61–68 of 68 posts
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They'd ask: "What is 78000?"
Evidence of humans quantifying is roughly as old as this burial. The communication difficulty here would come from translating 78,000 into their mathematical system.
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> evidence reveals that all such traits, be it burial, toolmaking, artistry, abstract thinking etc, is something we share with other species to varying degrees If actual achievements speak louder than words, then "varying degrees" is a huge gap between human and other species. Yes, we know that numerous animals exhibit intelligence and emotions, but that does not change the fact that humans are very different when it…
> there is no other animal out there who […] developed some kind of societal system to expands its own resources beyond what's available in the wild. The trouble with this sort of quasi-dualistic general statement in my experience is it doesn’t hold up well to scrutiny by domain experts. Another way of looking at this is that humans have shaped their “wild” environment to their advantage which is something many anima…
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Evidence of humans quantifying is roughly as old as this burial. The communication difficulty here would come from translating 78,000 into their mathematical system.
And yet the punchline is still valid because surely they have no concept of numbers that large without any sort of base system involved.
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> there is no other animal out there who […] developed some kind of societal system to expands its own resources beyond what's available in the wild. The trouble with this sort of quasi-dualistic general statement in my experience is it doesn’t hold up well to scrutiny by domain experts. Another way of looking at this is that humans have shaped their “wild” environment to their advantage which is something many anima…
I was going to say that. We can see the Great Wall of China from space. And we can also see beaver dams from space. (Note the Great Wall was built for a mundane reason - the Han people couldn't defeat the Mongols on horseback, but they could keep building walls until the horses could no longer enter. Byzantium/Constantinople also adopted that strategy, which worked for over 1,000 years until the Ottomans built the wo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> evidence reveals that all such traits, be it burial, toolmaking, artistry, abstract thinking etc, is something we share with other species to varying degrees If actual achievements speak louder than words, then "varying degrees" is a huge gap between human and other species. Yes, we know that numerous animals exhibit intelligence and emotions, but that does not change the fact that humans are very different when it…
> there is no other animal out there who […] developed some kind of societal system to expands its own resources beyond what's available in the wild. The trouble with this sort of quasi-dualistic general statement in my experience is it doesn’t hold up well to scrutiny by domain experts. Another way of looking at this is that humans have shaped their “wild” environment to their advantage which is something many anima…
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I'm unaware of any other animal with writing abilities. The differences between human and animal languages are widely discussed and the accuracy of the distinctions are contested, but in general the properties of being generative and recursive are considered to be unique to human language.
> in general the properties of being generative and recursive are considered to be unique to human language. For a scholar to make that claim, he or she would have to have studied the bulk of other languages. Since there are more than 70,000 species of vertebrates alone, none of whose language has been deciphered by humans, and we know that other types of animals e.g. honeybees rely on language to function, it is dif…
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> Are you referring to the voices in your head? No. I guess you refer to debating moral dilemma in your head, but that's only one aspect of morality. Not all people share the same moral code, but we do expect all human cultures to have a moral code, and we expect humans to act on it's basis, despite their natural instincts and the rather arbitrary moral rules specific to their culture. Meanwhile we expect animal to b…
What do you mean by "moral code"? Is it something like "thou shalt not kill" or "do unto others as they would do unto you"? More generally, is it some rules of behaviour to which a human submits to obey? If so, is a person's moral code something they choose to enrol in, or is it something given from above e.g. by a god, without choice of an individual, in your understanding? I am trying to understand what you are say…
Some people believe that their moral code is given to them by god, some try to base their moral code on logic, some people integrate the code held in their society and don't think about it very much.
> What do you mean by "unnatural"? Can you give examples for
humans - I'm not sure what do you mean by that. It is natural for humans to have their behavior influenced by moral causes. It is unnatural for humans to have no moral code, I guess, or to consistently behave in a way that is not influenced by any moral code.
poodles - I guess it will be unnatural for a poodle to refuse a treat in reward for something that another poodle did, on the basis that the treat should be given to the other poodle.
jackals - It will probably be unnatural for a jackal to hunt an healthy creature instead of a sick one, just because the sick one is a parent who tends to young ones, even if he could do so with a little bit more effort.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm unaware of any other animal with writing abilities. The differences between human and animal languages are widely discussed and the accuracy of the distinctions are contested, but in general the properties of being generative and recursive are considered to be unique to human language.
> in general the properties of being generative and recursive are considered to be unique to human language. For a scholar to make that claim, he or she would have to have studied the bulk of other languages. Since there are more than 70,000 species of vertebrates alone, none of whose language has been deciphered by humans, and we know that other types of animals e.g. honeybees rely on language to function, it is dif…
For a commenter to make that claim, he or she would have to study the bulk of humanity and assess their ability to grasp the concepts.
Moreover, humans have no need whatsoever to understand what generative or recursive language is in order to master the use of language with those properties. This is simply the characteristics of their natural language instinct.
Now if you believe that somehow you have better knowledge about linguistics than everybody in the field, you might try to read what base they provide for their claims, and than maybe try disprove it. Without doing even basic research about the field, claims of astrophysicists can sound way more far fetched.