So I've been watching some cool youtube videos demonstrating some incredible feats of intelligence and emotion on the part of a variety of animals.
In particular dolphins and chimpanzees seemed to be incredibly capable of understanding human symbols, including numbers and letters, and identifying their inclusion in the set of "numbers" or "letters," respectively. Experiments have shown, for example, that a seal can identify whether a given symbol is a number or a letter by matching it with a randomly chosen number or letter on the right or left. Some chimps can also understand the ordering of numbers. Gorillas, such as the famous Koko, can even communicate pretty complex information with humans using sign language!
Since it seems that many higher mammals can not only think in much the same way that we think, and that they can communicate, a natural question to ask is how rich that communication becomes?
In the example of symbol identification, can the animals, with enough training, learn a communication mechanism that can allow a "distributed" completion of the task? Since we know that the animals, individually, are capable of completing the task and we know that, when pressed, some can rise to the occasion and cooperate (elephants), to what extent can animals use communication to cooperate?
One experiment that might be interesting:
Place two animals in separated enclosures with glass in between. From the glass, the animals can see and hear one another but cannot move directly between the enclosures. In one enclosure place a randomly chosen symbol. In the other enclosure place a series of buttons corresponding to some information that should be passed from one individual to another. Neither animal can see the other animal's apparatus.
A simple experiment would be to have a black or white object shown on one animal's apparatus and then a corresponding black and white buttons in the other animal's apparatus.
In the case of dolphins or apes, or other animals that have demonstrated more complex forms of reasoning, one can test more advanced forms of communication.
Can shape be communicated in addition to color? Can number be communicated as well? What about images of faces or figures (do animals create "names" for objects as we do)?
We can make these experiments progressively more complex while keeping the same setup:
In one animal's apparatus we have a letter or a number or a shape. In the other animal's apparatus, we place a DIFFERENT number a DIFFERENT letter or a DIFFERENT shape. I'm confident that with enough training, dolphins or great apes can learn to cooperatively solve these problems. It will be extremely interesting, however, in analyzing their communication techniques to see in WHAT WAY this data is communicated. Can the animal pressing the button communicate to the animal reading the figure which game is being played, so the reader can figure out which information to pass? If so, does the reader pass along the compressed "abstract" representation of "letter," "number," "shape" or does the reader only pass along the PARTICULAR letter, number, or shape (a, 5, square).
Anyway, I'm not going to be a zoologist or marine biologist, so I probably will never be the one to discover the answer to these types of questions, but nonetheless if somebody has a video or paper answering this type of question, I would love to look at it!
Something like this, for example, is very exciting:
If chimps learn powerful language tools to communicate things like color, number, and abstract concepts and are reintroduced to the wild, will they, then, be able to "teach" their new friends what they had learned? Will this "learning" persist in the ape culture (i.e. passed down generation to generation).
How awesome would it be to learn to speak dog or monkey. Do you think these animals also have things like dialects that would make it hard for a monkey from west africa to understand a monkey from east africa? :D
I also think that the amount of words an animal language has is linked to the particular kind of animals ability to distinguish objects. Logical words would be like "safe to eat" "not safe to eat" "danger"
we already know that some of these "words"exist (for example the different kinds of wolf howls). I can imagine that an intelligent animal like a dolphin, monkey, or elephant might have some discriptive vocabulary, but I don't think you should underestimate the amount of communicating they do without words. (People say that even human communication is 80% non verbal or something right?)
On June 02 2012 23:24 B.I.G. wrote: How awesome would it be to learn to speak dog or monkey. Do you think these animals also have things like dialects that would make it hard for a monkey from west africa to understand a monkey from east africa? :D
I also think that the amount of words an animal language has is linked to the particular kind of animals ability to distinguish objects. Logical words would be like "safe to eat" "not safe to eat" "danger"
we already know that some of these "words"exist (for example the different kinds of wolf howls). I can imagine that an intelligent animal like a dolphin, monkey, or elephant might have some discriptive vocabulary, but I don't think you should underestimate the amount of communicating they do without words. (People say that even human communication is 80% non verbal or something right?)
Crows can transmit fucking knowledge of faces, houses, tools etc ... whatever it is they have, it's good enough to warn other crows not to fly over that house, or to attack the human with this face.
On June 02 2012 23:24 B.I.G. wrote: How awesome would it be to learn to speak dog or monkey. Do you think these animals also have things like dialects that would make it hard for a monkey from west africa to understand a monkey from east africa? :D
I also think that the amount of words an animal language has is linked to the particular kind of animals ability to distinguish objects. Logical words would be like "safe to eat" "not safe to eat" "danger"
we already know that some of these "words"exist (for example the different kinds of wolf howls). I can imagine that an intelligent animal like a dolphin, monkey, or elephant might have some discriptive vocabulary, but I don't think you should underestimate the amount of communicating they do without words. (People say that even human communication is 80% non verbal or something right?)
Crows can transmit fucking knowledge of faces, houses, tools etc ... whatever it is they have, it's good enough to warn other crows not to fly over that house, or to attack the human with this face.
I doubt they transmit knowledge of faces. They just have long-lived memories and the ability to warn comrades of danger. I don't think there's evidence that any description of faces is passed along.
On June 02 2012 23:24 B.I.G. wrote: How awesome would it be to learn to speak dog or monkey. Do you think these animals also have things like dialects that would make it hard for a monkey from west africa to understand a monkey from east africa? :D
I also think that the amount of words an animal language has is linked to the particular kind of animals ability to distinguish objects. Logical words would be like "safe to eat" "not safe to eat" "danger"
we already know that some of these "words"exist (for example the different kinds of wolf howls). I can imagine that an intelligent animal like a dolphin, monkey, or elephant might have some discriptive vocabulary, but I don't think you should underestimate the amount of communicating they do without words. (People say that even human communication is 80% non verbal or something right?)
Crows can transmit fucking knowledge of faces, houses, tools etc ... whatever it is they have, it's good enough to warn other crows not to fly over that house, or to attack the human with this face.
I doubt they transmit knowledge of faces. They just have long-lived memories and the ability to warn comrades of danger. I don't think there's evidence that any description of faces is passed along.
It's probably more location/sound/scent related. Considering that a lot of humans beings already have trouble telling apart people from certain ethnicities, I doubt crows will have an easy time telling apart humans purely based on their faces..
On June 02 2012 23:24 B.I.G. wrote: How awesome would it be to learn to speak dog or monkey. Do you think these animals also have things like dialects that would make it hard for a monkey from west africa to understand a monkey from east africa? :D
I also think that the amount of words an animal language has is linked to the particular kind of animals ability to distinguish objects. Logical words would be like "safe to eat" "not safe to eat" "danger"
we already know that some of these "words"exist (for example the different kinds of wolf howls). I can imagine that an intelligent animal like a dolphin, monkey, or elephant might have some discriptive vocabulary, but I don't think you should underestimate the amount of communicating they do without words. (People say that even human communication is 80% non verbal or something right?)
Crows can transmit fucking knowledge of faces, houses, tools etc ... whatever it is they have, it's good enough to warn other crows not to fly over that house, or to attack the human with this face.
I doubt they transmit knowledge of faces. They just have long-lived memories and the ability to warn comrades of danger. I don't think there's evidence that any description of faces is passed along.
It's probably more location/sound/scent related. Considering that a lot of humans beings already have trouble telling apart people from certain ethnicities, I doubt crows will have an easy time telling apart humans purely based on their faces..
Still not convinced ?? Edit : first video link is not working for me atm, don't know why. The times article is still good tho. Edit 2 : their " temporary technical difficulty " isn't as temporary as they say, but i found the same video on youtube :
So think again
On June 03 2012 08:25 Gummy wrote: I don't think there's evidence that any description of faces is passed along.
EPT
