Fluffy Intelligence

[Sakavolt07]

Most People, at least the greatest artists, that Generaly"fluffys are smart enough to get into trouble but not smart enough to get out of trouble" -andy,menthol, or someone idk

[Karn]

This really

And hope you feel better

[AMDk7]

I view them as both.
both because they are broken biotoys released ( broken free) before they were ready with out any sort of inhibitors or wetware programming done to them, beyond the basics.
This gave them the freedom to try and move beyond their programmed instincts ( and usually failing ) but they try all the same and slowly evolve in their limited capacity
They are after all, broken biotoys.

I consider their closest fictional equivalents to be Blade runner androids\replicants.
Who also suffer from programming and are equally seen as something less then alive, despite being flesh and blood.

Anyway
I thank you all for your insights and replies, and hope that we can continue to have further discussion about this.
I will reply to others in detail later

I’m still feeling lousy and slept lousy too.

[Vanner]

We think of fluffies as stupid because they talk like babies and get themselves killed in bizarre ways. They don’t have proper animal instincts, nor do they have the logical capabilities of a grown adult. They have the logic of four year olds with the shrieking biological urges of mayflies. They’re stuck halfway between animal and human with no way to go in either direction. Inside a fluffy’s head is probably like listening to five different TVs at once. It’s only once they’re a few years old that they’re able to silence the noise to either be a good pet or a good feral.

The other issue with fluffies is that they don’t really know anything. They’re preprogrammed with a language, sure, but they don’t know anything about abstract concepts. If I were to say “This will cost you ten dollars,” you’d have to know how to count to ten, what a dollar is, what a dollar does, and what “cost” means. Left to their own devices, fluffies wouldn’t know anything about any of those things. They’re supposed to be living teddy bears to comfort children, be playmates, and best friends. They shouldn’t have to know about barter, exchange, and survival. They’ll learn to count and tell time alongside their young owners, but they’ll never get beyond a second grade education.

[Oculusfluffy]

I’m going to have to stop you there for a moment, @Vanner . And the reason why is because while I can agree with some of your points, I can find enough contrasting examples that differentiate from some of them that illustrates not only the differences in hive and headcanon, but also the disparities within different generations of the fluffy fandom (yes, there are different generations)

@Vanner

We think of fluffies as stupid because they talk like babies and get themselves killed in bizarre ways.

This was true as @BKCatharsis pointed out earlier in the chat. Early fluffy greentexts did center around reaching the context of “fluffy pony drowns” or the like. But the problem is that there is a disparity between stories where fluffies act like this, and the more realistic stories where fluffies do not have this behaviour. I can easily think of Waggytail drawing a fluffy enjoying a bath.

@Vanner

They don’t have proper animal instincts, nor do they have the logical capabilities of a grown adult.

While there are stories that shows fluffies not having said animal instincts, I can easily think of @Gardel & @Fluffus’s work on The Fluffy Sink. Going further, Fluffus’s own story of Star depicts adult fluffies as behaving (and fighting) rather animalistically and survivalist, which contrast with the approach you mentioned.

@Vanner

It’s only once they’re a few years old that they’re able to silence the noise to either be a good pet or a good feral.

Again, another area where I disagree with you, but this also boils down to the fact that different people have different ideas on how long fluffies take to age. Fiercedeitylynx had fluffies reach maturity within a month, while @Carpdime has fluffies still be foals after just a month. @KerosineCannibal has them age to adulthood after three months while Great_White_Nope had them age to adulthood in one year

From what I’ve seen, people either have depicted fluffies being good domestics from the time of foalhood, or have to learn how to survive as ferals while foals. Which means that its lot less than “a few years old”

@Vanner

preprogrammed with a language

Another area where I go with “depends on headcanon”, mainly because people have disagreed with it. I am aware that you have your own headcanon for it, but I am also pointing out that not many agree with the idea of pre-programmed language. Its something @mutagen mentioned here

@Vanner

they don’t know anything about abstract concepts

This is a very loaded statement, and I find that this requires defining “abstract concepts”. And I’m going to work with a definition of “abstraction” as provided by wikipedia. In particular, I am going to go with a definition provided by noted English philosopher John Locke:

the mind makes particular ideas received from particular things become general; which it does by considering them as they are in the mind—mental appearances—separate from all other existences, and from the circumstances of real existence, such as time, place, and so on. This procedure is called abstraction.

Consider the following examples:
“Human A sees Human B and says, you’re a human just like me”.
"Fwuffy A sees Fwuffy B and says, “Fwen am just wike fwuffy.”

Both examples reflect the existence of an other mind, particularly one that is similar to it. That’s an abstract concept. Its an abstract concept that doesn’t need to be fully detailed or explained, it just comes natural - just as humans are raised around humans and understand other humans have minds, a fluffy raised around other fluffies recognize that other fluffies are just like them. Now granted, some people are going to disagree with me on this, but considering how fluffies have been depicted as social creatures needing communication, I think fluffies are aware of the existence of other minds in order to have a conversation to begin with.

The point I am making here is that a fluffy doesn’t need to rationalize an abstract concept in order to be aware of it or understand it.

@Vanner

how to count to ten, what a dollar is, what a dollar does, and what “cost” means

I’ve seen at least a few stories revolving around fluffies bartering, and understanding how barter works. Some of it is comical, some of it is sadbox What I’m trying to point out here is that fluffies can at least understand an abstract concept of value, enough to barter, which is an instinctual human behaviour. Even in the concepts and headcanons of bestest babbehs and good colours (which I tend to disagree with), all of these reflect around a primitive concept of value. Otherwise, they wouldn’t use the term “bestest”.

@Vanner

They’re supposed to be living teddy bears to comfort children, be playmates, and best friends.

Different people have different ideas of what fluffies supposed to be or have become, to the extent that I haven’t really seen them be these living teddy bears. Granted, there are some people who have depicted fluffies as really fragile, but the earlier example of Fluffus kind of defies that idea of fluffies as fragile or "teddy bear"ish. Waggytail has depicted them more akin to pets then as living toys

@Vanner

They’ll learn to count and tell time alongside their young owners, but they’ll never get beyond a second grade education.

I think the question is the extent to which Fluffy education can be explored, which again boils to to headcanon/hivecanon. Waggy not only depicted fluffies learning, but even had a mare teach foals. While Squeakyfriend’s Crazystein is considered weirdbox, the premise behind that series is a fluffy thats a mad scientist and is privy to experimentation. And I haven’t even mentioned @Pinkyfluffy who has depicted his fluffies speak perfect Italian.

A final thing I want to mention is that I find that there is this disparity between the different iterations of the fluffy pony fandom, whether it was at the time of the Fall of Cleveland, early booru, mid booru, latter booru and in its current form. One person commented that the current hivecanon was very different from his time, a reason why I made a topic about what I saw to be “a Steady Decline”. Its part of the reason why I find it more interesting to explore the different unique headcanons some past creators had, as different people have their own different visions of fluffies.

[Gardel]

I been toying with the idea that fluffies might not be conscious at all

Some of my stories were about how fluffies dont actually know what they are saying or what they are doing but are simply following a “program”. Most people when they hear about thinking machines and AI their first thought is of something like HAL9000 or skynet. In reality AIs might never go self-aware, we already have AIs that do things we didn’t think possible and come up with solutions we can barely understand and yet none of those AIs have “woke up”, they are still just a chinese room.

One day we might get a chinese room so advanced you will think you’re talking to a real person and only the most minute attention to detail will tell you you’re talking to a box doing pattern recognition and little else.

In my HC fluffies had many compromises done during design and one of those was brain size to keep the product small since the prototype Equus was the size of a large dog and had a freakishly big head (tho far smarter than a fluffy) which didnt fit into the MLP branding.

So how you get a small talking “pony” chimera to work?

You make it read off a script, thats how

[Oculusfluffy]

One could argue that Human beings follow their own set of programming. Granted, its a naturally-derived computational system as opposed to something artificial, but the point is that there is a computational system at work, and thus, some degree of “programming”. Each human person is the sum of their genetic parts, being the product of two parents. To put it another way, even if we can defy our genetics to some extent, it is at most gradual - a person that you know is not going to change their behaviour and identity overnight. Your DNA is going to be the same for the entirety of your life.

In that sense, we are working off a genetic script.

@Gardel

I been toying with the idea that fluffies might not be conscious at all

To continue with this rejoinder, the first thing we have to ask is what even defines consciousness to begin with.

Let’s take the most simple philosophical argument for the existence of mind: the cogito “I think, therefore I am.” I may doubt everything exists, but the one thing I cannot doubt is the fact that I am thinking. It is from there that Descartes built his metaphysics. To be able to doubt is a form of thinking, but to also be able to respond negatively or positively requires certain levels of thinking. In mentioning Descartes, I am aware that Descartes famously thought of animals as thinking machines but one could argue that Descartes was working from an anthropocentric bias (which again, falls into a different argument I was giving earlier in this topic)

Thus, if fluffies were to be depicted as truly mechanical, and thus not really conscious, i.e. “reading off a script” as you put it, I’d argue that they should not be able to display fear, display unhappiness, furstration, anxiety, or any other manner of complex emotions. To make a fluffy really mechanical, imho, the depiction would have to rely on depicting them having one or two set emotions. I can see that as a headcanon for a specific story, but I cannot see it as hive canon for many others.

@Gardel

In reality AIs might never go self-aware, we already have AIs that do things we didn’t think possible and come up with solutions we can barely understand and yet none of those AIs have “woke up”, they are still just a chinese room.

Another thing I want to note though is that you’re describing computers. I believe you have, on record, treated fluffies as an “animal” reduced to a toy, but I am assuming you are working with a creature that has some form of a brain, that is, with neural networking. Part of the difference between computers and computational systems from brains is the lack of that neutral networking.

This is not to say that I can’t see a headcanon or story where fluffies have their “brain” replaced with a more simplistic computational device as their central processing unit, it’s just that their depiction or stimulus response in a story would be very different from how they’ve been typically depicted. And again, it really depends a definition of consciousness.

Addendum: Looking through the Chinese room wikipedia page, an interesting thought was mentioned about one of the criticisms of the thoughtexperiment:

Several replies argue that Searle’s argument is irrelevant because his assumptions about the mind and consciousness are faulty. Searle believes that human beings directly experience their consciousness, intentionality and the nature of the mind every day, and that this experience of consciousness is not open to question. He writes that we must "presuppose the reality and knowability of the mental. These replies question whether Searle is justified in using his own experience of consciousness to determine that it is more than mechanical symbol processing. In particular, the other minds reply argues that we cannot use our experience of consciousness to answer questions about other minds (even the mind of a computer), and the epiphenomena reply argues that Searle’s consciousness does not “exist” in the sense that Searle thinks it does.

To put it simply, most people are not aware that they are conscious, or have subjective experiences. Thus, it is not really fair to say other minds are not conscious simply because they act without understanding the concept of consciousness - most people do not, or even give a thought about this concept.

Furthering the concept of bias, one could argue that the natural negative bias that some people have against fluffies lead them to this conclusion of thinking they are incapable of consciousness. Its part of the reason why I find fluffies as a useful means of exploring prejudice, as there seems to be an already pre-existing prejudice against them.

[fluffsplosion]

If anything about fluffy pony seems inconsistent, it’s because it is inconsistent. “It depends.” is a good default answer for keeping the peace, but I think spitballing ideas is more entertaining.

For my part, I tend to write fluffy ponies as being very simplistic, shallow thinkers. They don’t generally consider something unless it’s brought to their attention and even then they tend to not go very in depth. I’d say they can be clever when they need to be, but they also have a habit pof ignoring anything they don’t understand… which is a lot. Combine that with a hazy understanding of causality and object permanence. The end result is that they can be quite stupid simply due to failing to realize what’s happening around them and what the ramifications of their actions might be.
It would seem reasonable that most fluffy ponies could probably count to four. The more astute ones may have figured out how to count in base four. Any numbers beyond what they can comprehend would either be ignored or default to “lots”.

[Fluffus]

If @Oculusfluffy can spend the energy to read Locke and Decartes, it should be easy to read some of the amazing writers of the fluffy community.

People like @Gardel or @Swindle for instance. Maybe FractalFluff or @differential_Sloth - then you’d have some pertinent material to link into this discussion.

Blind focus on the visual art of the community promotes speculation and shallow shouting matches.

[Oculusfluffy]

You are right, @Fluffus I should be reading more of the community’s written work. Its something I still need to get round to doing, as there is a lot to go through. Also, and if you feel that I had misrepresented @Gardel and yourself, I apologize, it was not my intention. I was only going by what I was seeing within the art I am familiar with, and even then I cannot confess to pinpointing what written works an artist may consider to be aligning with their canon.

[Gardel]

Thats why I said I’m “toying” with the idea since its a big deviation from some of my other stories and more into speculative biology since even if fluffies aren’t conscious and just a biological chinese room isn’t there a possibility they might develop consciousness?

Chimps are the smartest primates after man, and yet they arent conscious but dumber orangutans are.

Meanwhile some experiments suggest some ant species might be conscious since they recognize themselves in a mirror while chimps can’t.

Here’s a pretty good talk on the subject:

Peter Watts: Conscious Ants and Human Hives

[Gardel]

I remember a story about a fluffy that develops like a base-4 method for mathematics by counting with its legs

Afaik there was no part 2, no idea if the story survived the end of the booru

[Fluffus]

I would like to read that.

[AMDk7]

@Oculusfluffy

Before I type out my longer response, I’ll say this - just write. You can figure out the intelligence level over time. Sure, there’s discussion, but I also think that what really matters is the story. The intelligence level can be tailored according to the story - its like how I had to tailor the canon on fluffy lifecycles to fit Avocado’s story.

I don’t have a story in mind for Rambo as of yet ( I might as well name drop him )
Beyond the kitsune fluffy sub species and Rambo himself, I dont have much to go on with.
Beyond a vague idea of his son being a non pegasus fluffy, that likes to take risks and is afraid of nothing …for a fluffy.
Which endears him to people.

I am a person who prefers to figure their characters and personalities out. before attaching stories to them.

@BKCatharsis

Considers this: In the old days, fluffies are stupid because that’s the quickest way they killed themselves. Making your fluffies smart or stupid was not the topmost priority

“Fluffy Pony Drown/Dies” > “Fluffy Pony is Stupid”

Yes, but thats lazy writing and doesnt gell with a lot of things.
If fluffies are so stupid, that they drown on their own spit, how can they thrive in the wild beyond the weight of numbers on their side ?
Awnswer : they can’t they must be intelligent to a degree.

@A-S

Depends on the direction you want it to go. If they were all stupider than a rock they would die before being able to spread. This is a fallacy lots of abuse/sadbox/bleakbox fall into. If an animal is so dumb it literally drowns in a bowl of water, never learns from its/those around him’s mistakes, can’t run from predators because it’s slow as molasses and a flick on the nose is enough to break its legs, it may reproduce as quick as a rabbit, but it will still die in a day, meaning the babies die too and the species follows soon. Take pandas, but bring it to an extreme.

No idea what direction I would be going in, keep in mind i am an artist not a writer.
I first want to create more characters beyond Rambo and get a better grasp of them.
It’s rather difficult to write a believable idiot or at least an interesting idiot, and deal with their internal logic and motivation.

@A-S

My personal take to avoid this is to make fluffies naive, rather than stupid. Just like a 4-12 years old kid. Some might actually be brilliant, but tell them Slenderman exists with enough conviction and they probably will fear any man wearing a suit. In general, they probably would struggle understanding how Wall Street works, but take your time to tell them about how humans exchange “munnies” for other stuff and they will learn like any kid who asks for money to his parents. Same for counting, singing and other basic nursery-elementary school things.

Naive sounds workable.
But as I said in a previous post on here, I mostly see them as broken bio toys that are able to develop because their programming is unfinished. Thus allowing them to overreach and over come their programming.
If anything they are more like the androids from Bladerunner.
Beings from flesh and blood, but having limited agency. A programming they belabor under and are seen as worth less then dog spit.

But i agree with the fallacy that fluffies can’t be both moronic fragile shit thats broken by all. and hardy invasive species.
It’s either one or another.
They need to have basic intelligence, to be able to survive as most ferals have shown, by most artists.

@flufferinarian

As others have said, there’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all answer. Each creator sets their universes up differently to suit the needs of that creator, and thus aren’t guaranteed to and probably won’t overlap.

I actually love all the different variations which I generally just see as different breeds thanks to Oculus,
Just as there is not one homogeneous breed of dog that all look and act the same.
I consider fluffies to come in all shapes and sizes too.
From the size of a cat ( fox hoarder ) to the size of a pig, or a small dog or medium sized dog (Waggytail)
Which would also tie in with their biotoy origins.
Hasbio would want to have them at different sizes, price points and maybe even intelligence, to market them to different kids.
A 12 year old wouldn’t want a fluffy that’s toddler level intelligence, but may want one that’s smarter then that.

@flufferinarian

So my recommendation is to come at it from the other side: figure out the story you want to tell, adjust the kitsune fluffy to fit, and then fit everything else in around that.

There isn’t much to Rambo himself or his subspecies as of yet
I generally prefer to keep things fitting as smoothly as possible that’s just how my mind works.
And I need to get my head around his level of intelligence and that of his sub species, though not super smart .

And i have always had a knack of weaving my own stuff in an out that of others.
But let’s not forget that i am an artist, not a writer.
I’m not really interested in to writing fluffies as of now.
Just essays about them.

Wil tackle other posts later.

[AMDk7]

@Pink

I think it’s one of those things where they’re better in some areas than others. They can speak and comprehend language at a child’s level, but their survival skills probably fall more in the dog or cat range. They’re usually pretty poor at abstract problem solving. I think I’ve generally seen them as being able to count to around four, one for each hoof. (If fluffies came up with their own number system, would it be base four?)

Many, many many many, many many many many, many many many many many, and lots.
But what child level though ?
i usually imagine them topping out at the level of a 6 year old.
That feels about right for a fluffy.
Just smart enough to grasp certain things, but not deeper things, just that they understand to a degree.

Schmaltz

the fluffy doesn’t understand nor can he express himself in words but his warm and loving heart undferstand and that’s enough.

@Chikahiro

To echo: it’s not a set thing. There’s no explicit Canon to go by. They are as smart or as dumb as the writer needs.

i am not a writer though just an artist and I’ve been lurking since 2018.
But only now did I decided to get involved with the community.

@Chikahiro

To be honest, I think it’s harder to write them as functionally dumb.

Very much so, writing a dumb character is quite hard.
And dealing with multiple of these brain defect sods isn’t any easier.
It’s why I only got one so far.
And I’m terrible at names.

@Chikahiro

One key note is for a lot of head canons they’re incomplete products made to both today dependent on humans and to sell more merch. This is why they can seem so entitled and needy. But the key is they’re incomplete. Couple that with them being a mess of DNA, add in both natural and artificial selection? You end up with a very wide range of possibilities.

My view on fluffies is either in the other essay or a bit higher up.
I see them as broken bio toys, with incomplete programming which allows them to exhibit normal animal like behavior despite being tied down to hardwritten “fluffy laws”.

@WeepingCube

I think of fluffies as being “smart” in the way that a dog or a pig can be “smart”, plus the speech and social skills of a small child

And with a generous amount of variation between different individuals and different breeds.

Think I brought that up several times, but it cant hurt to acknowledge this once again.

@Booperino

In my headcanon intelligence is a byproduct of natural selection, the fluffys that were too dumb to live naturally died out while smarter fluffies continued in the gene pool.

But I also like to make it nature + nurture, so a fluffy inteligence can be increased if given time and dedication to teach them, like in the case of snakefood, who i wrote first as a happy fluffy who lived with fixer to a full assistant who can even speak more complex words thanks to his proximity to fixer.

Ferals i imagine having their own set of values and inteligences, probably the more sneaky and clever ones survived while not being necessarily more inteligent, which would make smartys actually smart and not just authority figures

I can see all of that working quite well with fluffies.
If they are as smart as a child they would naturally pick things up from the owner they are around.
Whether they understand however, is another question together.
Is it just the automatic repetition, like a parrot or do they understand it as well ?
i think that depends on the fluffy and the subject matter.

Though I do think that a reasonably intelligent fluffy. ( yes an oxymoron i know )
Should be able to grasp the concept of money and paying bills if explained properly, but no deeper economics beyond that, for example.

@Oculusfluffy

Alright, time to work on a longer response.

cracks knuckles and stretches fingers

Wil tackle this later in its own reply.
This thing is already quite long.

[AMDk7]

@Oculusfluffy

Obviously, abusers and people who have a negative disposition to fluffies (this includes a number of sadboxers I find) will of course depict fluffies as mentally stunted, dumber than a bag of bricks, incapable of certain functions while citing things such as “fluffy pony drowns”

I think it’s quite obvious by now i am a bit of a hugboxer even if I do have a bit of an abuse streak and am not above abusing fluffies in general, or my own kitsune fluffies.
I think there are more then enough people around that enjoy the entire fluffy spectrum.
It’s an extremely broad spectrum, and its better to be balanced then to tilt in in to one extreme or the other.

@Oculusfluffy

“they’re incomplete”,

Which is actually the crux of my definition of fluffies.
Their incompleteness, makes them fluffies as they are to me.
Broken unfinished bio toys, struggling with unfinished programming, that will never be finished. Which allows actual animal instincts to bubble to the top.
They struggle with this.
But it also allows them to develop in interesting ways, even if they themselves don’t grasp how or why.

@Oculusfluffy

If I have to take an even more extreme example, @Pinkyfluffy’s fluffies have always been unique due to the fact that some of his fluffies have spoken perfect Italian.

I could just put that down as a regional variant.
I doubt a Dutch, German or French fluffy would be talking in English. It would take on the local language.

@Oculusfluffy

So the question we should REALLY ask is why fluffies are the way they are in the first place, and why has their depiction almost entirely relied on things like fluffspeak and playing with kids toys. And one thing I stress that people should do is read about how fluffies started:

I have read that.
I have also been lurking on the booru since 2018.
While I am only now becoming part of the community, most of the info there is nothing new to me.
Other then that it’s streamlined.

@Oculusfluffy

When fluffies were still considered part of the MLP fandom and fan canons, it was easier to just depict fluffies as essentially mentally stunted, with things like the PETA raid being used to explain why they were “incomplete” - the idea was that there was supposed to be a finished version.

Which is an idea I agree with but i think that’s one of the few ideas the community as a whole can agree on. Beyond fluffies are dumb and can talk in broken english\local; language du jour.

@Oculusfluffy

Suffice to say is that I do NOT consider an “intelligent fluffy” to be similar to an MLP character in any regard. I boil this down to the difference in aesthetics, and the difference in the primary settings. The reason why I am raising this is because some people seem to think making a fluffy intelligent would be the equivalent of making a “mary sue OC” or “making an MLP character”, when they fail to realize that many designs of fluffies do NOT look like MLP characters, especially of the G4 (and now G5) iterations.

That is one reason why i want to make Rambo of average fluffy intelligence
He is already part of his own subspecies, created by Carpdime yes, but I picked them up and decided to run with them.
So i don’t want to make him too “speshul”, just have him slot in with other fluffies and he happens to have 4 fox tails .
It’s why he has no wings or horn.
Don’t want to make him too special,he already stands out as a designer fluffy.

@Oculusfluffy

Why does this matter? To me it matters because I like to explore fluffy intelligence. One could say I am biased, yes, but I am also appreciative of hugboxers who had depicted fluffies developing general curiosity. Waggytail has done this many times, as had Squeakyfriend. I remember seeing one person chat on the Discord, and him being a noted abuser would always go into a direction of “I don;t fluffies are capable of doing that”. Its a problem I’ve had with that bias since some people seem to prefer have fluffies be downright dumb and incapable so that they can enjoy their gore and torture porn of the subject matter.

While I agree that fluffies are capable off more in the intelligence department, there are certain things that should not and ought not be able to do.
Advanced calculus booking keeping and taxes is beyond them and should only be used as a gag.
Fluffies are at their best when charmingly dumb or naive.
Fluffies need to be able to work in a set fluffy parameter, otherwise they stop being fluffies.
And I am exploring the limits of said parameter.

And that’s the third essay length reply in this thing.

[Fluff_Yu]

I assume the average fluffy can’t really be considered sapient, a smarty is a fluffy that’s managed to achieve sapience. But they’re still dumb as hell and don’t take the reality of their new situation well. In a world with billions of the fuckers you can probably count the ones with human level intelligence on one hand.

What i reject out of hand is “shit so fragile.” Fluffies are toys for children, human petri dishes that roughhouse the shit out of their toys. They feel it and react to it like they’d break at the slightest bit of force, but the truth is they’re more durable than they think they are. I’ll even go so far as to say “guns and projectiles don’t work very well on them” to explain why people don’t just shoot them. But that’s more an excuse to use battleaxes, chainsaws, flamethrowers, and other, more personal methods instead.