Nature, Science

Animals and the definition of intelligence

I think that many people too quickly come to believe that (some) animals are intelligen. Specifically pet-owners tend to believe that “their” special creature definitely must be intelligent.

I’m certainly not convinced. Some time I go I thought it is easy to tell which behaviour is intelligent, or not; but today I believe that objective criteria are hard to find. It may still be possible to argue specific behaviours or specific cases, but to instate objective criteria to decide in general about intelligence… seems to be hard or impossible.

And there are astonishing specific cases. You can see reports or videos where you really wonder: is this a fake with long and specific training of the animal; is it just coincidence; or is it a collection of very specific natural behaviour pattern, that put together create the impression of intelligent behaviour; or is it really Intelligence?

Currently I tend to think that a collection of thoroughly connected pieces of behaviour, you can call it evolution of behavioural patterns, combined together … can create the impression of intelligent behaviour. But it’s not necessarily intelligence. But I would not be sure enough to rule it out.

In any case, it is a very interesting topic and fun to watch…

Web Site

New design and winter

In the last 2 days I already tested the Software Update on my laptop and while doing that I discovered the new 2014 design and I liked it.

Today I migrated my live website and used the new design. While updating, I also changed the color scheme to winter blue, like I always do in December.

The winter-picture in the “headline” was taken in April 2004. We (my mother, sister and I) were in Nesselwang, Allgäu, on vacation at that time. The picture shows “Reichenbach”, a vacation estate where we had booked a house. We arrived on a Friday and in the week before (in April!) it had snowed almost one fresh meter of snow!

winter.jpg

Sports, Tours Bike-Club

Bike Season 2013 finished

For me the bike reason goes from October 1st to September 30th. So today was the last tour of the season, all tours still coming in 2013 will count to the season 2014 as “winter training”.

So what’s the statistic for the year?

  • At the end of December and in January, a couple of times working on the Ergometer in the living room, 960km to be more exact. Not enough to really conserve fitness into the spring, so I had to start slowly again.
  • Road-bike:
    • 5225 km in total, 57 tours, average 91,7km per tour;
      comparing to last year, a bit less km, fewer tours, but longer tours.
    • In total 210 hours of riding time; 25,22km/h total average speed
    • 43.300 meters total altitude
    • 34 Tours < 100km (Ø 70,1 km; 555m altitude, 25,19 km/h)
    • 23 Tours > 100km (Ø 123,6 km; 1063m altitude, 25,26 km/h)
  • Mountainbike: only used 4 times, 130km

Already looking forward to the next season (and hopefully that starts on coming Thursday) 🙂 and a “golden autumn”.

Link to my biking-page

… about all and nothing …