Editing Monkey and banana problem

{{Short description|Thought experiment}}
[[File:The mental life of monkeys and apes; a study of ideational behavior (1916) (20763993882).jpg|thumb|"Figure 32.—Julius obtaining banana by using pole to climb up on and spring from. Figure 33.—Using pole to swing out on so that banana could be grasped. Figure 34.—Using stick to draw carrot within reach." From ''The mental life of monkeys and apes; a study of ideational behavior'', by [[Robert Mearns Yerkes]], 1916]]
The '''monkey and banana problem''' is a famous [[toy problem]] in [[artificial intelligence]], particularly in [[logic programming]] and [[Automated planning and scheduling|planning]].

==Formulation of the problem==
A [[monkey]] is in a room. Suspended from the ceiling is a bunch of [[banana]]s, beyond the monkey's reach. However, in the room there are also a chair and a stick. The ceiling is just the right height so that a monkey standing on a chair could knock the bananas down with the stick. The monkey knows how to move around, carry other things around, reach for the bananas, and wave a stick in the air. What is the best sequence of actions for the monkey?

==Purpose of the problem==
The problem seeks to answer the question of whether monkeys are [[intelligence|intelligent]]. Both [[human]]s and monkeys have the ability to use mental [[map]]s to remember things like where to go to find shelter, or how to avoid danger. They can also remember where to go to gather [[food]] and [[water]], as well as how to [[communication|communicate]] with each other. Monkeys have the ability not only to remember how to [[hunting|hunt]] and gather but to [[learning|learn]] new things, as is the case with the monkey and the bananas: despite the fact that the monkey may never have been in an identical situation, with the same artifacts at hand, a monkey is capable of concluding that it needs to make a ladder, position it below the bananas, and climb up to reach for them.

The degree to which such abilities should be ascribed to [[instinct]] or [[learning]] is a matter of debate.

In 1984, a pigeon was observed as having the capacity to solve a problem.<ref>[http://drrobertepstein.com/downloads/Epstein-Insight_in_the_Pigeon-Nature-1984.pdf Epstein, R., Kirshnit, C. E., & Lanza, R. P. (81). Rubins. LC (1984).“Insight” in the pigeon: Antecedents and determinants of an intelligent performance. Nature, 308, 61-62.]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDntbGRPeEU  |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/mDntbGRPeEU| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=A Pigeon Solves the Classic Box-and-Banana Problem |publisher=YouTube |date=2007-12-24 |accessdate=2009-11-03}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

==Software solutions==
The problem is used as a [[toy problem]] for computer science. It can be solved with an [[expert system]] such as [[CLIPS]]. The example set of rules that CLIPS provides is somewhat fragile in that naive changes to the rulebase that might seem to a human of average intelligence to make common sense can cause the engine to fail to get the monkey to reach the banana.<ref>https://sourceforge.net/projects/clipsrules/files/CLIPS/6.30/examples_630.zip/download See file mab.clp</ref>

Other examples exist using Rules Based System (RBS) a project implemented in Python.<ref>[https://github.com/dainiuskreivenas/monkeys Monkey and Banana Problem solved using RBS]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://github.com/dainiuskreivenas/rbs/|title = Introduction|date = 4 October 2021}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Tool use by animals]]
==References==

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[[Category:Logic puzzles]]