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Author Topic:   What you see with your own eyes vs what scientists claim
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 106 of 165 (447768)
01-10-2008 6:33 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by sinequanon
01-10-2008 5:42 PM


Are these actual values?
No, they are for illustrative purposes. A simplified account as it were. Simply to show what it means to maximize the energy obtained from each dropped food item.
Are you satisfied with your working?
I'm not married to the numbers, if you have noticed a problem with them, by all means point it out. Hopefully any mistakes present don't get in the way of the actual illustration.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by sinequanon, posted 01-10-2008 5:42 PM sinequanon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 8:43 AM Modulous has replied

sinequanon
Member (Idle past 2864 days)
Posts: 331
Joined: 12-17-2007


Message 107 of 165 (447774)
01-10-2008 6:45 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by Modulous
01-10-2008 6:25 PM


Last time you disagreed because of performance enhancing drugs in athletics. I think we can now agree that a drug that makes you good at poker and a drug that builds muscle mass to increase speed/strength are different categories.
You misread. I have to say, your logic seems a little haywire, too.
I said performance enhancing drugs in sports and games. The muscle mass stuff was your own little tangent. Drugs can be used to improve your reactions, memory, clarity of thought, creativity, perception etc.
The paper did not discuss the amount of energy the crow expends, though that would be interesting too. They were talking about the amount of energy gained from the walnuts.
I understand it as energy gained vs energy expended.
Against what variable did you think they were considering energy gain?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by Modulous, posted 01-10-2008 6:25 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by Modulous, posted 01-10-2008 7:22 PM sinequanon has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 108 of 165 (447781)
01-10-2008 7:22 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by sinequanon
01-10-2008 6:45 PM


Drugs can be used to improve your reactions, memory, clarity of thought, creativity, perception etc.
Yes indeed, but they can't provide you with the optimum way of playing poker. They can help you play poker better by increasing your mental faculties, but they can't help convey any knowledge of optimum strategy - they only assist in carrying out the learned optimum strategy.
I understand it as energy gained vs energy expended.
Against what variable did you think they were considering energy gain?
Energy gain (and flight cost) were part of the model. It is in the
paper
that discusses the model.
quote:
In the simplest situation, an individual has a food item that it cannot lose, and the probability of breaking open the food item is independent of the number of times it has been dropped previously. As a necessary simplification for the model, we assumed that the individual has a set number of drops, D, in which to break the food item open. If the food item is not open after D, the maximum number of drops, the bird gets no reward from the food. Hence, the expected energy value from the food item at D is E(D) = 0
It goes on to discuss more complex situations.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by sinequanon, posted 01-10-2008 6:45 PM sinequanon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 109 by sinequanon, posted 01-10-2008 7:49 PM Modulous has replied

sinequanon
Member (Idle past 2864 days)
Posts: 331
Joined: 12-17-2007


Message 109 of 165 (447791)
01-10-2008 7:49 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Modulous
01-10-2008 7:22 PM


they only assist in carrying out the learned optimum strategy.
I am more familiar with chess. In chess you create strategy on the fly. You are not just applying existing strategy. Your ability to create a strategy depends on your level of comprehension of the whole situation. Your strategy is a set of decisions dependent on and specific to the current position. As games differ, so you need new strategies, not just learned ones.
Energy gain (and flight cost) were part of the model.
Flight cost is one measure of energy expended, which is what I imagined. In this experiment it can only be reckoned using both height of drop and number of drops. Omitting the number of drops (or probability of prey breaking) from the reckoning means you lose track of flight cost.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Modulous, posted 01-10-2008 7:22 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 111 by Modulous, posted 01-11-2008 2:42 AM sinequanon has replied

Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 110 of 165 (447816)
01-11-2008 12:22 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by sinequanon
01-07-2008 7:53 AM


If what you saw with your own eyes (or observed directly in any other way) conflicted with a vicarious account from a "highly respected" scientist in a "highly respected" scientific journal, which would you believe? Yourself, or the scientist?
I think that would depend on the circumstances, really. You may not fully understand the principles involved in what you are seeing, or these scientists have yet to have seen what you've seen.
I think would change on the circumstances involved.
For example, I recall a documentary showing a species of crow dropping snails onto rocks to crack the shells. The scientists in the program claimed that this behaviour was a unique development particular to a small colony of crows at the remote island location where they were filming. However, I see crows and gulls do this regularly in my bustling neighbourhood.
Heh... There was a semi-famous Greek philosopher (can't remember the name off-hand) who was purportedly killed by an Eagle which dropped a turtle from hundreds feet in the air, presumably thinking that his bald head was a rock below. The eagle was probably trying to crack the shell.
I take many of these documentaries with a grain of salt. For instance, have you ever noticed that these shows routinely portray T-Rex as this vicious creature?
I mean, sure, you like at the frame and it has the tell-tale design of a predator, but it could be relatively docile for all we know. Chloroplast cells have been found embedded in their teeth which is a sure sign that they at some plants. It may not have been the voracious carnivore the way it is portrayed.
What's more, they portray these huge gutteral growls coming from the T-Rex. They couldn't know what sound the animal made. It could have hissed for all we know. And in all liklihood, probably did hiss, based on what we currently know of reptiles.
Now, are you really going to take it as the gospel truth?
At the same time, there are lots of things witnessed by people that aren't what they seem to be. UFO's are usually a prime example.
I think that something like this is on a case-by-case basis.

“First dentistry was painless, then bicycles were chainless, and carriages were horseless, and many laws enforceless. Next cookery was fireless, telegraphy was wireless, cigars were nicotineless, and coffee caffeineless. Soon oranges were seedless, the putting green was weedless, the college boy was hatless, the proper diet -- fatless. New motor roads are dustless, the latest steel is rustless, our tennis courts are sodless, our new religion -- Godless” -Arthur Guiterman

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by sinequanon, posted 01-07-2008 7:53 AM sinequanon has not replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 111 of 165 (447829)
01-11-2008 2:42 AM
Reply to: Message 109 by sinequanon
01-10-2008 7:49 PM


I am more familiar with chess.
It might be tricky to do the 'translation' because game theory of chess is much trickier. However, I'd be very surprised if brain damage or drugs conveyed the best strategy on someone. They could aid in the mental search process to look for optimum strategy, but one would need to have some idea of what optimum strategy might result in (favourable position, material advantage etc), and in chess veterans this is usally done by piecing together general rules of thumb tactics together with slight modifications combined with general strategic rules of thumb...so the reason humans are good at chess is mostly because of learned behaviour rather than drugs or brain damage.
In this experiment it can only be reckoned using both height of drop and number of drops.
Kind of. Instead of doing this, they calculate a probability of cracking at any given dropped height.
quote:
the food item may break with probability Pb (h), with the individual receiving the net energy Ebreak. Alternatively, the food item may not break [with probability 1 ” Pb(h)], and the individual receives the net energy of Eintact plus the maximum energy it can expect from having the food item from drop d + 1 to D...
The results consist of a single optimal height, h*, that satisfies Equation 6 for each d.
They can then examine the model and see how certain variables affect this optimal height. See Table 2 for an simple summary.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 109 by sinequanon, posted 01-10-2008 7:49 PM sinequanon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 112 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 6:26 AM Modulous has replied

sinequanon
Member (Idle past 2864 days)
Posts: 331
Joined: 12-17-2007


Message 112 of 165 (447857)
01-11-2008 6:26 AM
Reply to: Message 111 by Modulous
01-11-2008 2:42 AM


However, I'd be very surprised if brain damage or drugs conveyed the best strategy on someone.
You are sounding more and more like the creationists that you spend so much time criticising. It is not a question of how "surprised" you would be.
All it takes is for an altered state of mind to help you envisage a solution you otherwise would not.
Another example would be someone panicking and running in a frightening situation. Their state of mind could be changed using drugs. Their strategy changes and they decide to freeze. That would not be learned behaviour.
...so the reason humans are good at chess is mostly because of learned behaviour rather than drugs or brain damage.
Irrelevant. Soundbites won't help you. They just make you look like a politician. The question is, "can drugs, (not damage) improve your chess".
Kind of. Instead of doing this, they calculate a probability of cracking at any given dropped height.
They can then examine the model and see how certain variables affect this optimal height. See Table 2 for an simple summary.
It's beginning to look as if you do not really understand the article. You are just repeating what they have done and quoting odd passages to make it look like you do.
The paper describing the model may explain how they have linked in energy expended. Nothing you have said so far explains it and you are looking totally in the wrong places. You were not even aware that energy expended was being taken into account.
I know exactly what I am looking for. It is either there or it is not there. I will review the model in more detail and give my comment.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Modulous, posted 01-11-2008 2:42 AM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 114 by Modulous, posted 01-11-2008 9:01 AM sinequanon has replied

sinequanon
Member (Idle past 2864 days)
Posts: 331
Joined: 12-17-2007


Message 113 of 165 (447867)
01-11-2008 8:43 AM
Reply to: Message 106 by Modulous
01-10-2008 6:33 PM


No, they are for illustrative purposes. A simplified account as it were. Simply to show what it means to maximize the energy obtained from each dropped food item.
Your illustration ignores flight cost. The model does not. Even if you took flight cost as a simple linear function of height (acting in your favour), you would have to scale the figures down by the product of height and number of drops. That gives a different picture in favour of the optimum height being greater.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by Modulous, posted 01-10-2008 6:33 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by Modulous, posted 01-11-2008 9:25 AM sinequanon has not replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 114 of 165 (447870)
01-11-2008 9:01 AM
Reply to: Message 112 by sinequanon
01-11-2008 6:26 AM


All it takes is for an altered state of mind to help you envisage a solution you otherwise would not.
It requires more than that. 'envisage' is just another way of saying learn. Yes, drugs can boost learning performance, they don't convey unlearned optimum solutions upon their taker.
Another example would be someone panicking and running in a frightening situation. Their state of mind could be changed using drugs. Their strategy changes and they decide to freeze. That would not be learned behaviour.
True enough. Then again, freezing is hardly the level of behaviour we were talking about with crows. They engaged in a specific set of behaviours that were all the correct way to approach an opimum height. If you took a drug that meant you were able to play poker or chess without first having learned how to play poker or chess - then we'd get somewhere. Maybe it is possible, but once again, when we look at a group of humans playing chess we don't conclude that the evidence obtained by watching them play with fairly good strategy suggests that chess is either a learned, evolved or drug-induced behaviour.
If we gave our freezing drug to a collection of humans and watched them deal with a number of frightening situations we can try and determine what the optimum behaviour in each situation is. Run away or freeze. We can compare the drugged humans to some normal humans and then decide which is the optimum behaviour - and if we find that the optimum behaviour is to freeze then I agree that some interesting questions should be asked.
The question is, "can drugs, (not damage) improve your chess".
No, that is not the question. And why are you excluding brain damage? Brain damage could theoretically specialise a human brain into chess playing mode. You could also include cybernetics. The answer to your question is obviously yes. If a drug could improve speed of cognition then it could theoretically improve your game.
However, the question in issue is more complicated. I'll revert to the easier poker, feel free to do any translation you think is needed.
In poker we can do fairly easy calculations to approximate the optimum action. This action is usually a combination, for example: Raise 70% of the time, fold 25% of the time, call 5% of the time.
Once we have used our model to determine the optimum we then observe some animals playing poker. We find that under the circumstances above, the animals raise 70% of the time, fold 25% of the time and call 5% of the time.
How did they know how to do that?
One possible way is that they have learned how to play poker, and have constructed a mental model that matches our own mathematical model. They've learned what the optimum strategy is and now they follow it.
Another possible strategy is that the model is part of their mental makeup: hardwired into their brains. This kind of structure in the brain is almost certainly shaped by natural selection (and we'd have to explain how playing poker might prove advantageous...).
The third possible you raised is that the model comes by ingesting the drug, that the drug seeks to rewire the brain or redirect the signals in such a way as to mimic the optimum model.
There are a few other possibilities, including alien technology, ghosts possessing the animals and so on and so forth. As I pointed out previously, if 'we' are birds and we raised those possibilities in a science paper and there is no body of work or evidence to back it up, we'd get amused twitters all around.
It's beginning to look as if you do not really understand the article. You are just repeating what they have done and quoting odd passages to make it look like you do.
Would you be terribly surprised if I was getting the same impression from you?
The paper describing the model may explain how they have linked in energy expended and you are looking totally in the wrong places...I know exactly what I am looking for. It is either there or it is not there. I will review the model in more detail and give my comment.
I had expected that you had reviewed the model, so I didn't realize you wanted me to explain the whole model to you. Perhaps it would be wise for you to review the model to your satisfaction before commenting about it. I await your respsonse.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 6:26 AM sinequanon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 116 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 9:42 AM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 115 of 165 (447873)
01-11-2008 9:25 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by sinequanon
01-11-2008 8:43 AM


Your illustration ignores flight cost. The model does not. Even if you took flight cost as a simple linear function of height (acting in your favour), you would have to scale the figures down by the product of height and number of drops. That gives a different picture in favour of the optimum height being greater.
Yes, my illustration also ignored mass of the prey, number of times previously dropped, substrate hardness, acceleration due to gravity and probably more things to boot. That's why I didn't call it a 'complete model' but instead I said it was simplified. If you weren't sure what simplified means, it means that the model ignores various factors.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 8:43 AM sinequanon has not replied

sinequanon
Member (Idle past 2864 days)
Posts: 331
Joined: 12-17-2007


Message 116 of 165 (447878)
01-11-2008 9:42 AM
Reply to: Message 114 by Modulous
01-11-2008 9:01 AM


I think we are making headway with the evolution/learning assumption.
It requires more than that. 'envisage' is just another way of saying learn. Yes, drugs can boost learning performance, they don't convey unlearned optimum solutions upon their taker.
Learning requires experience. Drugs can enable you to envisage new solutions of which you have no experience.
True enough. Then again, freezing is hardly the level of behaviour we were talking about with crows.
The action of freezing may be simple. But the decision to freeze is not. The ablility to recognise freezing as a viable option can be quite complex. And, in this case, it is not learned.
The third possible you raised is that the model comes by ingesting the drug, that the drug seeks to rewire the brain or redirect the signals in such a way as to mimic the optimum model.
The point here is that no learning is involved, whatever reason is given for the mechanism. If they used to play raise/fold/call 60/30/10 then the drugs modified their behaviour spontaneously without any learning involved.
I had expected that you had reviewed the model, so I didn't realize you wanted me to explain the whole model to you. Perhaps it would be wise for you to review the model to your satisfaction before commenting about it. I await your respsonse.
The review was simply to examine why you thought energy expenditure was not being factored in. Looking at the model, it clearly is, in variables (a) and (s).
The possibility that I recognised and you failed to recognise is summarised in the paper for the model, which you later supplied.
quote:
This last, somewhat counterintuitive result of an increased drop height for the fixed loss case can be explained by noting that the more times the item is dropped, the greater the chance of loss, and increasing the drop height decreases the number of drops required.
The author seems to excuse your error by calling the result "counterintuitive", for some reason.
So, you see the height can indeed be increased to maximise energy in the kleptoparasitism case, as I recognised and for precisely the reason I gave before seeing that paper.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by Modulous, posted 01-11-2008 9:01 AM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 117 by Percy, posted 01-11-2008 10:27 AM sinequanon has replied
 Message 118 by Modulous, posted 01-11-2008 10:55 AM sinequanon has replied
 Message 121 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-11-2008 11:11 AM sinequanon has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 117 of 165 (447882)
01-11-2008 10:27 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by sinequanon
01-11-2008 9:42 AM


I'm starting to lose the point in all the focus on details. Assuming you're correct about this paper and the other one, how does this support the premise of this thread that lay observations should trump scientific ones?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 9:42 AM sinequanon has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 120 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 11:06 AM Percy has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 118 of 165 (447890)
01-11-2008 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by sinequanon
01-11-2008 9:42 AM


Learning requires experience. Drugs can enable you to envisage new solutions of which you have no experience.
Drugs don't actually produce the solutions though. The solutions are the results of a reasoning process. Reasoning how to do something by constructing an internal model is a part of learning. Increasing the capacity to learn doesn't change that it is a learned behaviour. Unless you propose a drug which can tell you how to play good chess with no experience of how to play chess. When you get better at chess it is because you are learning to play better chess.
Reading a book would also help you envisage new solutions of which you have no experience. That is also learning.
The action of freezing may be simple. But the decision to freeze is not.
If the decision to freeze isn't just an incidental effect, but the result of an analysis that would not be possible without the drug then you'd be right. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for. If instead it was the more likely case that the 'what do I do' signal was answered with 'I don't know' and the 'I don't know' reaction was redirected to 'do nothing' rather than 'run away' then this wouldn't be the kind of thing I'm looking for.
The point here is that no learning is involved, whatever reason is given for the mechanism. If they used to play raise/fold/call 60/30/10 then the drugs modified their behaviour spontaneously without any learning involved.
Well, if it simply modified the behaviour in a small way which happened to be optimum in that one case - then that wouldn't really be what I was looking for. If it managed to modify behaviour to make a large number of poker related decisions move towards the optimum - that would be something interesting.
The author seems to excuse your error by calling the result "counterintuitive", for some reason.
So, you see the height can indeed be increased to maximise energy in the kleptoparasitism case, as I recognised and for precisely the reason I gave before seeing that paper.
Well the paper we looking at initially was examining a "If loss varied with height" scenario. What you describe is for "loss does not vary with height" scenario. Different scenarios with different outcomes. I seem to remember that you recognised that "The number of drops required to break the nut was missing from their test as an independent variable. But it is a critical variable in measuring energy expended.". Do you still think that their test is flawed having viewed the model?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 9:42 AM sinequanon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 123 by sinequanon, posted 01-11-2008 12:10 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 119 of 165 (447892)
01-11-2008 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 117 by Percy
01-11-2008 10:27 AM


You've done well Percy, I think I started losing the point back in Message 31. The only way I can get it to work is think that his eyes can lead him to a superior model of avian-prey behaviour than these scientists. Maybe he's just trying to show that scientific papers are not perfect documents of the living word of Science, and that that lends strength to his position but that only works if we put a huge amount of focus on a small possible flaw in some science paper and ignore the fact that the scientists are also human which demonstrates conclusively that humans can be flawed in their observations/conclusions about observations.
I'm hoping I'm wrong, and that we might get to interesting topics about the possible problems of the conservatism in science which don't plague the more credulous 'guy on the street' from this discussion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 117 by Percy, posted 01-11-2008 10:27 AM Percy has not replied

sinequanon
Member (Idle past 2864 days)
Posts: 331
Joined: 12-17-2007


Message 120 of 165 (447895)
01-11-2008 11:06 AM
Reply to: Message 117 by Percy
01-11-2008 10:27 AM


In the OP, having first cited a documentary as a source of "what scientists claim", I was asked to find a more 'authoritative' example.
The paper on avian prey-dropping behaviour can be considered as chosen at random. I raised two issues about what the scientific claims in this paper.
The first is whether the paper is entitled to report knowledge as either evolved or learned.
The second concerns the claims about the kleptoparasitism behaviour observed and how it relates to the model used.
I have provided examples of behaviour that I believe is not learned or evolved.
I have demonstrated why the model does not automatically predict that optimum height decreases in the given case, as was claimed. The model can predict either behaviour, depending on other factors.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 117 by Percy, posted 01-11-2008 10:27 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 145 by Percy, posted 01-11-2008 6:57 PM sinequanon has replied

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