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Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

sciencemag.org

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Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#21

Post by clort »

ars wrote: post #11
nobrains wrote: post #3

Could we let other apes and animals evolve over millions of years under our supervision and eye? If so, could a more advance species have done the same with us and is now observing us from a distance?

That's basically the premise of the Uplift series by David Brin.

The premise of that series is that except for the original species, there had always been intervention to uplift not just observation. Humans had been a bit of a surprise because they had no apparent uplifters. IIRC the general viewpoint was that self-evolution in this way was just not possible so there must have been some kind of deception involved.

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#22

Post by beaconstudios »

dmos62 wrote: post #10
emerongi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The name "orangutan" (also written orang-utan, orang utan, orangutang, and ourang-outang) is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang meaning "person" and hutan meaning "forest",[10] thus "person of the forest".[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan

That's a relievingly admirable way to look at these creatures. I find the English "it" an exceptionally tiring feature. There are so many prejudices and world views embded in our languages. We call ourselves hackers, but where's a hackaday.io or hackathons for human language, the ubiquitous communication medium?

there are invented language conventions and meetups. There's also the Esperanto community.

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#23

Post by gdfasfklshg4 »

teknopaul wrote: post #8

https://youtu.be/JdpspllWI2o UK ban on efforts to save Orangutans in return for an arms deal is perhaps worth a mention here.

This advert was banned for the same reason as ALL political lobbying adverts are banned from UK TV. Political lobbying is not allow on UK TV.

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#24

Post by fredley »

gdfasfklshg4 wrote: post #23
teknopaul wrote: post #8

https://youtu.be/JdpspllWI2o UK ban on efforts to save Orangutans in return for an arms deal is perhaps worth a mention here.

This advert was banned for the same reason as ALL political lobbying adverts are banned from UK TV. Political lobbying is not allow on UK TV.

I think it's a great ad, and that it's an issue that will benefit from wider awareness (although it's got that anyway in spades during this whole thing), but I'm 100% with the decision to disallow this ad from being broadcast on TV. It is a Greenpeace ad, and Greenpeace is a political organisation.

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#25

Post by gdfasfklshg4 »

fredley wrote: post #24
gdfasfklshg4 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This advert was banned for the same reason as ALL political lobbying adverts are banned from UK TV. Political lobbying is not allow on UK TV.

I think it's a great ad, and that it's an issue that will benefit from wider awareness (although it's got that anyway in spades during this whole thing), but I'm 100% with the decision to disallow this ad from being broadcast on TV. It is a Greenpeace ad, and Greenpeace is a political organisation.

I agree with you 100%.

I also think that we should just ban palm oil in general. I'm not sure that it has any applications worth the damage to rainforests.

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#26

Post by toomanybeersies »

Can we load them up with magic mushrooms and see if they become capable of abstract thought? [1].

For those that don't want to click on my link, there's a (not very scientific) hypothesis that human consciousness evolved from our ancestors eating magic mushrooms.

[1] https://www.inverse.com/article/34186-stoned-ape-hypothesis

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#27

Post by gdfasfklshg4 »

dmos62 wrote: post #10
emerongi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The name "orangutan" (also written orang-utan, orang utan, orangutang, and ourang-outang) is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang meaning "person" and hutan meaning "forest",[10] thus "person of the forest".[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan

That's a relievingly admirable way to look at these creatures. I find the English "it" an exceptionally tiring feature. There are so many prejudices and world views embded in our languages. We call ourselves hackers, but where's a hackaday.io or hackathons for human language, the ubiquitous communication medium?

I already struggle to keep up with the politically correct term of the day. I don't want to offend anyone so I do do my best but our language is changing too fast to keep up.

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#28

Post by pawelk »

nobrains wrote: post #3

Could we let other apes and animals evolve over millions of years under our supervision and eye? If so, could a more advance species have done the same with us and is now observing us from a distance?

Given enough advancements in computer science we could simulate millions years of apes evolution within a span of days or hours and observe the results. Which is the basis of the argument for simulation hypothesis [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#29

Post by fifnir »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #26

Can we load them up with magic mushrooms and see if they become capable of abstract thought? [1]. For those that don't want to click on my link, there's a (not very scientific) hypothesis that human consciousness evolved from our ancestors eating magic mushrooms. [1] https://www.inverse.com/article/34186-stoned-ape-hypothesis

In stand-up comedy format if anyone doesn't feel like reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hreGAxAjt1c

Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past

#30

Post by aritmo »

The article should have said "we just found that some orangutans can also talk about the past. We are excited to look for other animals that can do the same."

Whales should be able to do so. They have family links that transcend more that fifty years.

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