更“聪明”。值得注意的是,虎鲸可以学习我们的语言,但到目前为止,我们还无法学习它们的语言。

Pablo Emanuel

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

“例如,在地球上,人类总是认为自己比海豚更聪明,因为他已经取得了如此多的成就——轮子、纽约、战争等等——而海豚们所做的只是在水里玩得很开心。但与此相反,海豚一直认为它们比人类聪明得多——原因完全相同。”

Sergio Diniz

Good answer. And the fact cetaceans brain have also to process their echolocation, which should require a considerable space.

好答案。事实上,鲸类动物的大脑必须处理回声定位,这需要相当大的脑容量。

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Whitla Lindsay

Your point is that dolphins are not actually smart the brain is only big for echo location etc?

你的意思是海豚实际上并不聪明,它们的大脑只是用于回声定位之类的?

Sergio Diniz

No, my point is their are not “smarter” than us, que cannot use only brain size as an absolute value.

不,我的观点是他们并不比我们“聪明”,不能只用大脑的绝对值来衡量。

Relebohile Nkosi

We should stop trying to determine the intelligence of a Chimpanzee by its IQ Test score because those things were designed for a human brain. For example, we may have the best engineers from the human species but I bet none of them can build a tunnel like ants could or a dam like beavers could. Even some of our “super technological advancements” were taken from the physiological aspects of animals, such as the way a car’s auto-parking feature is copying a bat’s echolocation abilities.

Thank you for this answer.

我们应该停止试图通过IQ测试分数来判断黑猩猩的智力,因为这些东西是为人类大脑设计的。例如,我们或许拥有人类最优秀的工程师,但我敢打赌,他们中没有人能像蚂蚁那样建造隧道,或像海狸那样建造大坝。

甚至我们的一些“超级技术进步”也借鉴自动物的生理特征,比如汽车的自动停车功能是如何模仿蝙蝠的回声定位能力的。

不过还是谢谢楼主的这篇答案。

Amyas Cavit

IQ tests aren’t even that accurate for testing human intelligence. Like many such metrics, it is far more useful when talking about large groups than individuals.

智商测试在测试人类智力方面同样没有那么准确。像许多这样的指标一样,当谈论大的群体时,它比个人更有用。

Per

Yes, everything about metrics like that is about statistical analysis. But that also means that IQ is more likely to predict than not, because the statistics say so. Examples of low-IQ individuals doing very well are abundant, and maybe vice versa. If I were to take my IQ score as a measure, I would expect myself to be economically independent, but I’m just an individual with other issues, so I work a job (albeit a fairly good one) to the best of my ability.

是的,这些指标的一切都是关于统计分析。

但这也意味着智商更有可能预测,因为统计数据是这样说的。低智商的人做得很好的例子比比皆是,反之亦然。

如果我用我的智商分数来衡量,我希望自己经济独立,但我只是一个有其他问题的人,所以我尽我所能地工作(尽管是一份相当好的工作)。

Per

I’ve met people who are smart in an “immediate, matter-of-factly of course obvious” way, who do really smart things in situations reactively, without thinking. I think it’s a different kind of smart than the ones who first review the facts and then come to a conclusion.

我遇到过一些聪明的人,他们以一种“直接的,显而易见的”的方式行事,他们在一些情况下会做出非常聪明的事情,不需要思考。

我认为这是一种不同于那些首先回顾事实然后得出结论的人的聪明。

Amyas Cavit

Sometimes that is described as wisdom vs. intelligence. But yes there are absolutely different types of intelligence. I think we’ve all known someone who was super smart academically but had no common sense whatsoever!

这就是智慧的类型的区别。

确实存在不同类型的智力。我想我们都认识一些人,他们在学术上非常聪明,但却没有任何常识!

Relebohile Nkosi

Now this is interesting. If we can accept that there are different kinds of “smart” amongst people, why can’t we accept that other types of animals are smart in their own way?

这很有趣。如果我们能接受人类中有不同种类的“聪明”,为什么我们不能接受其他种类的动物有它们自己的聪明方式呢?

Mateus B.

Humans are terrible, or incapable, of measuring the intelligence of other animals.

What we actually measure is their abilities to think like us is certain situations.

and we should be amazed when They do it, because it essentially says “look, I can do a bunch of stuff you can’t, think in a way you can’t even understand AND we do a bunch of things that you consider to be hard as well”

人类是可怕的,或者说没有能力去衡量其他动物的智力。我们真正衡量的是他们在特定情况下像我们一样思考的能力。

当它们这样做的时候,我们应该感到惊讶,因为它本质上是在说,看,我可以做很多你做不到的事情,以你甚至无法理解的方式思考,我们也可以做一些你认为很难的事情。

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