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  Bots and Beasts

  An expert on mind considers how animals and smart machines measure up to human intelligence.Octopuses can open jars to get food, and chimpanzees can plan for the future. An IBM computer named Watson won on Jeopardy! and Alexa knows our favorite songs. But do animals and smart machines really have intelligence comparable to that of humans? In Bots and Beasts, Paul Thagard looks at how computers ("bots") and animals measure up to the minds of people, offering the first systematic comparison of intelligence across machines, animals, and humans. Thagard explains that human intelligence is more than IQ and encompasses such features as problem solving, decision making, and creativity. He uses a checklist of twenty characteristics of human intelligence to evaluate the smartest machines--including Watson, AlphaZero, virtual assistants, and self-driving cars--and the most intelligent animals--including octopuses, dogs, dolphins, bees, and chimpanzees. Neither a romantic enthusiast for nonhuman intelligence nor a skeptical killjoy, Thagard offers a clear assessment. He discusses hotly debated issues about animal intelligence concerning bacterial consciousness, fish pain, and dog jealousy. He evaluates the plausibility of achieving human-level artificial intelligence and considers ethical and policy issues. A full appreciation of human minds reveals that current bots and beasts fall far short of human capabilities.

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  • Price: 20.99 EUR excl. shipping
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  Unexplained Phenomena: Stories and Accounts of Some of the Most Strange and Intriguing Unexplained Phenomena , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 75min

  There are things that occur in this world and have happened right through the whole of the human experience - for which there has never been a rational explanation. Remember, explanations are just temporary, going on and off in response to fads and fashions. However, the happenings they are supposed to explain, carry on as mysteriously as ever. Yet, mysterious phenomena are also to a certain extent influenced by imagination. For instance, clusters of living toads and hibernating swallows impressed into rocks, regularly recorded by naturalists, seem to have died out. Mariners, these days, hardly ever witness sea monsters and giant octopuses. Rings of dancing fairies, once a common folklore belief, are now rare. To make up for these temporary losses, other kinds of weird and unexplained phenomena have come up in this modern age - UFO sightings, mutilations of cattle and horses; the phenomenon of crop circles etc. Having said that, the standard mysteries, those which have perplexed humanity from the very beginning, continue to do so. Strange creatures and things fall, at times slowly, from rather unknown sources; people walk over glowing trenches of hot coals, encounter monsters in mountains and lakes, are subject to strange coincidences, so on and so forth. You hear about such things in legends, folklore and myths, and there is a good chance you can find out about their continuations in modern journals and newspapers. In this book, I aim to connect all dots - establish links between various kinds of mysteries and wonders described in it. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: David Wayne Cox. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/095296/bk_acx0_095296_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  • Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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  Odd Couples: Extraordinary Differences Between the Sexes in the Animal Kingdom , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 424min

  While we joke that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, our gender differences can't compare to those of other animals. For instance: the male garden spider spontaneously dies after mating with a female more than fifty times his size. Female cichlids must guard their eggs and larvae--even from the hungry appetites of their own partners. And male blanket octopuses employ a copulatory arm longer than their own bodies to mate with females that outweigh them by four orders of magnitude. Why do these gender gulfs exist? Introducing readers to important discoveries in animal behavior and evolution, Odd Couples explores some of the most extraordinary sexual differences in the animal world. From the fields of Spain to the deep oceans, evolutionary biologist Daphne Fairbairn uncovers the unique and bizarre characteristics--in size, behavior, ecology, and life history--that exist in these remarkable species and the special strategies they use to maximize reproductive success. Fairbairn describes how male great bustards aggressively compete to display their gorgeous plumage and large physiques to watching, choosey females. She investigates why female elephant seals voluntarily live in harems where they are harassed constantly by eager males. And she reveals why dwarf male giant seadevils parasitically fuse to their giant female partners for life. Fairbairn also considers humans and explains that although we are keenly aware of our own sexual differences, they are unexceptional within the vast animal world. Looking at some of the most amazing creatures on the planet, Odd Couples sheds astonishing light on what it means to be male or female in the animal kingdom. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Kristin Kalbli. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/012049/bk_adbl_012049_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  • Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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  Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 424min

  Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter? In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being - how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys. But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with littl ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Peter Noble. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/aren/002473/bk_aren_002473_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  • Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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  Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 635min

  From world-renowned biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal comes this groundbreaking work on animal intelligence destined to become a classic. What separates your mind from an animal's? Maybe you think it's your ability to design tools, your sense of self, or your grasp of past and future - all traits that have helped us define ourselves as the planet's preeminent species. But in recent decades, these claims have been eroded - or even disproved outright - by a revolution in the study of animal cognition. Take the way octopuses use coconut shells as tools; elephants that classify humans by age, gender, and language; or Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame. Based on research involving crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and of course chimpanzees and bonobos, Frans de Waal explores both the scope and the depth of animal intelligence. He offers a firsthand account of how science has stood traditional behaviorism on its head by revealing how smart animals really are - and how we've underestimated their abilities for too long. People often assume a cognitive ladder from lower to higher forms, with our own intelligence at the top. But what if it is more like a bush, with cognition taking different, often incomparable forms? Would you presume yourself dumber than a squirrel because you're less adept at recalling the locations of hundreds of buried acorns? Or would you judge your perception of your surroundings as more sophisticated than that of an echolocating bat? De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal - and human - intelligence. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Sean Runnette. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/blak/008676/bk_blak_008676_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  • Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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  Invertebrate Medicine

  Presented in full color for the first time, Invertebrate Medicine is the definitive resource on husbandry and veterinary medicine in invertebrate species. Presenting authoritative information applicable to both in-human care and wild invertebrates, this comprehensive volume addresses the medical care and clinical condition of most important invertebrate species--providing biological data for sponges, jellyfish, anemones, snails, sea hares, corals, cuttlefish, squid, octopuses, clams, oysters, crabs, crayfish, lobsters, shrimp, hermit crabs, spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs, honey bees, butterflies, beetles, sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, various worms, and many other invertebrate groups.The extensively revised third edition contains new information and knowledge throughout, offering timely coverage of significant advances in invertebrate anesthesia, analgesia, diagnostic imaging, surgery, and welfare. New and updated chapters incorporate recent publications on species including crustaceans, jellyfishes, corals, honeybees, and a state-of-the-science formulary. In this edition, the authors also discuss a range of topics relevant to invertebrate caretaking including conservation, laws and regulations, euthanasia, diagnostic techniques, and sample handling. Edited by a leading veterinarian and expert in the field, Invertebrate Medicine, Third Edition:* Provides a comprehensive reference to all aspects of invertebrate medicine* Offers approximately 200 new pages of expanded content* Features more than 400 full color images and new contributions from leading veterinarians and specialists for each taxon* Includes updated chapters of reportable diseases, neoplasia, sources of invertebrates and supplies, and a comprehensive formularyThe standard reference text in the field, Invertebrate Medicine, Third Editionis essential reading for practicing veterinarians, veterinary students, advanced hobbyists, aquarists and aquaculturists, and professional animal caretakers in zoo animal, exotic animal, and laboratory animal medicine.

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  • Price: 251.99 EUR excl. shipping
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  The Soul of an Octopus

  'Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald's H Is for Hawk did for raptors' New Statesman'Charming and moving...with extraordinary scientific research' Guardian'An engaging work of natural science... There is clearly something about the octopus's weird beauty that fires the imaginations of explorers, scientists, writers' Daily MailIn 2011 Sy Montgomery wrote a feature for Orion magazine entitled 'Deep Intellect' about her friendship with a sensitive, sweet-natured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death. It went viral, indicating the widespread fascination with these mysterious, almost alien-like creatures. Since then, Sy has practised true immersion journalism, from New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing these wild, solitary shape-shifters.Octopuses have varied personalities and intelligence they show in myriad ways: endless trickery to escape enclosures and get food; jetting water playfully to bounce objects like balls; and evading caretakers by using a scoop net as a trampoline and running around the floor on eight arms. But with a beak like a parrot, venom like a snake, and a tongue covered with teeth, how can such a being know anything? And what sort of thoughts could it think?The intelligence of dogs, birds and chimpanzees was only recently accepted by scientists, who now are establishing the intelligence of the octopus, watching them solve problems and deciphering the meaning of their colour-changing camouflage techniques. Montgomery chronicles this growing appreciation of the octopus, but also tells a love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about consciousness and the meeting of two very different minds.

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  Ways of Being

  'Iridescently original, deeply disorientating and yet somehow radically hopeful ... worth reading and rereading' Brian Eno'Be prepared to re-evaluate your relationship with the amazing life forms with whom we share the planet. Fascinating, innovative and thought provoking: I thoroughly recommend Ways of Being' Dr Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace'Wonderful ... will make you feel and think the power of knowing how like all other lifeforms we are. There is nothing more important' Timothy MortonRecent years have seen rapid advances in 'artificial' intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the other intelligences which have been with us all along, unrecognized. These other beings are the animals, plants, and natural systems that surround us, and are slowly revealing their complexity and knowledge - just as the new technologies we've built are threatening to cause their extinction, and ours.In Ways of Being, writer and artist James Bridle considers the fascinating, uncanny and multiple ways of existing on earth. What can we learn from these other forms of intelligence and personhood, and how can we change our societies to live more equitably with one another and the non-human world? From Greek oracles to octopuses, forests to satellites, Bridle tells a radical new story about ecology, technology and intelligence. We must, they argue, expand our definition of these terms to build a meaningful and free relationship with the non-human, one based on solidarity and cognitive diversity. We have so much to learn, and many worlds to gain.'Brilliant ... Bridle shows the importance of listening to one another and our surroundings, and of creating new forms of community' Hans Ulrich Obrist

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  • Price: 16.99 EUR excl. shipping

• Ways of Being (eBook, ePUB)

  'Iridescently original, deeply disorientating and yet somehow radically hopeful ... worth reading and rereading' Brian Eno'Be prepared to re-evaluate your relationship with the amazing life forms with whom we share the planet. Fascinating, innovative and thought provoking: I thoroughly recommend Ways of Being' Dr Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace'Wonderful ... will make you feel and think the power of knowing how like all other lifeforms we are. There is nothing more important' Timothy Morton Recent years have seen rapid advances in 'artificial' intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the other intelligences which have been with us all along, unrecognized. These other beings are the animals, plants, and natural systems that surround us, and are slowly revealing their complexity and knowledge - just as the new technologies we've built are threatening to cause their extinction, and ours. In Ways of Being, writer and artist James Bridle considers the fascinating, uncanny and multiple ways of existing on earth. What can we learn from these other forms of intelligence and personhood, and how can we change our societies to live more equitably with one another and the non-human world? From Greek oracles to octopuses, forests to satellites, Bridle tells a radical new story about ecology, technology and intelligence. We must, they argue, expand our definition of these terms to build a meaningful and free relationship with the non-human, one based on solidarity and cognitive diversity. We have so much to learn, and many worlds to gain.'Brilliant ... Bridle shows the importance of listening to one another and our surroundings, and of creating new forms of community' Hans Ulrich Obrist

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  • Price: 14.99 EUR excl. shipping
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  Octopuses: Eight-Armed Wonders

  Octopuses: Eight-Armed Wonders: ab 1.49 €

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  • Price: 1.49 EUR excl. shipping

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