<story><title>Number 16 (spider)</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_16_(spider)</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>janalsncm</author><text>What amazes me about spiders is their complex unlearned behavior. No trapdoor spider learns how to build a trap. No orb weaver learns how to spin a web. Trap&amp;#x2F;web building behavior is entirely programmed in their DNA.&lt;p&gt;I think about this a lot in the context of conversations about intelligence. If spiders can have complex behaviors hard-coded, humans certainly do too. (In other words, the Tabula Rasa theory is wrong.) The ability to learn language and emotion are certainly two examples. We are pretty good at certain things (learning language, picking up social cues) and relatively bad at others (calculating an 18% tip).&lt;p&gt;So if you’re going to measure “intelligence” the first thing you’ll need to do is choose what to measure. What questions do you ask? You might be inclined to pick things we humans think are important. But then that’s not an objective universal measurement, at best it’s yardstick for human cognitive abilities.</text></comment>
<story><title>Number 16 (spider)</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_16_(spider)</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bentcorner</author><text>While we&amp;#x27;re talking spiders, here&amp;#x27;s a book recommendation: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Children_of_Time_(novel)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Children_of_Time_(novel)&lt;/a&gt; (it&amp;#x27;s a fantastic novel, if you have any interest at all don&amp;#x27;t spoil it for yourself)</text></comment>