Animal Intelligence

[Aztec Triogal]

As I posted in the pet picture thread, I've known certain plants smarter than my cat. However, the little guy is only about 5 years of age... and I don't know many things at that age that I'd really call geniuses. Granted human children can be observant, responsive, and even talkative at that age... but so is my cat. He's still not very bright though... and neither is a child.

When we get into our later years, our minds and bodies start to go. And when we're 80+ we're really bad but without the help of medicine the average human life is only into the 50-60 year range, assuming you're clean and disease free. The majority of people start to see signs of senility around the age of 35 and older. So if start getting old and confused 15 to 25 years before the age of your "natural" death, that means about 2-4 years before the natural death of a pet, they would start to lose their competancies. The average pet lives about 15 years. So if that's right it means they start hitting that senile state around age 12. Their bodies mature faster than ours because their lifespan is shorter but not necessarily their minds, which develops through a collection of experiences. And at age 12, no person is very developed.

So my question is, if an animal had a longer lifespan and could have more experiences (not to mention an education of some sort), do you think it would achieve a higher intelligence?

 

[Tifa AC]

Well my Cat is now 14 Years he is a Persian one,i never saw him as Cat,he is more acting like a "dog".He never but realy never scratched at my kids,even the day they hurt his eyes,no he is still sleeping with them.
After the born of my first child he was sitting out of the room and the moment my kid was Crying he also did cry.
I dont know if he is just stupid or if he has got a real big heart,you cant imagine what they have done to this cat,and still he loves them.
I hope that he will stay much longer with us,but looking at his age i dont believe so.

 

[Dark Knight]

cat don't have long mamory's but things do stick in there minds
like they can see a human that shows them love every day and they see that person as there master
but if one bad thing happens to it chances are it would have forgotten
that thing

 

[Tifa AC]

Mpa just like i say you cant think of the things they do with that Cat every single Day,yes shure they do love him they give him his food and they take good care of him.
But realy after all they did to him i thought that he would one time just one time scratch them but nothing he even purr if they do that stuff with him.If fot a very strange Cat dont i?

 

[Dark Knight]

well that cat very strange
if i do anything to my cat's they'll scratch one time i put one of my cat's heads in my mouth and it scratched all down my face and neck

 

[Davey Gaga]

Quite possibly, is my answer.

You've got animals [let's continue to use cats as examples] who do nothing but sleep and eat. Then, there's the uncommon cat, which can leap up and open doors for himself; who calls on his mum and dad to get him the food; who wakes you up at the same time every single morning so you're not late for school and leap under the bed covers when he gets too cold.

There's a parrot somewhere that can actually have a conversation with you, and he was taught to speak through rewards - he was given crackers, hilariously, whenever he copied a person and, over years, he learned to speak and ask for the crackers.

You've got animals who are trained, like sniffer dogs, the dolphins and whales at sea-world, homing pigeons, whatever you can think of. There may well be an extent to which an animal can learn no more, but to be honest, I don't think that limit [if it exists at all] has been reached yet.

 

[Aztec Triogal]

Another factor I was thinking of, assuming the premise for this thought is valid, is that it is considered a fact that we only use a small percentage of our brains. I believe it is only 10% that we use. Now granted it might not always be the same 10%... but we're still only functioning out of a small portion of our minds at any given point. So if anyone had the thought that a smaller brain on an animal might hinder their intelligence, that might not be true. Even though that 10% is split up throughout our brain, I still think it is something like 40% of our brain that we never ever use at all.