91–100 of 141 posts
Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying there wasn't any cultural advancement prior to the invention of using written language to store information for use by others. Just that there wasn't any human behavior that distinguished it as unique among all other species on earth.
I’m not sure I follow, which other animals have cities and agriculture?
> This finding doesn’t mean that bonobos have language, though, because language is the human communication system I hate this attitude. Also, I'm curious how advances in AI will shape our empathy towards animals.
Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…
"Strongly held belief" would suggest authority on the subject, but I suspect this is not the case. By comparison, while I accept the efficacy of vaccines on the authority of the authors of scientific texts on immunology and draw on circumstantial information to infer probable reliability of said authorities, I wouldn't say I have a "strongly held belief" either as this would suggest that I, personally, have authority on the subject, which I don't. My knowledge, as descriptively rich as it might be, nonetheless rests on a chain of authority.
In any case, the first problem in these discussions is the superficial notion of "language" that's often employed. "Language", as a system of signs, entails signification, and the kind of signification human language engages in is not merely a degree removed from the kind of signification other animals engage in. There is a difference in kind. There is a big difference between a distress call and expressing the proposition "There are five red berries in the tall bush". A distress call requires no abstract concepts; the latter proposition requires five. While we can say there is something like or analogous to syntactic structure in a distress call or some series of joined calls, none of these require concepts. And abstraction of concepts is the most central and unique faculty of rationality, as it is by means of concepts that we can reason about the world. They are the seat of intentionality, not mere imagism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that were the case, then you would expect isolated groups of humans who never developed a writing system to be significantly different from "homo archivum", but we know that's not true. We also know that groups without writing systems were historically able to adopt writing systems rather quickly, which is, I think, rather good evidence that writing is a technology, not a point of speciation. Going back to Ancient…
>If that were the case, then you would expect isolated groups of humans who never developed a writing system to be significantly different from "homo archivum", but we know that's not true. I'm not sure I understand why this would necessarily be what you would expect. I would say it's entirely the other way around. If we have some sort of favorable evolutionary circumstances that predispose us to turn into archivists…
Intelligence - predicting the future rather than reacting to the present - unlocks the possibility of communicating about the future rather than just the present (basic animal calls - predator alerts, intimidation threats, mating calls, etc), which means the message can have value in the future if stored and transmitted (unlike a predator alert which is useless if not delivered in the moment).
It seems that writing, or proto-writing (drawings become symbolic glyphs?), probably developed before message carrying/sending, which then becomes the big capability unlock - the ability to send/spread information and therefore for humans to become a "collective intelligence" able to build upon each other's discoveries.
It's interesting why some groups of humans never culturally developed along this path though - aboriginees and forest peoples who have no written language. Is it because of their mode of life, or population density perhaps? Cultural isolation? Why have these groups not found the utility for written language?
Apparently as recently as 1800 global literacy rate was only around 10% - perhaps just a reflection that in the modern world you can passively benefit from the products of our collective intelligence without yourself being part of the exchange, or perhaps a reflection that desire for information is not the norm for our species - more for the intelligentsia?!
> This finding doesn’t mean that bonobos have language, though, because language is the human communication system I hate this attitude. Also, I'm curious how advances in AI will shape our empathy towards animals.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ants, but that’s a whole other discussion around what constitutes writing. Which is why people look into specific elements of language not just huge generalizations.
Interesting comment. Why ants? Do they use symbols to express complex ideas to each other?
It fits the basic concept of writing, where complex ideas are communicating through time rather than space.
As to using symbols it depends on what you mean by symbols. Though an ants nest is a dark environment so writing the way we think of it via coloration would be a useless. In such an environment pheromones have inherent advantages, but you can’t get the same highly detailed shapes.
It is funny how at least the press written about this sort of research seems to imply only humans have language and some new evidence might challenge that notion. Really if you ever own a pet, probably any pet I bet, you find that communication in a way that is arguably a language is pretty low level stuff in the animal kingdom. And it makes sense as it is quite useful for a species to communicate things about the wo…
I don't think anyone denies that communication is not unique to humans. It is clearly not. But what is (apparently - as far as we know) unique to humans is language, meaning the capacity to combine concepts in an infinitely recursive manner to represent an infinity of concepts and ideas. On top of that, we also posses the ability to communicate (verbally, through sign, or more recently through writing) those combined…
We don't know that animals can't. We know that some animals can convey detailed information very extensively, but we don't know the structure of the communication well enough as to claim that it isn't via something equivalent to human language. Crows, for instance, can inform other crows about specific people, or characteristics of people, without those things being present. That would generally require descriptive communication to do, which inherently implies an abstraction. Where's the line between that and human language?
Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…
The thing that sets us apart from other animals is that we're able to control fire. By a strict definition of writing (e.g. what we're doing now), people have only been able to write for a few thousand years, and much of the adult population was illiterate until recently. Define it widely enough (visual communication of information), and some other animals (e.g. tigers) also "write": https://animalresearcher.com/why-…
There is some suggestion that other animals can control fire.
https://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/fire-not-jus...
I don't know if that's completely verified or not, but it seems like a problematic definition. You could imagine a group of intelligent birds or apes could discover ways to control fire.
No, the thing that truly sets us apart from other animals is the ability to create the hydrogen bomb.