I'm pretty sure orangutans have been able to do this for a while. Headline should be "We just realised that Orangutans can also talk about the past."
But the headline doesn't claim it's a recent development...
Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
61–70 of 98 posts
Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#62Puts on critic hat The article is making a claim that can be summarized as... the cognitive capacity to share with conspecifics something learned more than 120 seconds ago, is unique to humans and orangutans They also inform you that bees have this capacity. That should be enough to make anyone skeptical. It seems like they identified a particular behavior unique among apes to Orangutans - suppressing vocalization in…
why not ? What's to say that mental computations can't come in discrete units ? Maybe communication about the past is a self-contained computation that can evolve independently in brain networks as diverse as those of bees, orangutans and humans
It's not impossible, just highly improbable given everything we know about population genetics and behavioral neuroscience. It seems their claim is based on a single behavior that was selected because they observed it during field study and found it interesting. They confirmed the behavior in their experiment; this itself would have been an interesting report. To make a Science paper out of it though, it needed to be framed as a study about some uniquely human capacity (since we can't get over ourselves, and love being reminded of our big brains).
However, as far as uniquely human cognitive capacities go, I've not heard of this one yet. And seemed like a pretty outlandish claim given my Australian Shepard will paw at a basket containing her leash while looking at me - which seems very much like she is trying to convey to me some info she learned in the past.
Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#63https://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.
How is it political lobbying?
I can see how the original Greenpeace ad could be seen as political lobbying since it calls for viewers to take action, and Greenpeace is a known political organization and their name is on the original ad.
But the Iceland Foods ad that was banned does not do that. It used the same animated section that Greenpeace used to state facts about palm oil driven deforestation and its affect on orangutans, but the message after the animation is different. Greenpeace is not named anywhere in the Iceland Foods ad.
It is just telling shoppers that Iceland Foods is stopping the use of palm oil in their own products until the deforestation from palm oil production stops.
Would a clothing company be allowed to advertise that it has stopped using suppliers that use child labor or sweatshops?
Would a company be allowed to advertise that it has switched its offices to use renewable energy to help with climate change?
Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#64Puts on critic hat The article is making a claim that can be summarized as... the cognitive capacity to share with conspecifics something learned more than 120 seconds ago, is unique to humans and orangutans They also inform you that bees have this capacity. That should be enough to make anyone skeptical. It seems like they identified a particular behavior unique among apes to Orangutans - suppressing vocalization in…
Bees aren't great apes, though. Doesn't the article make the claim that amongst the great apes, this is their finding?
Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#65Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#66The 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.
Agree, it's minor but I find the headline annoying.
Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with the general call for skepticism against the idea that displaced reference is so unique in the animal kingdom. Where I do not agree, is the implicit argument of "if a bee can do it then it's trivial". Within the animal kingdom, the sophistication of the honey bee's waggle dance, with predicates and combinable to a large number of phrases, is rare. The only other major example I can think of are primate ca…
Ok, I'll ask - is a bird or a honey bee more intelligent? Before you answer, let me just say a few things... Pound-for-pound honey bees are indeed impressive. I actually didn't know all of those things, so thank you for sharing. Since I am no bee expert, I can only offer general principles. But yeah, that's a lot of fancy behaviors crammed into just ~1 million neurons; great optimization. However, with so few neurons…
> the ones making nests near urban areas were incorporating a lot of colorful man-made trinkets they scavenged from the big city to woo the ladies (which I think suggests some level of flexibility).
If they avoided man-made objects, that would indicate that they're smart enough to tell the difference. They're just grabbing any object they find that stands out. If anything, that implies less intelligence.
Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, I'll ask - is a bird or a honey bee more intelligent? Before you answer, let me just say a few things... Pound-for-pound honey bees are indeed impressive. I actually didn't know all of those things, so thank you for sharing. Since I am no bee expert, I can only offer general principles. But yeah, that's a lot of fancy behaviors crammed into just ~1 million neurons; great optimization. However, with so few neurons…
> the ones making nests near urban areas were incorporating a lot of colorful man-made trinkets they scavenged from the big city to woo the ladies (which I think suggests some level of flexibility). If they avoided man-made objects, that would indicate that they're smart enough to tell the difference. They're just grabbing any object they find that stands out. If anything, that implies less intelligence.
> If they avoided man-made objects, that would indicate that they're smart enough to tell the difference... If anything, that implies less intelligence.
Are you assuming there's something "wrong" with using the colorful man-made trinkets?
Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#69Puts on critic hat The article is making a claim that can be summarized as... the cognitive capacity to share with conspecifics something learned more than 120 seconds ago, is unique to humans and orangutans They also inform you that bees have this capacity. That should be enough to make anyone skeptical. It seems like they identified a particular behavior unique among apes to Orangutans - suppressing vocalization in…
Social insects have a way of spoiling intelligence tests. The mirror test is a good example. To recognize yourself in mirror, you need to understand that you are a person. Not many animals recognize themselves: apes, some ravens, elephants dolphins... all usual suspects known to be intellegnt. Give them a mirror and once they figure it out they spend the next hour making faces and checking out their own ass. Mark the…
Getting how the mirror works is different from recognizing the object in the mirror as the image of yourself.
The test has come trouble differentiating between the two.
E.g. the ant might perceive the mirrored marked ant as another ant which would reasonably well fool this test.
Re: Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but note that this is also true of observations about other humans. How do I know that the behaviour of other humans isn't just instinctive? I'd argue only assuming that mt experience is similar to theirs. I think it is far more reasonable to extend this line of thinking to orangutans, than it is to jave different standards for humans and other apes...
> How do I know that the behaviour of other humans isn't just instinctive? Ultimately, you don't. If you contemplate this sort of issue long enough, you will likely go through the three stages of solipsism: 1) What a ridiculous idea! 2) There must be a way to prove that this is wrong... 3) Occam, can I borrow your razor?
By our definition, instinct is something automatic and available without training. Humans and at least some apes are known to exhibit an empathy instinct, potentially tied to presence of specialized mirror neuron networks and surrounding neural architecture.
Even small children down to potentially neonates have it.
Contrast to something that is higher level, like the ability to recognize a reflection in the mirror as yourself, which requires inference most likely, but part of it might operate as an instinct while another may be learned. (So it makes sense that it is appearing quite late in primate life.)
Forming language might be an instinct, recognizing patterns, many kinds of learning.