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A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

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Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#91

Post by colechristensen »

WalterBright wrote: post #65
warent wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? A combination of the two probably. I communicate with my pet cat by mimicking her different kinds of meows, hisses, and purrs. It makes it a lot easier because it's very obvious to me she understands that language, but of course it's not perfect It seems unlikely I'm the only person who does this. Probably a lot of people speak to thei…

There are dogs that have vocabularies of several hundred words. People should breed those together, rather than the incomprehensibly stupid existing breed characteristics.

Do you really want to breed half-sentient predators that survive just fine in the wild and human settled areas?

Your cute little buddy living a hard life after a few feral generations after being bred for intelligence... I don't know most people live lives almost completely sheltered from wildlife, but let me tell you, wild dogs can be scary.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#92

Post by colechristensen »

masswerk wrote: post #90
smcameron wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we are able to recognize individuals of other primate species by face at a very early age, but lose this ability soon I don't know if I buy this. We can recognize individual dogs and cats that we know easily, even reliably distinguishing between very homogeneous looking variants (various golden retrievers that look incredibly similar to one another. I've seen zillions of golden retrievers but would never mistake an…

As I know it, there are tests with babies, where they react to primate individuals, they have seen before, just like to humans they have already seen, and are able to identify strangers. However, this ability is soon lost and the "in-group" focuses to humans only. I haven't a source link on this, but there should be some documentaries on early development on YT (or similar platforms) covering this.

A lot of studies like this are done very poorly and should always be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. One immediate issue that comes up is infants can barely see at all, born with incompletely developed brains, the neural machinery that translates sensory input to perception develops with the help of the actual sensory input... it could very well be that babies stop reacting to other primates in the same way when they can see well enough to tell the difference. (just one guess of many potential issues with topics like this)

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#93

Post by colechristensen »

masswerk wrote: post #50
TheGallopedHigh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure any skilled hunter would argue differently. Just watch Meat Eater on YouTube for use of animal sound mimicary ant it’s use in hunting.

Certainly, but isn't this more like a replay, is it actually suitable for interaction?

There are degrees, a whole spectrum between tape-loop mimicry to a high fidelity sharing of mental states when it comes to language.

Mimicry with context is a good way (the only way?) to develop an understanding of language.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#94

Post by gverrilla »

CyanBird wrote: post #86
warent wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? A combination of the two probably. I communicate with my pet cat by mimicking her different kinds of meows, hisses, and purrs. It makes it a lot easier because it's very obvious to me she understands that language, but of course it's not perfect It seems unlikely I'm the only person who does this. Probably a lot of people speak to thei…

I do this a lot with my cats and dogs as well, they are smart, they just don't speak my language, so since they were small I spoke to them with sign language, for example if the dogs are still hungry after I give them food, I do the hand gesture of clapping in ASL and that way they understand that there's no more food and can see my hands that I am not hiding/holding anything There's not much else that I can do when…

why you want to stop your dogs from making holes in the ground? it's like making playing children stop

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#95

Post by masswerk »

colechristensen wrote: post #92
masswerk wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I know it, there are tests with babies, where they react to primate individuals, they have seen before, just like to humans they have already seen, and are able to identify strangers. However, this ability is soon lost and the "in-group" focuses to humans only. I haven't a source link on this, but there should be some documentaries on early development on YT (or similar platforms) covering this.

A lot of studies like this are done very poorly and should always be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. One immediate issue that comes up is infants can barely see at all, born with incompletely developed brains, the neural machinery that translates sensory input to perception develops with the help of the actual sensory input... it could very well be that babies stop reacting to other primates in the same way…

Well, I wouldn't deem it that unconceivable. It's a somewhat sad, but well known fact that we do narrow this "in-group" even more to the effect that we are not that good at identifying individuals of ethnic groups, we're not so familiar with. It may be well that we start with a broad, hard-wired concept and refine this by adaptation to the given environment. (It may be interesting, how developments would go with an actual "wild child".)

Edit: I always liked to think that the stereotypical alien face somewhat resembles this blueprint (plus excessive light bleed as we must have experienced it at an early age).

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#96

Post by Talanes »

rangibaby wrote: post #78
greesil wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart dogs are working dogs. If they've got no work, they'll get up to bad things usually because you've left them in your house all day. If you want a pet, get a dumb dog. Or, a very lazy breed, like a greyhound.

Agreed. I think people forget that smart animals are smart enough to do bad things because they feel like it

I had a particularly smart and runty beagle when I was a kid that watched the cats jump the fence once, and then worked out that she could leave whenever she wanted.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#97

Post by stavros_ »

greesil wrote: post #75
WalterBright wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are dogs that have vocabularies of several hundred words. People should breed those together, rather than the incomprehensibly stupid existing breed characteristics.

Smart dogs are working dogs. If they've got no work, they'll get up to bad things usually because you've left them in your house all day. If you want a pet, get a dumb dog. Or, a very lazy breed, like a greyhound.

Greyhounds are as full of love as they are glorious stupidity. I highly recommend them to anyone considering dog ownership.

I do wish I had a border collie (very intelligent working dog) in my life though. I should go round befriending local farmers so I can play with their dogs :D

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#98

Post by KronisLV »

colechristensen wrote: post #91
WalterBright wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are dogs that have vocabularies of several hundred words. People should breed those together, rather than the incomprehensibly stupid existing breed characteristics.

Do you really want to breed half-sentient predators that survive just fine in the wild and human settled areas? Your cute little buddy living a hard life after a few feral generations after being bred for intelligence... I don't know most people live lives almost completely sheltered from wildlife, but let me tell you, wild dogs can be scary.

Yes, definitely. Because most of the dogs that would actually be looked after would be great for a variety of other tasks - everything from being service dogs, dogs that check for illegal substances by smell, police dogs, dogs who can herd animals and a variety of other tasks. Even new tasks that people still haven't been able to offload to canines.

If the animals can provide more value to humanity and will be allowed to become smarter and somewhat evolve, i think it's definitely worth it. Otherwise, if selective breeding for utility wasn't a thing already, we probably wouldn't have breeds that are passable for any of the tasks above.

As for wild dogs, this hasn't ever been a major problem in my country. I haven't seen any, there have never been any news stories about people being bitten or killed by wild dogs, i don't know anyone who has had run in with them and frankly there are bigger problems in the country - things like racoons and other small animals that carry rabies, foxes and the occasional wolves that kill off young deers and does alike, beavers that build dams and flood portions of the forest and so on.

Edit: looked for any studies that i could find, sadly there were none that'd attempt to quantify how many stray dogs there are in the country and how many of those have attacked people and how many have attacked other animals. Just found a news report of one person being bitten by them: https://baltics.news/2021/03/16/in-rezekne-region-a-woman-is...

Just to be clear, i am not attempting to say that wild dogs are not a large problem, just that it's not a problem everywhere to the same degree and that quite possibly there are other social factors at play - why would there be more wild dogs on one region of the world as opposed to another, especially when humans are the ones who breed these animals in the first place? Do the people not look after them? Are there puppy mills that get abandoned? Do people generally not view having dogs as a great responsibility? Are there no services that take care of wild and stray animals?

It's not like humans couldn't do anything about it either - if wild dogs are an inevitability in certain parts of the world, why not disallow "importing" dogs of these breeds to those regions and disallow breeding them there?

Here's an example of concentrated effort in regards to eradicating rabies in the country, i don't see why something similar couldn't be done in regards to stray animals (though it may only work on a smaller scale like in this country, at least without lots of coordinated effort): https://ec.europa.eu/food/sites/food/files/animals/docs/reg-...

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#99

Post by jshmrsn »

gverrilla wrote: post #94
CyanBird wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do this a lot with my cats and dogs as well, they are smart, they just don't speak my language, so since they were small I spoke to them with sign language, for example if the dogs are still hungry after I give them food, I do the hand gesture of clapping in ASL and that way they understand that there's no more food and can see my hands that I am not hiding/holding anything There's not much else that I can do when…

why you want to stop your dogs from making holes in the ground? it's like making playing children stop

Common reasons include holes in the ground leading to dogs escaping out of fenced areas, or just general property damage (dogs can quickly dig large holes which are walking hazards, and don’t look as nice as a well kept yard). Also, when children play in the street, for example, wouldn’t you stop in that kind of situation? Or if children were digging large holes on someone else’s / public property?

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#100

Post by QuesnayJr »

warent wrote: post #53
masswerk wrote: post #24

What I find fascinating about this is that there are various species which have tackled human speech with at least some success (both actively and passively), while, conversely, we are apparently rather bad at participating in their communicative acts (like, imitating utterances in a meaningful way). Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? Edit, regarding "something else": App…

> Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? A combination of the two probably. I communicate with my pet cat by mimicking her different kinds of meows, hisses, and purrs. It makes it a lot easier because it's very obvious to me she understands that language, but of course it's not perfect It seems unlikely I'm the only person who does this. Probably a lot of people speak to thei…

I've tried to do this with cats, but they never seem to recognize that I am making a cat sound. Did you start when she was a kitten? (Alternatively, I could just be uniquely bad at it.)
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