Teaching Dogs Algebra

[Cognisant]

You can train a dog to do many things, for example pressing a button to get food from a dispenser or to open an automatic door, it's just simple association and dogs can understand words (if not speech) so they're capable of understanding some degree of complex associations.

What I'm thinking is why don't we come up with an education system for dogs as a way of optimising education for children?

I mean what's the limit to what you could teach a dog, I'm sure if you represented the problem in some sufficiently visual or physical manner a dog could be taught the concept of addition, people have taught horses after all. Then why stop there, education is a matter of presenting information in a way that creates the right associations so as long as the information is presented in a sufficiently simplified way (which is a lot easier said than done) a dog could hypothetically be taught subtraction, multiplication and division.

Obviously figuring out a system that could enable a dog to learn mathematics would make it easy for even young children as they tend to be a lot more attentive and capable of greater intuitive leaps. Indeed even if it turns out dogs can't be taught anything more than addition and subtraction the question "How would I explain this to a dog?" would be useful for developing more readily absorbed education.

 

[Cognisant]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-L58NPPQ5eI

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...tten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/

Amazing progress in such a short period of time, I wonder if dogs could be likewise bred based upon how easy they are to educate and what the result would be after a few decades.

 

[Cesare]

Interesting ideas, but how much does the would dogs really understand what they were being taught? Would they just learn to process visual data in a manner that allowed them to attain a reward without actually grasping the abstract meaning of the number or learning how to apply it in a meaningful way? More importantly, would using the methods you used to teach the dogs allow for the children to actually understand the abstract meaning of what they were being taught?

 

[Cognisant]

Abstract meaning is just associations comprised of associations, a meta-association, these meta associations could be used to create yet even more meta-associations or rather should I say increasingly abstract associations.

 

[Cesare]

Abstract meaning is just associations comprised of associations, a meta-association, these meta associations could be used to create yet even more meta-associations or rather should I say increasingly abstract associations.

I get that, but what I mean is, how much would a dog really understand the meaning and application of what it was learning. Isn't understanding the meaning of something and being able to apply it what actually matters in learning?

 

[Vrecknidj]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/how-smart-dogs.html

 

[kora]

I get that, but what I mean is, how much would a dog really understand the meaning and application of what it was learning. Isn't understanding the meaning of something and being able to apply it what actually matters in learning?

Hardly at all, dogs just learn How to do Stuff to make their owners happy and get rewarded, in general they have no true understanding as to why. Unlike Alex the parrot.

 

[Base groove]

I'm sure if you represented the problem in some sufficiently visual or physical manner a dog could be taught the concept of addition, people have taught horses after all.

Ok so I'm not sure if this is bait or if you're serious,
but the "Clever Hans" myth was debunked over and over and over.

There is a limit to the complexity of associations or degree of meta-abstraction that these animals are capable of and I'd wager it's directly linked to the surface area:volume ratio of the neocortex (meaning the sulci and gyri are what enable us to perform these abstractions).

 

[kora]

Please ignore previous post as stupid, too late to delete but oh well, written on a whim after night of insomnia + contains no genuine reflection on the matter. Have a good day all.