Poll: How big is the difference between humans and (other) animals?

[Roxanne Appleby]

Can one monkey teach another monkey ASL... no, then I would call the difference between me and a monkey pretty fucking BIG!

A mother will teach the baby some signs, but it's limited. I forget the details, but I remember the lecturer sounding disappointed.

Oh, and to repeat, they don't "know ASL" - which is a complete and fully nuanced human language - but they can be taught a goodly number of signs with which to communicate non-abstract things.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Actually, we don't know that other animals can't do these things. We don't speak their language and they don't speak ours. Cuddlefish may be having some very important philosophical discussions for all we know. And I'll bet Dolphins think and talk hypothetically.

Uh-huh.

And I can't disprove that the great God Baal created the universe from a mighty popcorn fart one fine evening in June, either. There's no evidence to support it, but I can't disprove it.

 

[sr71plt]

I take it there are some here who have never walked down a major city skyscraper-lined street or been in an international airport and watched the air traffic? Seems there's some self-denial going on about the footprint of humans (whether constructive or destructive) compared to any other life form on the planet. I realize this isn't touchy-feely "the petunia/earthworm has a soul" stuff, but I'd think the reality of the differences of cause and effect would be pretty obvious to anyone with eyes/ears/a brain (and to the point, is probably something the petunia and earthworm don't give a lot of thought to).

 

[Stella_Omega]

I take it there are some here who have never walked down a major city skyscraper-lined street or been in an international airport and watched the air traffic? Seems there's some self-denial going on about the footprint of humans (whether constructive or destructive) compared to any other life form on the planet. I realize this isn't touchy-feely "the petunia/earthworm has a soul" stuff, but I'd think the reality of the differences of cause and effect would be pretty obvious to anyone with eyes/ears/a brain (and to the point, is probably something the petunia and earthworm don't give a lot of thought to).

Yep.

That's one choice Pure left out; we are miles apart from all other animals by way of our functionality.

 

[Liar]

Actually, we don't know that other animals can't do these things. We don't speak their language and they don't speak ours. Cuddlefish may be having some very important philosophical discussions for all we know. And I'll bet Dolphins think and talk hypothetically.

We know that most animals we've studied don't show any sign of transfered experiences in their behaviour. If bear A steps in a trap on a certain spot, it will be reluctant to walk across that spot again. But it's bear friends B, C and D will have no problem with it. Because bear A can't or won't describe to bear B, C, and D what happened to him and where it happened.

 

[3113]

Uh-huh.

And I can't disprove that the great God Baal created the universe from a mighty popcorn fart one fine evening in June, either. There's no evidence to support it, but I can't disprove it.

Well, I was joking, but if you're going to use an apples and oranges, example, how can I resist being contrary? We don't know that God Baal exists. We DO know that cuddlefish and Whales exist and we DO know that they have pretty amazing brains, and we do know that some of these animals communicate and behave in very complex ways.

We *assume* that they don't have complex thoughts like we do, but we're only now scratching the surface in trying to prove that. And as it turns out, a lot of what we thought we knew about such animals has been proved very wrong by current investigations and tests--including assumptions we made about our uniqueness.

Humans have the thumb. THAT is our big difference. If you don't got the thumbs you can't do a lot of things to show off how smart you are. Imagine if humans had no thumbs. Just fins and a tail and lived in the deep ocean. How smart would we seem if we were unable to create a written language or invent any tools, and able to build things only by using our mouths. Maybe we'd build beautiful nests with our mouths--but so do bower birds so what does that prove? And yet we could still talk philosophy.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Well, I was joking, but if you're going to use an apples and oranges, example, how can I resist being contrary? We don't know that God Baal exists. We DO know that cuddlefish and Whales exist and we DO know that they have pretty amazing brains, and we do know that some of these animals communicate and behave in very complex ways.

We *assume* that they don't have complex thoughts like we do, but we're only now scratching the surface in trying to prove that. And as it turns out, a lot of what we thought we knew about such animals has been proved very wrong by current investigations and tests--including assumptions we made about our uniqueness.

Humans have the thumb. THAT is our big difference. If you don't got the thumbs you can't do a lot of things to show off how smart you are. Imagine if humans had no thumbs. Just fins and a tail and lived in the deep ocean. How smart would we seem if we were unable to create a written language or invent any tools, and able to build things only by using our mouths. Maybe we'd build beautiful nests with our mouths--but so do bower birds so what does that prove? And yet we could still talk philosophy.

"Why do bad things happen to good fish? What is the meaning of minnows? How do we create the Good School? Is their life after being netted?"

I dunno, 3. I think this may be closer to Baal-talk that you think, but will acknowledge that your questions have some validity (unlike Baal-talk).

 

[sr71plt]

I'll just note that I do get a kick out of the big bang theory being imaged as a mighty popcorn fart.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Birds get drunk.

Given their choice, birds will eat berries that have fallen to the ground and fermented, which make them mildly drunk.

Rats and dogs laugh. (At Irishmen mostly, but also at Polish rats trying to change light bulbs.) My dog laughs at me all the time, and then he sleeps on my dirty socks so I don't know what he finds so fucking funny.

 

[sr71plt]

Birds get drunk.

Given their choice, birds will eat berries that have fallen to the ground and fermented, which make them mildly drunk.

Rats and dogs laugh. (At Irishmen mostly, but also at Polish rats trying to change light bulbs.) My dog laughs at me all the time, and then he sleeps on my dirty socks so I don't know what he finds so fucking funny.

All fine and nice food for thought. But, tied to the thread question, show me a world net-connected computer system or rocket to the moon program being designed and implemented by birds, rats, or dogs and we have a reason to be considering that there's a narrow--or no--difference between human beings and all other species.

Again, some seem to have their heads in the theoretical/philosophical/politically correct clouds and are blind to "I can touch it now" reality.

 

[Pure]

note to the doc and sub joe

hi doc,

i'm convinced that birds, until the last 20 years, were vastly underrated. i have an alexandrine, and he definitely figures things out.
bird intelligence conforms well to the theory i've read according to which it's foraging that pushes intelligence and cognition. finding and extracting things; digging them up, etc. and there's the issue of language: parrots, for example, are not just imitators, but can use words (sounds) to make requests, e.g. for sleep. "alex" the grey parrot, reasearched for years, who died recently was quite exceptional.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGiARReTwBw

hi sub joe.
sjMinnows are not a taxonomic category of fish -- they didn't evolve from a single ancestor, the way true taxonomic clades did -- like the animals of the order Cetacea, the whales.
SO that "Whales/minnows" thing is meaningless. I guess Pure meant "big" vs "small", as though we were somehow "bigger" than other species. Of course humans are big, comparatively speaking to the average mammal.

you are not quite right in guessing my intent, here, for i meant to contrast a 'higher' intelligent, sea creature with a lower, but functional one. size was not the issue and my example is poorly chosen, i suppose. i am no biologist.

i chose a cetacean, a mammal, even, to accentuate the diff. i chose one with what some say has language, and not just the 'sensing' that fish in schools do, to stay together and move to new areas (now replicated in robots). rather than minnow you can perhaps suggest another ordinary name.

perhaps i should have said, to illustrate the degree of diff i had in mind, for example, dolphin and sardine.

 

[sr71plt]

hi doc,

i'm convinced that birds, until the last 20 years, were vastly underrated. i have an alexandrine, and he definitely figures things out.
bird intelligence conforms well to the theory i've read according to which it's foraging that pushes intelligence and cognition. finding and extracting things; digging them up, etc. and there's the issue of language: parrots, for example, are not just imitators, but can use words (sounds) to make requests, e.g. for sleep. "alex" the grey parrot, reasearched for years, who died recently was quite exceptional. iirc correctly, there is a youtube of a parrot singing the Marseillaise.

hi sub joe.
sjMinnows are not a taxonomic category of fish -- they didn't evolve from a single ancestor, the way true taxonomic clades did -- like the animals of the order Cetacea, the whales.
SO that "Whales/minnows" thing is meaningless. I guess Pure meant "big" vs "small", as though we were somehow "bigger" than other species. Of course humans are big, comparatively speaking to the average mammal.

you are not quite right in guessing my intent, here, for i meant to contrast a 'higher' intelligent, sea creature with a lower, but functional one. size was not the issue and my example is poorly chosen, i suppose.

i chose a cetacean, a mammal, even, to accentuate the diff. i chose one with what some say has language, and not just the 'sensing' that fish in schools do, to stay together and move to new areas (now replicated in robots). rather than minnow you can perhaps suggest another ordinary name. perhaps i should have said, for example, dolphin and sardine.

Have we lost track that this is an aggregate comparison poll, not a "have you noticed a few surprising and nifty things other species can do" poll?

 

[Pure]

hi sr71,

i hope we haven't lost track, sr71. thanks for the reminder.

 

[gauchecritic]

As I'm sick and tired of pointing out: animals, by way of language, cannot forecast.

 

[Pure]

gauche and liar

gauche As I'm sick and tired of pointing out: animals, by way of language, cannot forecast.

an animal does not write an almanac for his friends warning them of an approaching several winter.

it seems to me, however, that warnings involve forecasts, i.e. they equal 'get the fuck outta here, or you will die.'

but "by way of language". well, you have to define language. are the sounds of whales and dolphins, language?

Liar said:

We can communicate and think in abstractions.
We can find analogies and communicate and think in metaphor.
We can share each others' experiences by codifying and de-codifying them - a.k.a telling and listening to stories.
We can, as Sub Joe pointed out, think and talk hypothetically.

These are the reasons that we have built cities, constructed ideologies, formed religions, written symhonies, flown kites, committed genocide and invented porn.

The first issue is, do you claim that playing symphonies is a higher activity, than say a bird's improvisations, with his fellows, of songs?

The problem of your examples, liar, is that they appear to assume that such things as symphonies are 'higher.' And they are arbitrarily chosen. In other words, they invite the reply, "do humans have the mate scenting rituals of wolves?" i.e a chosen example in wolf society that may not be in human society, AND the (counter)suggestion the humans are perhaps inferior because of that.

BUT for the sake of argument, i look at your examples.

Essentially you're talking of an evolved language, like ours today, and culture, and certain productions.

Starting with the last. I would say that the abodes of mole rats and termities constitute cities. the mole rats, in their tunnel complex, even have a room for holding shit. it's walled off, when full, and a new one dug. bee colonies also come to mind. mammalian behavior resembling city building might be the actions of beavers, making a pond, making dwelling structures, etc.

So it's apparent the city building does not, as you suggest, depend on human language and its abstractions. and if termite 'communication' is not language, then neither is language necessary to build a city.

Lastly: abstractions and hypotheticals. I would point out the Piaget's fourth stage of abstract thinking has been shown NOT to be universal. Entire societies exist without it. Our ability to figure out puzzles like "If all schnookabies are pilibitties, and some schnookababiees are rakotans, is it true that some pilibitties who are not schnookabies, are rakotans?" is NOT a common one in human societies.

hypothetical reasoning, e.g conditions contrary to fact, are poorly understood in many cultures, including some with cities. e.g "if you were a fox, could you get through this hole in the fence". the reply, often found in children, is "i am not a fox. the question is silly."

"genocide," i.e. complete wiping out of one species by another, in a given region, exists in the animal kingdom, though i do not have an example handy.

in general your examples are of rarefied items in modern advanced civilization. they do not seem to tap common or fundamental human characteristics. you're piggy backing on carl friedrich gauss, ludwig beethoven, and bobby fischer, who are arguably anaomalous (and, i might add, the last person never reproduced nor lasted into ripe old age [past 64], nor could function in human society for long periods [was a 'bag person']).

 

[Liar]

Ok, forget the examples of "high culture". They obviously confused you from the actual issue: abstraction and sharing of experiences.

A symphony is not equivalent to bird twitter. Even if the bird twitter is just as complex or just as beautiful. Not because it's some snobbish "high culture" but because it's an artefact of shared knowledge.

Here's another example:

If Grok comes back to his hunting party of cabeman buddies and say "Yo, let's go north. I was just there, and there's a mammoth on the hill."

Everyone in the hunting party will know that there's a mammoth on the north hill.

Show me an animal that can do that.

"Bees", you'll say. Sure. As long as it's nectar. Within a certain range.

But Grok can also say the same thing about a "tiger" or a "bison" or a "hippo going south from the Big Tree, but if it's still heading south is anyone's guess, but I think we should go there and find out, or maybe it's a waste of time, what do you guys say?" or "weird looking animal I've never seen before, but here, let me describe it to you..."


You, pure, have not personally experienced everything you know. Your dog, Fluffy, has to experience things to know them.

 

[Pure]

note to liar

you, pure, have not personally experienced everything you know. Your dog, Fluffy, has to experience things to know them.

uniquely human to learn w/o direct, personal experience?

see the video of alex the parrot watching human A offer human B a spoon, upon human B's saying 'spoon.' then, when the human offers alex the spoon, him saying 'spoon', to get the spoon. (in short, human/human modeling the proposed human/parrot interaction; parrot learning through modelling.)

i suspect too, a mother dog can teach (by action) the young puppies to avoid a dangerous place [e.g. where she got hurt]. if they avoid it, they have learned the place is dangerous without experiencing the danger personally.

iirc, a chimp can, through observation, learn which human is stingey with food, through observing the two humans interracting; [neither has previously been involved in supplying food to the chimp.] the proof is that the chimp, without direct experience, subsequently preferentially approaches the generous-appearing human for food.

now, you will say i've learned about the glaciers of greenland through books, whereas Fluffy cannot learn this. i'd then re-deploy my 'high culture' argument: for eons, humans had no written language and did not, therefore, learn through books. the 'stockpiling' of knowledge in books, e.g. in the West from the protoscience of Aristotle, is arguably recent and exceptional.

 

[NoJo]

Humans are obviously a special species :

We can live in an incredibly wide variety of geographical environments, by regulating our immediate environment through heating, clothing and building shelters, and through farming, irrigation, and freight transportation. Some of these skills we share with other animals , e.g. termites (heating, transportation and shelter). But no animal comes close to the variety of environmental adpatations we can make.

We are one of the most gregarious mammals -- we enjoy each others' company. We share this with bonobo chimps, and of course, with dogs, who seem to understand and fundamentally "get" us, in a way that the more solitary cats don't.

We record knowledge and art in words and pictures. These recordings last much longer than a human lifetime, and can be replicated far better from generation to generation, and to a far broader audience, than oral history, tale and lore. This has accellerated our technological and cultural evolution many hundredfold.

We have developed rich, symbolic, extensible languages, which have grown to support our incredibly diverse and ramified culture and ever-expanding imagination and technology. In the Beginning was the Word.

 

[Liar]

you, pure, have not personally experienced everything you know. Your dog, Fluffy, has to experience things to know them.

uniquely human to learn w/o direct, personal experience?

see the video of alex the parrot watching human A offer human B a spoon, upon human B's saying 'spoon.' then, when the human offers alex the spoon, him saying 'spoon', to get the spoon. (in short, human/human modeling the proposed human/parrot interaction; parrot learning through modelling.)

i suspect too, a mother dog can teach (by action) the young puppies to avoid a dangerous place [e.g. where she got hurt]. if they avoid it, they have learned the place is dangerous without experiencing the danger personally.

iirc, a chimp can, through observation, learn which human is stingey with food, through observing the two humans interracting; [neither has previously been involved in supplying food to the chimp.] the proof is that the chimp, without direct experience, subsequently preferentially approaches the generous-appearing human for food.

That's what I'd call direct experience.

Fluffy sees Bad Human kick other dogs. Fluffy avoids Bad Human. Getting kicked is not the only experience that counts.

I love it when my opponent in a discussion practically writes my arguemnts for me.

now, you will say i've learned about the glaciers of greenland through books, whereas Fluffy cannot learn this. i'd then re-deploy my 'high culture' argument: for eons, humans had no written language and did not, therefore, learn through books. the 'stockpiling' of knowledge in books, e.g. in the West from the protoscience of Aristotle, is arguably recent and exceptional.

Does the term Oral Tradition mean nothing to you? It's essentially the same as books, but "written" into the memory of people and passed on, long after the actual event they recount is over.

Quoth me in my first post in this thread: "We can share each others' experiences by codifying and de-codifying them - a.k.a telling and listening to stories."

Like Grok the caveman did.

 

[Boxlicker101]

That's what I'd call direct experience.


Quoth me in my first post in this thread: "We can share each others' experiences by codifying and de-codifying them - a.k.a telling and listening to stories."

Like Grok the caveman did.

Did you know, in Zoopian, "Grock" means have an orgasm?

 

[Pure]

further note to liar.

pure's old response //uniquely human to learn w/o direct, personal experience?

see the video of alex the parrot watching human A offer human B a spoon, upon human B's saying 'spoon.' then, when the human offers alex the spoon, him saying 'spoon', to get the spoon. (in short, human/human modeling the proposed human/parrot interaction; parrot learning through modelling.)

i suspect too, a mother dog can teach (by action) the young puppies to avoid a dangerous place [e.g. where she got hurt]. if they avoid it, they have learned the place is dangerous without experiencing the danger personally.

iirc, a chimp can, through observation, learn which human is stingey with food, through observing the two humans interracting; [neither has previously been involved in supplying food to the chimp.] the proof is that the chimp, without direct experience, subsequently preferentially approaches the generous-appearing human for food. //
----------------

Liar's current response: That's what I'd call direct experience.

Fluffy sees Bad Human kick other dogs. Fluffy avoids Bad Human. Getting kicked is not the only experience that counts.

I love it when my opponent in a discussion practically writes my arguemnts for me.
==========

pure's current response: i love when an opponent's purported counterexample derails itself.

1) suppose your example holds as valid observation, for the sake of argument.

NONE of my examples involves behavior toward another member of the same species as the observer. both the parrot and chimp examples deal with animals observing human/human interaction (assumed to occur without the animal's previous historical knowledge of the human).

both alex and the chimp are, so to say, abstracting. placing themselves in the role of the human being acted upon

2) that being said, i consider your example, fleshed out a bit as as follows, and i'm not sure it holds [as a valid observation]. it seems entirely possible to me the the following would occur: suppose Fluffy's on my front lawn, and Spot is on the neighbor's, and a new postman walks toward Spot's house, kicking him aside, nastily. the mailman then approaches my house. i suspect my puppy might ignore Spot's fate and run up to the mailman in a friendly way.


.

 

[Liar]

1) suppose your example holds as valid observation, for the sake of argument.

NONE of my examples involves behavior toward another member of the same species as the observer. both the parrot and chimp examples deal with animals observing human/human interaction (assumed to occur without the animal's previous historical knowledge of the human).

both alex and the chimp are, so to say, abstracting. placing themselves in the role of the human being acted upon

Sigh.

Again, you get hung up on an irrelevant aspect of an exemplification instead of the main point of my post. So what if Fluffy the Dog sees Bad Human kick Spot (dog) or kick Orson (parrot) or Peggy (wife)? He sees... I repeat HE SEES Bad Human behaving violently. (or he sees Good Human hand out candy, or whatever). The point is not interspieces or innerspieces exchanges or not (and it becomes muddy when you consider domesticated animals anyway - to Fluffy you are one of his pack).

The point is this, and please try to adress that next time: It only happened to Fluffy, IF FLUFFY EXPERIENCED IT. Felt, saw, heard or smelled.

2) that being said, i consider your example, fleshed out a bit as as follows, and i'm not sure it holds [as a valid observation]. it seems entirely possible to me the the following would occur: suppose Fluffy's on my front lawn, and Spot is on the neighbor's, and a new postman walks toward Spot's house, kicking him aside, nastily. the mailman then approaches my house. i suspect my puppy might ignore Spot's fate and run up to the mailman in a friendly way.

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. If Fluffy didn't see the mailman being mean, the mailman was never mean. Because Spot doesn't have the tools to tell Fluffy how mean the mailman is.

Fluffy might see Spot being afraid of the mailman next time (even if the mailman doesn't kick any dogs, other mammals, bird, sea turtles or robots that day). And thus be affected by that. But once again, Fluffy's reaction is merely of something Fluffy himself observed: his friend Spot shying away. he can't ask Spot "dude, why are you afraid of the mailman?" and Spot can't answer.

You, as a human, can transfer your experiences to other human beings by means of anecdote. I repeat: You can transfer your experiences to other human beings by means of anecdote.

If Bad Human punches you in the nuts, you can tell your friends, and they will not like Bad Human anymore. Because humans can construct, transfer and assimilate experiences by means of anecdote.


Have I made myself clear yet?

 

[gauchecritic]

gauche As I'm sick and tired of pointing out: animals, by way of language, cannot forecast.

an animal does not write an almanac for his friends warning them of an approaching several winter.

it seems to me, however, that warnings involve forecasts, i.e. they equal 'get the fuck outta here, or you will die.'

but "by way of language". well, you have to define language. are the sounds of whales and dolphins, language?

No. I mean forecasting for themselves. synthesising a future if you will. Telling stories. Liar has part of it.

Consider this (better yet read "The Science of Discworld II: The Globe" by Terry Pratchett and the interesting scientific theorising by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen):

A man (early man) walking home through the forest comes to a clearing. In the clearing he sees a tiger. The tiger has its eye on a monkey in a tree. The monkey is throwing sticks, leaves and shit at the tiger whilst screaming warnings to its fellows (who have all taken the warning and fucked off) the tiger waits to see if the monkey falls out of the tree or by rushing making it jump. The tiger knows only that the monkey is too far away and waits until it can profitably react. The monkey is shitting itself because the only thing it can possibly be aware of is the danger presented and is reacting like fuck about it.

Now the man knows that the clearing is the only way home. He knows too that if he shows himself the tiger can reach him before he makes the other end of the clearing. So he synthesises a safe future. The tiger gets fed up and goes. the monkey falls out of the tree and tiger pounces. The monkey's mates all come back and gang up on the tiger.
Two of those futures are something that the man has no control over. But one of them he can actually affect.
The way and reason that he can affect that future is not because he can throw rocks. Not because he's seen this exact scenario before and not because he can talk. But because he can utilise symbolic language and ask What if?

What if, by an action independent of the scenario the man can create the future of the monkey falling out of the tree?

The only animal in that scenario that can predict a future by use of language (juggling symbols, it doesn't even have to be language) is the man.

a)Tiger eating monkey = safety
b)Monkey falling from tree + a = safety
c)Monkey being knocked from tree + b + a = safety
d)rock thrown at monkey + c + b + a = safety.

therefore throwing rock = safety.

animals can't do this. They can't tell themselves stories. They can't predict their own future in this way.

 

[Frank Noir]

I'll bet one of the biggest differences between human beings and other animals is that we wonder whether we're substantially different from other animals.

Bingo.

 

[WRJames]

Humans and some other higher primates have specialized nerve cells -- huge spindle shaped cells -- that seem to be associated with speech and self awareness. So there is a physiological distinction between humans and most other animals that reflects the difference in human cognitive capabilities.