bidd0011: March 2012 Archives

I always wanted to know what animals were saying. Take dogs for example: I know they aren't just barking to be barking. They have to be trying to convey a message of some sort. When one dog sees another dog outside and they continuously bark at each other, I know they have to be communicating with each other. Dogs aren't stupid; if we can teach them to associate certain actions with different words and phrases, I'm sure they can communicate via barking. The only problem is, we just don't understand them.

I'm not sure if anyone has done it or not yet, but if someone was to study the pitches, lengths, patterns, and volume of dog barks, they could probably associate most of the distinct barks with some sort of meaning. It would take a lot of work, but I'm pretty sure it could be done. But even if it was done, how the results could be used to help dog owners, I don't know. Most of these barks wouldn't be distinct enough to tell just by listening, but using voice recording programs to actually study the sound waves.

Either way, I think animals have their own languages and with lots of studying and observation, we could get the gist of them.

In Chapter 9, I wasn't surprised to read that there are different types of intelligence. I became aware of this when people would always tell me how smart I was in middle school, and that they couldn't figure out the stuff I could, no matter how hard they tried. I then thought to myself, "Why can't they? What makes me smart?"

I started thinking about the different subjects we had: math, science, history, reading, etc. History had absolutely everything to do with memory. Later in life, say around high school, you start to see a pattern and can begin to make inferences on why things happened once you know how economics works. Back in the day, however, it was all about memorizing events. I wouldn't call having a great memory being smart, but then again I was the only one at the time thinking about this topic.

Out of all the subjects, math dealt with problem solving the most. This is where I thought intelligence came into play, because even if it isn't exactly 2x-10=20, problem solving is a part of our every day lives. Being able to reason and figure things out with efficiency, in my opinion, is the definition of intelligence. Using that definition, it isn't biased towards a certain group of people. No matter where you come from, if you can solve a problem, you can solve a problem.