That’s pretty much it. I searched, but I didn’t find anything that addressed my exact question.
It’s frequently said that chimps have the intelligence of a 3 year old human. But some 3 year olds are smarter than others, just like some animals are smarter than others of the same species. So why haven’t we come across a chimp with the intelligence of a 10 year old? Like…still pretty dumb, but able to fully use and comprehend written language. Is it likely that this “Hawking chimp” has already existed, but since we don’t put forth much effort educating (most) apes we just haven’t noticed? Or is there something else going on, maybe some genetic barrier preventing them from ever truly achieving sapience? I’m not expecting an ape to write an essay on Tolstoy, but it seems like as smart as we know these animals to be we should’ve found one that could read and comprehend, for instance, The Hungry Caterpillar as written in plain english.
In: Biology
Well, there’s some disagreement, but some people like Chomsky think that using language- as in formulating sentences according to rules, not just individual words- is a matter of the specific way human brains are set up, not just more raw intelligence.
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The human brain goes through some quite interesting milestones as it develops. To start off with it’s basically identical to a mid-range animal brain – hence why babies are dumb as shit. Towards about age 4, it first develops an ability called Theory of Mind, which is a set of skills that allow it to understand that other creatures perceive the world differently to itself. This can be demonstrated quite well by [tests](https://youtu.be/YGSj2zY2OEM). Here, the child named Alfie is demonstrating theory of mind when he says that he thinks his mother will think the sun is a lion. A younger child would think that its mother would know it was a sun, because they do not have the theory of mind necessary to know that other people do not know the same things they know. Many animals don’t have a complete theory of mind. Chimpanzees, however, [do](https://youtu.be/BmISd0v7AdM), which is a big part of why some people say they’re about as smart as a 3-4 year old.
Theory of mind isn’t a continuous effort though. For a long time, children have absolutely none of it, then over quite a short period of time, they gain the entire thing all at once. This is how developmental milestones all behave in humans, and these milestones have specific brain structures that cause them. So you have milestones like the ability to use symbols and the ability to do abstract thought, and those are steps rather than slopes as well. These steps act as basically caps on development. An animal that doesn’t have the brain structures necessary for abstract thought will never gain them. You’ll still have a range of intelligence within the species, but none will be able to overcome milestones they lack the structures for, so the smartest… salmon lets say, will never be smarter than a 3 year old because it won’t develop a complete theory of mind.
These steps aren’t strictly ordered though. There’s nothing in particular stopping an animal from having two milestones but missing the one that comes inbetween in humans. That does make it harder to compare to humans though. If an animal can do something an 11 year old human can do but can’t do something a 3 year old human can do, what’s the point of comparison for that?
The other major difference between human brains and the brains of other animals is that we dedicate a *huge* amount of our brain power to language. This is the [cognitive tradeoff theory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktkjUjcZid0), the idea that language was such a huge advantage to us that our brains sacrificed cognitive power in other departments for the sake of becoming even better at communicating. This would mean though that even if all other aspects were the same, humans and chimpanzees would still have intelligences you can’t directly compare, because it’s kind of like comparing a submarine to an aeroplane – both have similar aspects like being made out of metal, but they’re designed to do very different jobs. A plane would suck at diving and a submarine would suck at flying, but that’s not a very useful comparison to make.
Edit: I woke up to 159 notifications because of this post.
I think it is about its construction. I think brains as computers. It could be similiar in power but without having the spesific hardware or softwares it won’t do what the other one does.
The average 3 year old line is a useful comparison, but you’re taking it too literally. It’s like when someone is pregnant and they say the fetus is the size of X fruit at each stage – that doesn’t mean it’s exactly that sized, and it certainly doesn’t mean it’s literally that fruit.
In short while it’s a useful laymans comparison – chimps simply don’t have the same level of potential capability as a human. There is a ceiling there which is much lower than humans. So while a human 3 year old can be very bright and act more like a 4 or 5 year old, chimps hit their ceiling long before that.
Watch “Ape Genius” on YouTube. It will answer your question completely. The big points are:
Lack of the ability to cooperate as readily as most humans.
Lack of a desire to be taught complex tasks, mostly due to lack of joint attention.
Lack of language syntax (e.g. chatting about how the weather makes you feel).
Lack of mental time travel (e.g. making a decision based on past experience, present circumstances, and future consequences).
Lack of emotional regulation.
A lot of the above differences are due to a prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain behind and above your eyes) that isn’t nearly as large compared to humans, but it’s never just about differences in brain structure. Brain structure does not equal function, but that’s another story for another time.
Are truly exceptional three year olds as smart as the average adult?
Biological fact: they held back by a gene responsible to regulate the jaw muscle thickness on the skull. Sounds funny tho but HSS gave up bone cracking bit force for bigger brain cavity, ergo brainsize. Source: some documentary on nat geo back in the days when they still fluttered around science stuff.
The actual answer is that chimps aren’t as smart as 3 year old human children.
The number is made up.
Chimps can equal toddlers in some tasks, but their general intelligence is far lower.
As for why?
Genetics. Intelligence is almost entirely controlled by genetics. Humans evolved to have vastly larger and more sophisticated brains.
Chimps are smart for animals but are vastly below human intelligence. Same goes for parrots, dolphins, corvids, and parrots.
Humans underwent some really strong selection for intelligence. Why is unclear.
One reason is that human brains and chimp brains don’t work the same way, they each have evolved to adapt to their environment and needs. Human brains are built to develop language and abstraction, whereas chimp brains are better adapted to agility and other chimpy things.
What this leads to is that chimps can easily get *really good* at simple tasks, but it would take a particularly special chimp to get anywhere near being able to read.
On the other hand, humans need a lot of practise for even simple stuff like walking, but we’re able to go much deeper and form much more complex models in our minds, which is why we can read and write, do mathematics, design machines, etc…
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