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elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:26 pm
by mjrpes

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:23 pm
by saturn
saw that earlier.....it's awesome. It can paint better than Gramps!

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:26 pm
by Grandpa Stu
that's insane in a crazy cool way.

i'd like more backstory on it though; did it just decide to paint a self portrait one day or was it trained?
i'm gonna go with trained.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 1:30 am
by shadd_
cool :up:

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:12 am
by R00k
Wow, that's amazing - even if it is trained.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:19 am
by Transient
I could do better.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 3:22 am
by Tsakali_
you can clearly see the concentration it took the elephant to do that...pretty cool :up:

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:05 am
by zeeko
R00k wrote:Wow, that's amazing - even if it is trained.

it's funny you say "even if it is trained" because 99.9% of artists are trained in similar punishment/reward systems as the elephant.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:09 am
by Scourge
zeeko wrote:
R00k wrote:Wow, that's amazing - even if it is trained.

it's funny you say "even if it is trained" because 99.9% of artists are trained in similar punishment/reward systems as the elephant.
Yeah, because it's the same thing. :dork:

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:29 am
by Grandpa Stu
the difference here is that "trained" humans usually aspire to train themselves.

the question is whether or not the elephant as able to act on it's own free will to create the image or if it was encouraged through a result and reward type training program to recreate a specific image.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:28 am
by Transient
Plus, I doubt the elephant recognizes the image as that of a fellow elephant. They're likely just lines to it that are drawn in a specific order. That's what it looks like judging by the way he traces over areas and starts new lines from the same spot. The drawing has no meaning to him other than food.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:04 pm
by Ryoki
Maybe so, but i'm still impressed :)

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 3:47 pm
by YourGrandpa
Makes you wonder who really did all of those cave drawings. :D



Pretty cool.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:46 pm
by saibot
Transient wrote:Plus, I doubt the elephant recognizes the image as that of a fellow elephant. They're likely just lines to it that are drawn in a specific order. That's what it looks like judging by the way he traces over areas and starts new lines from the same spot. The drawing has no meaning to him other than food.
I have heard that elephants are one of the few animals with self-awareness to the point of being able to know who they are when looking in a mirror. I am not saying that this means for sure that this elephant understands the fact that it is drawing a picture of a member of its species, but I think its very possible.

I have always wondered to what extent animals such as primates and elephants etc. understand the world around them, as they are very much like us as they are born with a fraction of the instincts to survive, it must be learned. They are even compassionate towards more than just elephants going largely out of their way to avoid hurting other animals and even go as far as burying their dead, mourning, and returning to the grave. I know this is a bit off the subject but it is incredible what behaviors these animals exhibit, making me wonder to what extent they understand life and even death.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:30 pm
by Peenyuh
I think that was very much ON subject. Elephants are quite intelligent (spell?) and I believe they are closer to man in seeing and understanding the world around them than most other creatures. P{eople say dolphins are intelligent like humans. I can agree on that, but I think the way they understand the world is incomprehensible to us. At least elephants and humans can laugh at the same jokes and understand the same emotions.

If that elephant has learned to use that amount of dexterity, I have no doubts that it fully understands the subject of it's art. It may even be a specific individual in that elephants life.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:42 pm
by andyman
Transient wrote:Plus, I doubt the elephant recognizes the image as that of a fellow elephant. They're likely just lines to it that are drawn in a specific order. That's what it looks like judging by the way he traces over areas and starts new lines from the same spot. The drawing has no meaning to him other than food.

yeah it's just a big dumb animal right?

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:50 pm
by Tsakali_
teaching a monkey to type in a password, doesn't mean it has the skillz to hax0r.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:01 pm
by andyman
he still has typing skills...

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:11 pm
by Tsakali_
not really, all he knows is that he needs to push these 6 specific buttons in the right order...once you switch out the keyboard with another layout he would either not recognize the positions of thiese buttons he had to push, or if the keyboard layout looked similar he would go through his process and most likely fail to type in the right password.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:18 pm
by Tsakali_
depends on how you taught the monkey to remember the 'password' you might teach him locations of buttons , or maybe a smarter way to make the monkey seem more intelligent is to teach him the shape of the letter keys he needs to push, but when it comes down to it a monkey is nothing more than a specificaly instructed program like in a computer...sure you can teach him enough instructions to make him seem intelligent but at the end of the day it's nothing more than a program, in which the more 'if- then's ' you include the bigger the illusion of intelligence is.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:20 pm
by Peenyuh
Anyone have a lab, a monkey, and a keyboard?

um... or it didn't happen.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:22 pm
by Tsakali_
now you might want to consider the monkeys ability to retain given instructions as a sign of intelligence but that's subjective at this point.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:25 pm
by Peenyuh
Also, using monkeys doesn't seem to be fair to the elephant. Maybe if the elephant had an oposible thumb and the agility of the monkey, he might do more than the monkey. Might build a civilization.

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:46 pm
by andyman
I'll know I'm right when you homos start saying 'ohh but it's wiki durrrrrr'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_intelligence

Re: elephant paints an elephant

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:48 pm
by Tsakali_
k when you point out an object and tell the elephant to draw it...even if he draws a stick figure resembling the actual object then I'll be impressed.