346 | Erica Cartmill on How Human and Animal Minds Think and Play
episode
Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
1h 32m
8 chapters
transcribed
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Mindscape Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Carroll. One of the topics that we've talked about frequently on the podcast is the nature of intelligence, especially, of course, because we're thinking these days about artificial intelligence. Is that a good label? At what point are AI programs counting as intelligence?
What are the differences in intelligence between humans and other species?
But even when you put that aside, just thinking about human intelligence and other intelligences in the natural world There are certainly senses in which human beings as a species are different than other species. We're the only species that has podcasts and invented calculus and things like that. But is that a single fundamental difference between human beings and other species? Or is it an accumulation of many things? Or is it just something that we got there first in some sense? Different aspects of humanity have been suggested as the origin of our differences. Tool use, language use, maybe even how we speak and the shape of our throats and esophaguses, sheer brain power, number of neurons, social organization, but none of it seems to be quite
The thing that tells the difference. So obviously one attack, one strategy to think about this question is to better understand animals and what they can do, how they are similar to human beings, how they are different than human beings, etc. And not just in intelligence, because intelligence is not just one thing. There's different ways to be intelligent, different skills you can have. And also, there are other aspects of social life that are related to intelligence, but not exactly the same thing. Today's guest, Erica Cartmill, is an anthropologist, cognitive scientist, and also animal behavior scientist, an interdisciplinary person. And she studies different aspects of animal behavior and intelligence, in particular, the idea of animals playing with each other, animals teasing each other, animals having a sense of humor.
This might seem like a kind of simple and trivial thing at first, but when you think about it, the idea of telling a joke, as we do for human beings, is a pretty sophisticated idea. It's a social construct in some ways, because when you tell a joke, you're setting things up, which gives people, your listeners, your audience, expectations, and then you subvert the expectations at the end. So that's actually kind of a subtle move for an intelligent creature to make. Certainly dogs and cats and things like that play with us. You know, they play fetch or whatever. But do they invent games? Do they play with each other in ways that have roles like pitcher and catcher that you could then switch sides and things like that?
Does it evolve out of aggression? Is it the same as aggression? Is it different? Do they do it just for fun or is there some down-to-earth practical reason for fetching balls and things like that? So these are all fascinating questions. Unsurprisingly, the scientists who've studied them have discovered a lot of fascinating things. And as always, from my perspective, when I have these kinds of conversations, I'm both struck by how similar we are to different species in various ways and how different, you know, human beings put things together in a certain way while sharing many, many of the same traits with individual other species. But there's a lot we still don't know about human beings and other animals.
So let's go. Erica Cardmill, welcome to the Mindscape Podcast. Thanks so much for having me, Sean. It's great to be here. So one of the questions that comes immediately to mind, and I'm going to apologize from the start because this is one of those, do you think I'm right kinds of questions. But in reading your stuff and in talking to other people, comparing the intelligence and the capacities of other species to humans, one thing, I mean, it might have been natural to think that there is a linear progression of intelligence and other species just not as intelligent as us. And, you know, you can relate them to, oh, they're at a two-year-old human level of intelligence or something like that.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:22
2
What are the differences in intelligence between humans and other species?
0:22–11:51
3
How do animals demonstrate playfulness and teasing?
11:51–24:02
4
How do social hierarchies manifest in primate societies?
24:02–28:04
5
What role does humor play in animal behavior?
28:04–39:27
6
What cognitive skills do great apes exhibit during play?
39:27–43:35
7
How do animals communicate emotions through laughter?
43:35–50:33
8
Can chimpanzees and other animals understand numerical tasks?
50:33–1:32:26
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