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In this dog show, the dogs would be given an obstacle
course
that's intellectual, not physical. They'd be timed as they
tried
to figure out each doggie dilemma posed to them and the
smartest would win. Not the biggest, prettiest, most
obedient, just the most intelligent who would be named
"Smartest
In
Show" and take home the grand prize.
I didn't find a lot
about
dog IQ tests on line, but one I found was to put a towel on
the dogs
head to see how long it took to figure out how to take it
off,
which I
think is the standard aptitude test you need to pass to get a
government job here in California.
The tricky part would be that each contest would have to
be
different so the dogs couldn't be trained for each test
before
hand.
Now the cool part of this is, champion genius pooches could
be bred with other champion genius pooches to get
progressively smarter dogs. This would be a lot more
interesting than breeding little monsters that look like
teddy
bears or aliens like we're doing now.
It's not completely impossible that after a few hundred
generations we might have a breed that could speak a few
dozen words of English and carry on a limited conversation.
Uplift
http://en.wikipedia...iki/Uplift_Universe [theircompetitor, Apr 12 2014]
(?) First they learned to ride bikes...
https://www.youtube...watch?v=8QU4XdEaWR0 ...then they went after the cats. [doctorremulac3, Apr 12 2014]
Guilty dog video
https://www.youtube...watch?v=B8ISzf2pryI On the off chance that anybody hasn't already seen this [doctorremulac3, Apr 12 2014]
Dogs can already drive cars
https://www.youtube...watch?v=BWAK0J8Uhzk [AusCan531, Apr 12 2014]
I.Q. towel design
http://www.zazzle.c...-185150671558642423 [doctorremulac3, Apr 14 2014]
Resolving the towel on the head paradox: Head movement only seems to cause corresponding towel movement in the same direction
http://www.youtube....watch?v=hoYKLUc8lDA This pup will be most likely be taking the short bus to school. [doctorremulac3, Apr 14 2014]
the Puppy Bowl makes use of some dog intelligence
http://www.vetstree...e-your-fantasy-team [xandram, Apr 17 2014]
[link]
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Do you want warewolves? Because this is how you get
warewolves. |
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Interesting. Dogs have pretty plastic DNA, and there's a wide range of intelligence there already. |
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I bet you were one of those folks who wanted to get
rid of the swimsuit competition for the Miss
Universe Pageant too. As to the idea, well they have
agility contests for dogs, which makes them use
their brains and bodies, so I guess your idea would
make sense too. So a sorta + |
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In some ways ravens and crows are more
intelligent,
adept tool users than dogs. The recently shown
PBS footage of ravens putting pebbles into a
vessel so the water rises and they can reach a
floating worm goes way beyond anything I've seen
a dog do. |
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Some dog breeds are clearly very intelligent, and
some individual dogs are extremely intelligent, as
has
been documented -- but it is strange, is it not,
that
this hasn't happened yet, given we've been
running
this experiment for some time, i.e. trying to get
more intelligent dogs? |
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Almost any mammalian species could be a
candidate for Uplift. But, since they have to be
toilet trained, I think we're more likely going to
skip that step and build mechanical best friends. |
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^ That is something to be wary of alright. You wouldn't
get dogs which could speak English because throat
anatomy is unrelated to intelligence. You could certainly
breed dogs which understand many hundreds of words
though. Bun. |
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I'm not sure if we are trying to get smarter dogs at
this point. I think the dog's niche among the family of
man is pretty well served by dogs in their present
form. They're our happy dumb little friends. |
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Maybe we're afraid of having intelligent dogs around
mocking us and rolling their eyes at our antics like
that talking dog from Family Guy. Who's to say
smarter dogs won't start engaging in nefarious
activity with their new intellects? Robbing liquor
stores might just be the beginning. What if they
embark on some kind of "final solution" regarding the
cats? You need to consider these things. |
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Don't get me started on crows. They're too smart as it
is. I think dogs are inherently good, crows are just
mean. That being said, crows are an underutilized
security asset. They can recognize human faces, are
very smart as you've said, and if you could make it
worth their while, could be used as aerial patrolling
guard birds. They're good communicators. I know for
a
fact that they "sound the alarm" when I've left the lid
off of my garbage can. When I hear them out there
cawing it up at the wee hours of the morning I know
I'll be picking up lots of strewn garbage today. How
you'd
train a crow to patrol for intruders is up to debate,
but I think it could be done. |
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As far as how dogspeak would sound, I'm thinking the
voice actor who did Scooby Doo pretty much had it
down. Little or no lip dexterity would lead to
indistinct, vowel based speech. Scooby Doo being
pronounced "Ooby Roo" for instance. "What was that
again Fido?" would probably become a commonly
heard phrase. |
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If only they'd had OJ Simpson's lawyer... |
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My Dad and I came up with this idea one night a couple of
years ago. We had all these events worked out, challenges
and puzzles that would test different aspects of doggy
intelligence. We were both extremely drunk and promptly
forgot all of the wonderful details, or perhaps they were
only wonderful because we were drunk. |
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//perhaps they were only wonderful because we
were drunk.// |
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LOL. No, I think it passes the hangover test. |
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The only downside to dog IQ tests is they do have the
distinct feeling of teasing the poor beast. I feel kind
of bad just hiding the tennis ball behind my back
when they get that "Where did it go?" look on their
face, maybe with their lip hung up on a dry tooth to
add to the goofiness of the look on their face. |
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Wonder if you could train them to drive? Unlike cats,
they're quite comfortable with cars. Can you imagine
a cat hanging it's head happily out the window driving
down the freeway? Cats cannot distinguish between a
car and a blender, they try to get out of each with
equal fervor, believe me, I've done enough tests to
know. (Putting cats in cars, not blenders) Trying to
drive with a cat clamped onto your face with it's
claws is not pleasant. |
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We know a dog can ride a bike. (See obligatory bike
riding dog link) Before we give
them something weighing a half ton that goes 80
miles per hour we might want to do a little more
research though. |
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It wouldn't be teasing as long as they get the reward at the
end. Intelligent dogs love to play complicated games, but
an important part is the cookie at the end because it
compounds the fun. |
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// Maybe we're afraid of having intelligent dogs
around mocking us and rolling their eyes // |
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Also, I know an American Bulldog who can steer a pickup
truck if it's put into gear for him. He drives around in
circles, and when he gets bored he does an S-turn and
drives in circles going the other way, and when he's bored
with that he stops the truck by plowing into a pile of gravel
put there for that purpose. I've ridden in the truck with
him. It's fun. |
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We had a dog who lied, once. (I heard on TV that this is a measure of intelligence - because it's behavior based on thinking about what you're thinking). |
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I was closing the gate, a cat walked onto the neighbour's driveway, and Rascal tore off across the street to attack. (I suppose his first lie would've been pretending he didn't hear my shouting.) |
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Trouble was this cat was used to respectful dogs, so he stood his ground, arched his back and frizzed it up, and raised a threatening paw full of claws. Seeing as Rascal was a German Shepherd (and one of the old-fashioned big ones, too) I expected that would be the end of the cat. |
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I was wrong. All the time, I'd been misreading the situation, it turns out. Rascal wasn't after the cat after all; he just had a sudden impulse to go and sniff the interesting something on the lawn directly behind the cat. He flew past the cat to the urgently fascinating bit of lawn, sniffed it, while the cat continued to yowl and stand its ground, and, that done, he came straight back past the cat. |
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Either that, or he lied to me and the cat. |
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//Also, I know an American Bulldog who can steer a
pickup truck if it's put into gear for him.// |
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Wanna make a little money (and by little I mean very
little) post a video of that and watch it go viral. I'd
send out links to it. |
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//Either that, or he lied to me and the cat// |
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I think dogs certainly do understand the concept of
being caught and wanting to cover it up. I'm sure
everybody has seen the video of the guilty dog but I'll
post it again. |
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I think they did post it on yoo toob but for some reason
nobody liked it, like people thought it was fake or
something. This was several years ago, so my memories of
the event are focused on riding shotgun with a 150 lb dog
at the wheel, not whether or not it was a viral sensation
(also I couldn't give a shit less about viral videos). I'm going
to my parents' house tonight (they have better internet
service) so I'll try to find a link to it. |
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I do know that the dog has retired from racing and is now
employed full-time as a sofaweight. |
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Dogs do have guile and are fully capable of deception (or in
the case of the stupid ones, laughable attempts at
deception). It is indeed a measure of intelligence because
both guilt and guile require a certain degree of self-
awareness, which is also required for things like abstract
problem solving (wherein the 'self' becomes a fixed point of
perspective). |
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Animals are "people" (to the extent that much of what's best in being human is animal, anyway). It's plain, for anyone not trying to avoid seeing, to see. Trouble is if one's pressed for examples it's not always easy to think of one. |
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I think the downgrading of our shared qualities is sometimes down to a kind of blindness, but can also be motivated by the need to eg. produce decerebrated cats as models of the reflex nerve system by day, and then go and sleep at night without first engaging in unconvincing utilitarian philosophical internal discourses about the virtue of it all. |
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I'm not sure that intelligence in puzzle-solving is a good focus, getting back on topic. Computers can do puzzle solving, and they lack all that's best in intelligence. However, I can't think of nice, testable alternatives. |
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Dogs are all pretty much geniuses when it comes to figuring out how to make you smile when you're feeling down, for instance. That's surely a much more valuable form of intelligence than the one that tells you how to distinguish which arbitrary pattern is the odd one out , etc. |
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// Computers can do puzzle solving, // |
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No, computers can be programmed to solve puzzles. A dog
can solve puzzles all by itself. |
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But once the computer has the program it has a tiny little bit of life? After the sparks have crackled, your Igor is an utterly simple little being, but all you are doing is feeding in the inputs, and supplying electronic fodder. |
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It is Igor who spits out the evaluations, and sometimes spitefully undermines your nefarious plans, not you. |
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// But once the computer has the program it has a
tiny little bit of life? // |
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No, once the computer has the puzzle-solving program it
has the means to solve puzzles. You are familiar with the
function of computers, Shirley? |
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Aye. Just experimenting with stretching the definition of "life" a bit. After all viruses are a borderline case. They have a program and little else, and yet they're in the very thick of life. |
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I concur, and when I am shown spontanteous evolution of
digital life, I'll believe it. |
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In NZ, the RSPCA has already taught dogs to drive
cars - including pushing the starter button and
placing it in gear. Fascinating video on the [Link] |
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Wow! Dogs can drive cars. |
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Dog car races. It's time. |
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[+] Easily fund it by also sending B-list celebrities in
the same course to see how they line up in the
leaderboard. |
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Sur! My uncharacteristically stupid pit bull could take Lief
Garret off the line if the cars had stickshifts. |
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I would have bunned this idea earlier, but some joker threw a towel on my head and it took me the better part of the morning figuring out how to get it off. |
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I think all I.Q. tests should start with throwing a towel over the person's head, clicking a stopwatch and saying "GO!". |
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No matter what it is, entry exam to Harvard, MD certification. If somebody is nominated for the Nobel prize you would need to give their towel-thrown-over-the-head removal time. Of course the questions would get progressively harder after that. |
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The towel's design would be modeled after The Riddler's costume with question marks all over it. (see link) |
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I met a pet crow once who's owner said he would bring her money - ones and fives mostly, but occasionally a twenty. |
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