A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
smithsonianmag.com
A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
1–10 of 139 posts
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#2It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for the recipe of civilization.
Anyone can empirically recognize some form of intelligence in animals, whether it be your pet dog, a smart street crow or a beluga whale.
Additionally, I've never found the relative brain size theory sufficiently satisfactory to explain our superiority. How can the brain of an elephant, or a blue whale (about 7 times the mass of our brain), be that much inferior? I don't think it is; I think it is just different, and that we are not capable to really empathize with it enough (unless we reach some absurd degree of anthropomorphizing it).
If we accept these premises, what does it make to our worldview and the morality of how we treat animals?
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#3It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for…
Another point of view could be intelligent animals like whales see another dimension of existence we simply cannot understand.
Maybe they just think further, they deeply understand the fractal nature of the laws of the universe and they came to the conclusion, that nothing they'll ever do will have an influence to improve anything at all, since nothing is really bad, so they just sing their songs and propagate reasonably? :)
/semi-sarcastic viewpoint
Maybe this comes across as an emo-anti-intelligence-nature-knows-it-best post. It wasn't intended to, at all. It even isn't meant to.
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#4It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for…
This is precisely why I’ve transformed my eating habits. I realized that while I can’t prove these animals have a conscious experience like mine (or one I would value as I do the human conscience, I suppose), I also can’t prove that they don’t.
We can all read and likely have many experiences indicating that animals, in many circumstances, actually behave much like humans do. And for all the arguments that animals do x or y because they’re responding to stimulus, well... So are we.
It really clicked a while back and since then, I just can’t go back. I no longer feel sufficiently different from a cow or a pig in order to feel comfortable eating them.
I certainly don’t judge others for disagreeing either though. Just as I don’t judge wolves for eating caribou or fish for eating fish. Humans operate under the illusion that they have free or stronger will than these animals, but I’m not sure that’s true anymore. I’m not even clear on why I had this revelation or why it matters enough to me to act on it! It’s all very absurd in a way.
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#5It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for…
> Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable.
I mean, this whale seems to be doing about the same thing I do with my cats. I don't really see how you can derive any directionality here about how 'rich' their communication is from that. It's likely cats are intrigued and also baffled by what we're 'saying' when we do this.
That's not to say I think cats have as rich of communication as we do, just that we can't even manage to make much sense of other species' vocal communication, let alone mimic any meaning present in it, even when we are pretty sure it is actually simpler than ours.
From that it seems way overly confident to state that all failure on our part to recognize depth is because of a lack of it.
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#6It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for…
You may be interested in this Youtube channel, wherein a dog owner has been teaching the dog to use a gradually expanding set of talking buttons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXy7NTGHAyQ
There's another channel where someone's been doing the same with some measure of success with a cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooCEYMaNL8I
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#7I guess the emphasis is on tried
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#8Don't forget Koko the Gorilla. She was able to sign, understand english and recount stories of her past.
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#9It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for…
You may be interested in this Youtube channel, wherein a dog owner has been teaching the dog to use a gradually expanding set of talking buttons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXy7NTGHAyQ There's another channel where someone's been doing the same with some measure of success with a cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooCEYMaNL8I
You seem to have accidentally pasted the same youtube link twice? I'm definitely curious about the cat one and haven't seen that before :)
Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)
#10It seems to me more and more like the biggest, only real difference between most animals and humans is their lack of sophisticated communication. Certainly they communicate; but they do not have access to our rich verbal symbols with which we can convey anything imaginable. Perhaps you could add the lack of a prehensile thumb and deft fingers to build tools with, but I think communication is even more fundamental for…
Not sure why my morality has to change, doesn't matter if pig turn out to have conscious experience like mine, I will still eat it.