Can a monkey be smarter than us?

[Jayson1]

Here is my theory. Intelligence isn't just about raw knowledge. It is also about having the ability to maximize the knowledge you have to your fullest potential. There might be a monkey that lets say uses maybe 10% of his brain. What if you compared that to a human who just used 8% percent of his brain. Wouldn't the monkey be smarter because he was getting more out of his potential than the human?

Also there are things that monkey's know that we don't. They know monkey stuff better than us because they are living that life were we might just be observing it. Also isn't intelligence someone situational. I might know more about DS9 than a monkey but that monkey knows stuff about his cage .jungle that I don't know simply because I have never even seen his cage/jungle. Just think that the monkey that worked with Clint Eastwood knew things about him we don't know because we weren't there while they filmed there scene's.

Jason

 

[DimesDan]

When you say us, do you mean collectively as a species or an individual, if the former, no, if the latter, then sure, it is possible.

 

[Jayson1]

When you say us, do you mean collectively as a species or an individual, if the former, no, if the latter, then sure, it is possible.

I'm not sure if I believe in collective intelligence. To many individuals to account for, which means everyone has a seperate point-of-view. If it does exsit then I also think is possible. Monkey's have never tried to commit genocide or pollute the enviroment. Granted they can't conceive of those things but wouldn't that means there brains were better designed and are natural more smart simply because they can't conceive those things?

Jason

 

[Kemaiku]

Only with a special hat.

 

[Tesophius]

No, monkeys are not as intelligent as humans, at least in a vast majority of cases.

 

[Jedi_Master]

If such a monkey ever existed, I would be his/her uncle.

 

[1001001]

Some of us, certainly.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

One could go bananas trying to figure this situation out.

 

[thestrangequark]

You have to define intelligence before you ask that question and humans have been struggling to do that for a looooong time.

 

[Jedi_Master]

One could go bananas trying to figure this situation out.

Yet, the solution to this conundrum is quite appealing.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ No need to resort to gorilla warfare, certainly. It's just not that chimportant.

 

[Kor]

We don't "use 8% of the brain." You can't remove 92% of the brain and still function.

Kor

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

You can't remove 92% of the brain and still function.

Steve Bannon is proof that you can.

 

[thestrangequark]

We don't "use 8% of the brain." You can't remove 92% of the brain and still function.

Kor

Yeah, forgot to address that. @Jayson1 , the whole 10% (or 8%) thing is just totally made up. You use 100% of your brain, really and truly 100%. It's not all active at the same time, but it all gets used.

The myth originated with and is spread by Scientology, which is why it is so often in movies and TV.

You can, however, survive (and thrive) after a hemispherectomy.

 

[Jayson1]

Yeah, forgot to address that. @Jayson1 , the whole 10% (or 8%) thing is just totally made up. You use 100% of your brain, really and truly 100%. It's not all active at the same time, but it all gets used.

The myth originated with and is spread by Scientology, which is why it is so often in movies and TV.

You can, however, survive (and thrive) after a hemispherectomy.

If it's not all active at the same doesn't that make it possible for the parts that are currently being active to change from time to time,meaning that there is still a way to measure what is currently being used at one time. Kind of like telling how long a tv set is turned on. Even when it's off it is still functioning but the amount of time it's turned on can change from day to day?
Jason

 

[thestrangequark]

If it's not all active at the same doesn't that make it possible for the parts that are currently being active to change from time to time,meaning that there is still a way to measure what is currently being used at one time. Kind of like telling how long a tv set is turned on. Even when it's off it is still functioning but the amount of time it's turned on can change from day to day?
Jason

Well, you've just described sleep.

 

[Jayson1]

Well, you've just described sleep.

So in theory that means when you sleeping a woken monkey will be smarter than you at that moment in time. Plus I stilll think there is some logic in the idea that the inability to conceive of imoral acts is form of non-sentient intelligence.
Jason

 

[Tesophius]

Also, monkeys are not even next in line in terms of intelligence. Great Apes are, such as Gorillas, Bonobos, Chimps, Orangutans. A monkey is further away removed from a chimp than a chimp is from a human.

Physical Anthropology and Human Evolution used to be pretty big interests of mine when I was in college. Our best estimates suggest that our last common ancestors with the comparable level of intelligence to a chimpanzee was Australopithecus afarensis, essentially a bipedal chimp. But that was many millions of years ago. As remarkably close as chimps are to us, we're still very far removed from them.

 

[thestrangequark]

So in theory that means when you sleeping a woken monkey will be smarter than you at that moment in time. Plus I stilll think there is some logic in the idea that the inability to conceive of imoral acts is form of non-sentient intelligence.
Jason

Let me preface by saying how much I love your lines of thinking, Jason!

Intelligence isn't about how much of the brain is active, though. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that our unconscious minds are in a way "smarter" than our conscious minds. We continue to work on reasoning and problem solving without being aware of it. This can be while sleeping, or simply while not consciously thinking about a problem. It is why answers suddenly jump into your mind and why "sleeping on it" is actually scientifically sound advice. Indeed, one study even found that people made better decisions if they needed to urgently pee, because the conscious brain was distracted by the physical discomfort and the unconscious reasoning was employed. So what it really comes down to is not how big your brain is, or how much of it you use, but how you define intelligence.

To sum up, intelligence will always be in part contextual.

A groggy human can still perform much more complex reasoning than an alert chimpanzee, but put a human into chimp society and they'll likely have their face and hands torn off within hours -- they wouldn't be socially intelligent enough to deal with the rules of chimp society and communication. So, like I said before, it comes down to how you define intelligence.

Morality, of course, is a whole other ball of wax.

 

[Spot261]

they wouldn't be socially intelligent enough to deal with the rules of chimp society and communication

More they wouldn't have learnt the rules pertaining to that society. They could learn, anthropologists, behavioural ecologists and evolutionary psychologists make a career out of doing just that.

Amongst other things major indicators of social intelligence for a given primate include measured group sizes, where the concept of "groups" is limited to structured societies and not simply herds, the complexity of those social structures and (often overlooked) the capacity for multiple layers of theory of mind which facilitates that complexity.

Humans do rather well on all counts, beyond any other primates, with bonobos being our nearest contender.

If social intelligence (admittedly by OUR definition) is really to be used as a measure of overall intelligence, we do have a pretty decent claim to have come out on top, albeit the top of a sliding scale with overlap in some areas. We cannot, however, reasonably claim to have a monopoly on social intelligence, more our evolutionary history has contained numerous selection pressures which favoured cooperation and co dependence, particularly with regard to hunting and group coherence.

Arguably aspects of that very group coherence are showing signs of being our downfall in a world where they are outmoded, as they are essentially the origins of tribalism and fear of the outsider.