# Do whales or elephants have any special abilities due to their large brains **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 7, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748 "2016-06-07T16:12:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/41 "2016-06-10T12:38:39Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > What does the dolphin have over _it_? Then we can start comparing land-based psychologies. Better branding strategy, for starters. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/42 "2016-06-10T14:41:26Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Better branding strategy, for starters. Yeah, I NEVER eat dolphin steaks (unless I can persuade the waiter to call them Mahi Mahi steaks). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/43 "2016-06-10T14:48:17Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > This does not actually follow from Occam’s Razor. It doesn’t say complex things must have complex explanations. > > Depends what we’re comparing to when we say complex and detailed. > Compared to many mammals a dolphin’s behaviour seems fairly typical, not outstanding. And compared to humans of course their behaviour is quite limited. > > The rest of the logic seems to proceed on the basis that dolphins have human-like behaviour…I think this is pretty baseless. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I thought that Occam’s razor postulated that the most simple solution was the best. > [@Mijin](#): > > Right – among competing hypotheses, with the same explanatory power, we should prefer the one with fewer assumptions. > > This is somewhat different from the more common paraphrasing “The simplest explanation is usually the right one” which sounds like the same thing but I think causes people to jump to conclusions more often than it is helpful. > > Either way, it’s certainly not _complex things must have complex explanations_. I think the application of Occam’s Razor comes later in Senegoid’s post. The ‘complex behavior implying complex processes’ part is merely the set-up. The application of Occam’s Razor comes when you say: a) many of our complex stimulus/response behaviors seem similar; b) we think we have cognition which we sort of understand; c) it may be simpler to assume that they have a similar mental experience to ours, than to explain how they can have a completely alien mental experience which causes them to do things (kinda sorta) “just like us” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/44 "2016-06-10T15:21:17Z")
Do (blue blistering) barnacles have “better” sex lives because they have the largest penis-to-body-size ratio of any animal on the planet? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/45 "2016-06-10T16:31:10Z")
Wouldn’t _you_ like to know? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/46 "2016-06-10T17:40:40Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > Yeah, I NEVER eat dolphin steaks (unless I can persuade the waiter to call them Mahi Mahi steaks). 🙂 Yes, but admit it, you probably wouldn’t order the assfish either. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/47 "2016-06-10T19:24:46Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Yes, but admit it, you probably wouldn’t order the assfish either. Well, definitely not as sushi. What wine pairs with that? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/48 "2016-06-10T19:46:39Z")
> [@blue blistering barnacle](#): > > what wine pairs with that? md 20/20. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/49 "2016-06-11T04:31:32Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > I think the application of Occam’s Razor comes later in Senegoid’s post. The ‘complex behavior implying complex processes’ part is merely the set-up. I disagree; it was immediately after **Senegoid** described his understanding of Occam’s Razor, and he said _must_, not imply. > [@](#): > > The application of Occam’s Razor comes when you say: > a) many of our complex stimulus/response behaviors seem similar; > b) we think we have cognition which we sort of understand; > c) it may be simpler to assume that they have a similar mental experience to ours, than to explain how they can have a completely alien mental experience which causes them to do things (kinda sorta) “just like us” Let’s be clear the “you say” here is the generic “you”; I definitely don’t want anyone to associate me with such a sloppy argument… Sure, in some ways dolphin behaviour reminds me of human behaviour; e.g. their playfulness. And I of course assume that other _humans_ have a similar inner experience to me because of their outward behaviour (OK, also because they claim to be conscious, but let’s put that to one side for now). So I’m fine with saying that there are some grounds for _supposing_ a dolphin is conscious _in some sense_. I think going any further than that we run into problems. And we still haven’t really related this to big brains yet, since there are plenty of animals with a low brain to body weight ratio that nonetheless exhibit playful behaviour. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/51 "2016-06-11T14:09:26Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Augg, that’s a horrible graph. It looks OK in the source document, but somehow the text is all in the wrong place in Wikipedia. > > There has to be a Wikipedia editor or two reading this-- can one of you cut and paste that graph again from the source into Wikipedia? Looks like a font issue, combined with using spaces to align text :smack: :smack: :smack: So not quite that easy to fix. You’d have to recreate the text using a font Wikipedia has, and move it into the right place. Not hard, but a bit time consuming. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748/52 "2016-06-11T16:07:50Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > I think the application of Occam’s Razor comes later in Senegoid’s post. The ‘complex behavior implying complex processes’ part is merely the set-up. > > The application of Occam’s Razor comes when you say: > a) many of our complex stimulus/response behaviors seem similar; > b) we think we have cognition which we sort of understand; > c) it may be simpler to assume that they have a similar mental experience to ours, than to explain how they can have a completely alien mental experience which causes them to do things (kinda sorta) “just like us” The problem with Occam’s Razor is that it ignores Bayes Theorem, which says that you should not only consider how well the explanation fits the data but also whether the explanation is common or rare. In this case, you might say that “This animal is thinking like a human” explains Dolphin behavior pretty well and it’s a simple explanation so you’ve applied OR but then you have to apply BT and say “The vast majority of animals don’t think like humans”, which makes it less likely that your simple explanation is correct. When you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras. Unless you’re in Africa, in which case think zebras. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-whales-or-elephants-have-any-special-abilities-due-to-their-large-brains/756748.md?page=2)