The things with dogs, they only want to do what they want to do; they’ve done a good job at a. partnering with humans who like them and b. training people to do what the dog wants.
Oh, they can communicate all right, it’s just from them to us. That sit, stay, heel business? They’re throwing us a bone to make us think we’re in charge.
IBM had a whole “Blue” line of massively parallel systems based on the POWER architecture. I’m pretty sure both labs got one. There was also the DNA-research series known as “Blue Gene”.
Teaching a computer to play and beat a world class human player at Go was much more significant than chess. I agree that the throw away line was kind of strange though.
I don’t think dogs have the first clue about language. When they seem to understand a word or phrase they are picking up on a dozen other things we are transmitting, tone, body language, facial clues, whatever. Try repeating a phrase or order it knows well, but do it in a completely different tone, manner, body stance, facial expression, say the words slowly and mournfully while looking up at the ceiling for example. Same words but I don’t think the dog will understand you at all.
One of our dogs despises squirrels with all her heart.
We are careful not to say the word if she’s around; we call them S.Q.s. A few times we have had visitors say the word, like, “Wow, you guys have a ton of squirrels at your feeder”, and she goes batshit crazy.
I’ve had adult human roommates like that. They clearly don’t understand human language. Say “these dishes need doing” they clearly aren’t capable of understanding complex human language. Say “wanna go to the bar” they immediately recognize the words but of course I’m sure don’t understand complex human-level language.
To get back to the original question - the gorillas may be communicating but it may not be considered language as the term is generally understood.
My dogs (one in particular) communicates with me very clearly, although not with a verbal language.
The instant in basic obedience class where she put together the sit behavior with the hand signal and reward, she started sitting to ask for treats. She’s a retired racer, a breed that is never allowed to ask for things, so they usually get adopted never realizing that asking for things is possible. That “light bulb” moment for her was huge.
She’s done the same thing many times as if I was a vending machine and her sitting was the same as inserting a coin. (It doesn’t always work, but it amuses me.)
One time I’m very sure she was asking me if she could see what I had on my plate. I was taking my empty plate into the kitchen after dinner. She reared up onto her hind legs and very delicately touched the edge of the plate with her nose, and then sat. Then did it again: touching the plate and sitting. I’ve never taught her targetting (the trick of touching things with her nose on command).
And on walks, I learned her body language for expressing her desire to go places. Turning her head means “oh, that’s interesting over there”. Turning head and shoulders and pausing means “I want to go over there”. Stopping and turning her entire body facing the opposite direction means “I want to go home NOW!”
In The Alex Studies (or Alex and Me if you want to read the layman’s version), Alex the African grey parrot did create a new word for himself, which astonished the researchers. They had taught him the name for bananas and cherries. When he got tired of those as rewards, they started rewarding him with bits of apple. He liked that and would ask for it using the made up word “Banerry”. The lead researcher Irene Pepperberg guessed that he came up with that because it tasted like banana to him but looked like a giant cherry. But regardless of how he came up with it, he built himself a composite word for something.
It’s not building a pattern that forms a complex idea, but prior to this we assumed animals couldn’t coin new words for objects either.
I met an Orangutan, one Chantek by name, in the 80s, on a Summer afternoon.
Trained at UTC to use sign language.
He was highly social.
Somebody was “at home” there.
Absolutely. Try insulting your dog and calling him/her nasty names, but in the “who’s a good doggie” voice. Hysterical.
However, I agree that dogs (and cats) sometimes learn individual words. We used to use synonyms for “out” and “walk” when we had dogs.
I don’t think there’s much argument that animals can learn specific words and associate a meaning with them. That’s easily tested and has been shown to be true.
The question is ‘can an animal express a complex concept using symbolic representation’… and that’s a lot more complex a question.
I think there’s evidence that an animal can do an action as an abstract representation of a state. I think they can even present a series of actions to express a temporal sequence.
But do they have the concept of a ‘language’ is the actual question being asked and that is difficult because the term ‘language’ itself is a little vague. If I say ‘give food me’. Is that a sentence? It has all the requisite bits - a verb, a subject and an object - but not all human languages actually work that way. Is ‘food me’ a sentence?
Now the obligatory anecdote potion: my father had a startlingly clever cat who responded to her own name (fairly uncommon in cats). My father was fairly deaf and one day I watched her walk over to my father who was sitting on the couch. She sat down in front of him in a position where she could be sure he could see her… and waited until he started to pay attention to her. Then she did the following sequence - she licked her lips and waited for a few seconds to be sure he saw this… then walked to her food dish and licked her lips again… waited again until she was sure he saw this… then walked to where her favourite food was kept (my father tended to leave one can opened with a lid so it’s easy to smell) and she stayed there until he got up and went over and fed her, which he did shortly.
To me, that’s a clear set of three ‘sentences’ with temporality. “I’m hungry”, “Feed me” and “I want this”. But it’s not a language in a syntax sense because it’s three actions that abstractly convey a concept.
So can animals use abstract symbols to communicate? I think so, given that animals can recognise abstract sound patterns (words) and relate them to concrete things that would almost have to be true - but do they use a formal language with syntax? I suspect not.
Yes, i can’t believe anyone seriously questions whether some animals can learn words. Almost all dogs know some important (to them) words, as do some cats, many parrots, and probably other domestic animals I haven’t spent as much time with.
Whether animals can learn language sort of depends on what you mean by language. Can a cat express a complex thought in language? I don’t believe my cats are capable of forming complex thoughts, let alone sharing them with me. Can a whale? I have no idea.
I do know that lots of things that were believed to be uniquely human have since been found among other animals. Crows will carefully fashion a bent stick to better “fish” for ants. They are making and using tools.
I guess one question would be it animals can learn grammar. I’d look at birds, not chimps, for that. But i think it’s an open question.
It is pretty high order intelligence. Having three different ways to convey the concept of hunger, not just simply three different words. If a cat can’t see it’s food slave it might start yowling also to indicate “I’m hungry”, but that doesn’t sound any different from other common cat communications such as “When we take over I’ll kill you first”. Language as we are discussing here is more complex, but then we are more complex animals than cats and dogs. Some of the limitations for them may be what they have to say. Chimps are known to conspire, they may be close to language in communicating more complex information, but syntax and abstraction are still quite limited for them.
This is certainly possible but not necessarily true. When training some dogs the “stay” and “release” commands, I noticed that it really was the tone of the “release” command that the dogs responded to, not the word itself. But with a bit (OK, a lot) more training, they eventually learned not to respond to the tone and just to the word, so they would release on a boring, monotone “OK” but not a sing-song-y “Chrysler” or whatever.
For the anecdote: when my sister and I were in high school we had a relatively intelligent dog. One morning we were running late because my sister couldn’t find her keys. The dog started to get really excited, jumping up and spinning in circles. We could not figure out why he was behaving that way; he couldn’t possibly understand what was going on, and even if he did, why would he be excited anyway? We eventually figured it out; while Sister Spayed was muttering/whining/yelling “where are my keys? Help me look for my keys!” the dog was hearing “blah blah blah CHEESE? Blah blah blah blah blah CHEESE!” Cheese, of course, being one of his very favorite foods. Definitely not the tone or the context, he [mis]understood the word itself.
That said, I don’t think there’s any question any more that animals can’t understand the meaning of some words or symbols; the question now is whether they can be taught grammar.
I have a second-and-third-hand anecdote for this sort of thing. A friend of mine was telling me about a German Shepherd he met, a former police dog. At the time he met the dog, the owner and handler told him a story about the dog, who used to be used for drug searches, going to the vet. The vet had to give him a shot for something, and when the dog saw the needle he started to growl because on the job he associated needles with drugs. The handler told him ‘It’s a good needle’, and he stopped growling and actually held out his leg to the vet.
During my friend’s meeting with the dog, the dog brought out a toy and set it on the floor, then looked pleadingly at the owner to play fetch with him. The owner said no, so the dog looked at my friend. He tried to keep his tone of voice and facial expression as neutral as possible, and said ‘It’s up to you.’ The dog looked at him for a few moments as if evaluating the situation, and then picked up the toy and brought it over to my friend.
Obviously a very clever, very well trained dog who was used to analyzing clues in his environment and his interactions with others.
No question in my mind about capabilities of animals (particularly dogs, horses, mules) to respond to commands – generally single syllable words. Last of the official cowboys (I’m 81), I grew up around horses, mules, cows, and working dogs. I have no experience with gorillas. I’m aware of situations where animals – particularly mules – “reason” their way around certain obstacles and dilemma to accomplish tasks. The old “Lassie” films come to mind, for any of you old enough to remember them.
I’m a skeptic’s skeptic and a heretic’s heretic – especially concerning dogma from religion, central political “authority”, “science” (quotes intended and necessary) – all conventional wisdom. The arrogance of much “science” will get one laughed out of many rooms (and always routinely lumped with religion) to even pose questions regarding the more sacred of their “theories”. One is not allowed to question their use of terms and phrases such as “developed”, “adapted”, “animal of the biological order including monkeys and humans”, et al. Don’t even think of questioning whether human beings fall under the order of “primates” (they don’t – far as I know, but don’t take my word for it).
It would seem reasonable to assume that if the stories from “science” having to do with primates over millions (billions?) of years finally coming out of the woods, standing erect, then using their “highly developed prehensile hands” to make tools, hunt, gather, etc etc etc, have veracity (and eventually led to reason, communication, etc etc) – that the gorillas would have actually out evolved human beings.
I mean, they “developed” not only prehensile hands, but prehensile feet. They should have “adapted” and “developed” much more rapidly and moved further down the evolutionary scale much more quickly. But that sort of thinking could threaten my funding.
Now to the thread: No, I do not believe gorillas are using sign language to communicate with human beings. But who am I to know??? Sam
So, if you’re skeptical of all science, and the scientific consensus on some topic is “we don’t know”, what do you think that means?
Didn’t say (or certainly didn’t mean to say, or imply) that I’m skeptical of all science. As retired science teacher I’m never skeptical of valid scientific method, or steps thereof. Admissions of “I don’t know” meet with my admiration.
This would especially apply in forensic studies – or evidence of past occurrence.
Because all we can do is examine evidence and form conclusions based upon evidence. For the most part we can never “know” for absolute certain past events. Origins are generally always subject to “reasonable doubt” – in both courts and laboratories.
As a skeptic I generally lean on the “doubt” end of reason – especially when subject to “scientific dogma”. Have difficulty digesting intellectual blackmail.
The question is “are gorillas using sign language…”, and my answer is “no – as far as I know” But the truth is, I really don’t know. I doubt. How’s that for fence sittin’? Sam
Er, they did. In their niche, which is where evolution does its work, where the ‘fit’ in ‘survival of the fittest’ comes in. It’s not a ‘scale’ from ‘less evolved’ to ‘more evolved’ with us at the ‘most evolved’ end to set the standard for advanced development. Gorillas evolved to where they are now starting from as far back as we did (-ish, without consulting a cladogram to see exactly where our ancestors split from the common one).
They are as different in their own way from the common ancestor as we are, as you point out, just in different ways that gave them advantages in their niche, and those traits that gave the most advantage in that environment were the ones that proliferated most in the gene pool until they are as we see them today. They perform better in their niche with their developments than we, naked and alone, would do. We perform better in our niches, with our developments, than they do, but we aren’t inherently ‘more evolved’ than they are simply because our development went in a different direction.
It’s not a race to a goal that we gained and they failed to, it’s two different journeys. It’s ‘luck of the draw’ that certain differences that developed in us gave us certain advantages, within our environment at the time, that allowed us to eventually reside in a variety of niches in a variety of ways. Those same differences might not have been an advantage in a different environment.
The gorilla may have experienced changes along the way that were not advantageous in their environment at the time and so didn’t persist in the gene pool, but which in a different environment may have conferred advantages similar to ours. We can only deal the deck we’re given, and the gorilla’s genetic deck didn’t have the same cards as ours, by pure chance as far as we can tell (specific genetic mutations being a matter of random chance as far as we can tell), or if some cards were similar, they didn’t experience the same selective pressure as we did to make those cards the best options for survival and reproduction.