
In the animal kingdom, the astonishing power of the number instinct - jelliclesfarm
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/animal-kingdom-power-of-the-number-instinct/
======
at_a_remove
This is a bit depressing, but I sometimes think about r/K selection and how
many times the K-strategists might have evolved true, distinct counting, only
for that to end up triggering depression.

I watched a video of a duck who, reasons unknown, decided to navigate a
waterfall with her six ducklings. Two made it. Does she know that she has
fewer babies now? I have seen similar videos where a heron will snap or two or
three ducklings while the mother is unable to do anything about it. It
occurred to me that zero ducklings might make it per year, and that this would
be a normal thing to happen to a mother duck. A continuity of memory and the
ability to enumerate loss could result in learned helplessness; would nature
end up selecting for creatures that live in the blind optimism of now, with
neither past to compare against nor future to dread on either side?

~~~
thaumasiotes
This kind of child mortality is fairly common for humans historically. Did
they know when they'd lost children? Could they remember the missing children?
Of course.

~~~
at_a_remove
Humans yes, and some of the other primates. Obviously. But before those
species, was there a kind of "great filter" of numeracy and memory?

If you have cats, and one of them dies, the other may spend _months_ looking
for their companion in the usual places, howling away, but for progeny,
litters of kittens average about four or so (by nipple math!). If a kitten
dies or is somehow lost, the mother will likely miss them on an individual
basis, but will the change in the number of kittens in a kitten pile also
cause a feeling of loss?

What about with the aforementioned ducks? You might have twelve ducklings and
a reduced capacity in the mother to recognize them individually; she might
instead look at the ducks collectively. I saw a bit of a nesting duck leading
her babies out for their first foray into the water. She would quack and every
so often another duckling would pitch themselves out of the nest-hole and onto
the water. Eventually the quacking didn't get her any more ducklings and she
proceeded onward. She had an astounding nineteen ducklings.

However, that number is going to decrease over time. Will she have a creeping
experience of fewer and fewer ducklings? Or is it something like "many, three,
two, one"? And what kind of internal state comes about? Certainly we see that
loss in the larger primates, and even in our own pets, but when it gets down
to birds, many of them do not have a lot of brain matter to work with --
what's their state? Is there enough memory and experience to overcome
instinct? "All of my babies died last year and the year before ..."

Overall, and this is just the vaguest of grim suspicions, what if, at each
increase in memory and care for offspring, evolution must select against those
organisms experiencing a kind of despair, a learned helplessness, at the
futility of the ever-larger spheres of their existence? It's not an issue if
you're just a handful of neurons wiggling your way toward the next source of
food, but it could become large enough to struggle against the survival
instinct, and I wonder if numeracy is one of those critical struggles.

------
sillysaurusx
To pick one specific aspect:

 _Male pseudoscorpions smell the number of competitor males that have
copulated with a female and adjust by progressively decreasing sperm
allocation as the number of different male olfactory cues increases from zero
to three._

How in the world was this determined? It's presented so neatly, and I
certainly believe it, but it's fascinating to think of the procedures that
must've been taken to verify such a claim. You'd need a scorpion sperm
counter, perhaps, and I'm not sure Amazon sells one.

~~~
positr0n
Probably some grad student pipets a precise quantity of scorpian semen onto a
slide, perhaps with a dye to aid the process, and manually counts the number
of sperm with a microscope.

Human sperm tests are done using a similar procedure depending on what you are
looking for.

~~~
sillysaurusx
Fascinating; apparently you can perform a sperm count test on yourself with
nothing more than a microscope:
[https://www.hellomotherhood.com/article/94302-read-
clearblue...](https://www.hellomotherhood.com/article/94302-read-clearblue-
pregnancy-tests/)

and a spreadsheet:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070224203309/http://www.fertil...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070224203309/http://www.fertilityformen.com/download/sar.xls)

There's a high-quality video here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9_XkaXCXqc&ab_channel=Advan...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9_XkaXCXqc&ab_channel=AdvancedFertilityCenterofChicago)

I'm just surprised it's theoretically possible to do it yourself. Tests are
upwards of $100.

~~~
jdc
Hey, this is great info. Any machine learning engineers have a bunch of spare
time on their hands?

~~~
tzs
There are automated sperm sample analyzers already, that give sperm
concentration, motility (broken down by rapid, slow, and non), morphology,
velocity, and more.

Here's a promotional video from 2008 from a maker of such devices [1]. Here's
a 2015 video from them showing a newer model [2].

I'm not sure how they actually work. Given the age it probably isn't machine
learning.

The same company also sells a home test kit, under the name Yo, which might
use machine learning [3]. It uses your smart phone camera. There is also a
PC/Mac version that looks like it includes its own camera. $69.95 for either
kit, $45.95 for refills for the consumables for 2 tests, $89.95 for 4 tests.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krakvOT-7xI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krakvOT-7xI)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukIns4rPgHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukIns4rPgHw)

[3] [https://www.yospermtest.com/how-it-
works/](https://www.yospermtest.com/how-it-works/)

------
omginternets
If you're interested in Numerical Cognition, I can't recommend Stanislas
Dehaene's _The Number Sense_ enough.

It's _fantastic_.

------
glaberficken
I find it we are anthropomorphizing when we say: Non human animal x or y can
"count their own eggs" or "assess numbers"

Animals can surely assess and "feel" quantities via the senses and via their
own automatic body reactions (hormones etc...). As well as have many pre-
programmed quantities in their genome.

But a "number" is purely an abstract concept. I don't think we can ever be
sure an animal is actually "counting" things. Instead from what we know about
how fear, excitement, etc is regulated via hormones it seems fairly probable
that they are simply seeing, hearing, touching and this triggers a feeling
that guides them to a certain behavior (through hormone secretion).

~~~
maze-le
Yes, a number is pureley abstract. It is even more abstract than the form of
representation in a theory of mind. It doesn't really matter if it is
communicated via hard wired instinct, hormone signalling or language / reason
-- both can encode the same concept: If it quacks like mastering countability
and swims like mastering countability than it is probable to assume the
ability to count.

The ontological question if both representations of the concept of a number
are truly equal is not really important if we can show equivalent outcomes.

~~~
glaberficken
Well, I was inclined to agree, but: when we say "count" and "number" we
usually mean something very precise and accurate. Such as: "how many oranges
are there on the table?". As opposed to when we we ask stuff like: "how many
oranges do you think there are on that orange tree?" "You have lived by that
tree your entire life, do you feel like it is carrying more oranges than in
past years?"

My point is that these 2 activities are clearly different, and that non-humans
clearly engage in the last one but I'm not so sure I have ever seen clear
evidence they engage in the first one.

~~~
maze-le
I guess you are right, it is important to differentiate a pure number (one,
five, ten thousand) from a fuzzy category of numbers (a bunch, a pack of
wolves, some dozen eggs). But, apparently, some animals have the ability to
count exact numbers, such as apes:

* [https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewconte...](https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=numera)

or bees (OK, only to 5, but still):

* [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900421...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004218302384)

In these cases I would say -- even if they don't have the ability to tell us
that they can reason with exact numbers -- we can observe experimentally that
they do. And I don't see any reason to assume that the abstraction that is
represented in the animal mind is fundamentally different from our notion of
it.

EDIT: That could also be an indication for mathematical Platonism, when I
think about it. But alas, as long as we don't observe a species that develops
mathematics from the basic forms of countability that would be a stretch too
far... Or to put it differently -- if there is a species that could reasons
about numbers beyond the basics of counting, given enough time they would also
be able to axiomatize mathematics under an equivalent of ZFC Set theory.

~~~
glaberficken
In those studies I don't see any evidence and clear conclusions that the
either the chimps or bees could count.

I see a lot of meandering about methodologies in the chimp paper and if you
see the Concusions paragraph you can see how weak it is:

>"CONCLUSIONS: Studies of numerical competence in the chimpanzee continue to
provide new insights into the range and capacity for quantitatively based
information processing in this species. In general, the rebirth of studies of
animal counting currently suggests that this area remains a rich and fruitful
source of contributions to our understanding of animal cognition and behavior.
And for a truly comparative perspective, it will be important for researchers
to challenge their creativity, by continuing to devise new methods for tapping
capacities toward counting in a variety of species, including nonhuman
primates, rats, birds, and additional new species for whom no data currently
exists"

The bee paper is more interesting but it also doesn't reach the conclusion
that bees can count. At least it offers a context for the framework used and
the conclusions reached.

What they did is simulate a neural network that has the bees visual data as
input and prove that a simple "inexpensive" computation can in theory scan
quantity of perceived objects.

Well isn't that just the same as proving that a neural network algorithm can
simulate an computer accumulator register?

> "Within this framework we have shown that counting and numerical ordering
> are computationally inexpensive, provided the animal employs an active,
> sequential scanning of pattern elements."

~~~
Keysh
The bee paper referenced in the original article (Dacke & Srinivasan 2008) is
about real bees, and does a pretty good job of showing that the bees must
somehow be keeping numerical track of how many instances of a particular
landmark they've passed, at least up to a total of four.

------
ilaksh
I believe that many of the capabilities that researchers are seeking in
general AI are present in ordinary animals that we do not consider
particularly intelligent. And I suspect that the focus on imitating higher-
level human cognition has actually slowed down research in general AI.

The numerical instincts in this article are one example. Other useful
abilities that would make them more general purpose, but missing from most AI
systems: fast adaption, basic understanding of complex high-dimensional
environments, integrating streams of information, self-maintenance, etc.

------
hooande
Is there a difference between "counting" and "determining relative size"? for
example, I can distinguish between a group of three people and a group of ten
people without being able to count at all. There are big differences in the
amount of noise, motion, smell, etc that don't require a concept of numbers.

I feel like the author uses several examples that are based on relative size,
and also examples that appear to require actual counting (ie the cowbirds at
the end). It kind of muddies the issue, but overall interesting ideas

------
082349872349872
Herd animals are masters of conformal mapping (with you, or a dog, as a pole)

poor example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQw21ntR64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQw21ntR64)

(Humans are also herd animals, which has repercussions for safety measures in
public spaces.)

