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In my opinion, the biggest mystery is not why we humans developed language, but why nobody else did. (Mark Liberman) http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002239.htmlSo why the difference between our species and others?
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> but why nobody else did
don't they?
dolphins, whales?
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So why the difference between our species and others? Well, here's a hint: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/Ldev.html I'm too tired at the moment, and not professionally qualified anyway, to get into detailed explanation, but in essence: biology. We have bigger, better brains; to say nothing of mouth and vocal cord structure. The blog summarized in mav's link basically said in 12,000 words, allegedly, what we talked about here ages ago: essentially, that language developed out of need. The need for survival, that is. As in, "gurf" + [point] + [two-arm wave], then "oog" + [hand slashing across throat] = "Y'all head over thataway and run the critter toward me, and I'll kill it". Etc. Here's an explanation by y'all's friend: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1978----.htm
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even more telling is humans have the ability to understand the past, and how it influences the present, and the future.
an animal might be able to catch a trace of a scent, and know a lion has been near by, recently.. but a human can see (though often not smell the scent of lion) and look at its tracks and KNOW which when the lion went.)
human see the world differently--(and we rely on sight more than scent) and we can see a lion's prints in the sand, and know, by looking at them,--with some training--how old they are, and with almost no training, what way the lion was going.
animals can smell a lion and think --Lion was here.. not here now... look around not see or smell 'fresh lion' and go on.
they can't see the lion tracks and know --Lion went north (i'll go south) it can only hope that the lion isn't up wind of it. --and if it is, and it can't get a scent fix, it will walk along the same path the lion did--oblivious to the tracks the lion layed down.
Humans can see a lion's tracks, know --a lion was here (recently)about as effectively as an animal can with scent --but it can also--trace back were the lion came from and where its is headed.
humans know if you follow a lions tracks at the end, there is a lion (and we had an interest in killing of prediors that competed with us, (and that also saw us as prey!)
the same tracking skills were used to hunt prey by humans.
the cognative brain delevopement (that allows us to see tracks and understand what they mean) also allowed for the developement of language.
we not only need a 'call' for--Lion, NOW, lion but one for Lion WAS here, -and Lion WENT THAT WAY. (or even Lion WILL BE BACK) and that is part of language. past, present, future.
animals can remember some of the past, and repeat actions, but they can't think to the future.
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Yes, all valid points to some extent.
> don't they?
dolphins, whales?
That was my first reaction, eta - doubtless influenced by the fact I've just been reading Elaine Morgan's The Aquatic Ape, in which she synthesises the scientific evidence and theories suggesting an important period of human evolution that would place us in a directly analagous state to other water-based mammals, not least in terms of brain development and language and social organisation.
Does anyone know what more up-to-date thinking is on these theories? (meanwhile, keep on eating those omega-3 fatty acids!)
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even more telling is humans have the ability to understand the past, and how it influences the present, and the future. Helen--that's excellent! to some extent to some extent?? Awwright, you, just what are you after? 
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Well, I'm just not sure of the starting point. Are we unique, a complete difference of quality, or is the difference in language largely a quantitative one? And doesn't the cognitive functionality that allows us to make patterns of the kind Helen describes stem from language use - a post facto accretion, in other words?
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Gotcha. Thanks. I'm going with yes on Are we unique, a complete difference of quality . Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that your last sentence in the post above could be taken to mean that if we humans have developed pattern-making functionality as a result of language use, then at least some animals ought to have been able to do that also. But they haven't. Even all the work with sign language in lower primates has not given them the fluidity and the nuance capability that we have. Here's one reason I voted for our uniqueness: ...the neocortex is assumed to be the superior ("neomammalian") part of the brain, which makes up the majority of the cerebral hemispheres. Species which are considered to be highly intelligent, such as humans and dolphins, tend to have large amounts of neocortex. This structure is assumed to be responsible for higher cognitive functions and is associated with greatest behavioral complexity. This was from a link to a discussion of intelligence at this neat website: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Home1.htmlI think it's neat because it's easy for those of us nearer the ignorant end of the biology-knowlege spectrum to find things. The link also offers this interesting comment, mav, which I think speaks more to what you were saying--or to the discussion you were trying to engender?--although it does not refer to language:
Often we define intelligence with respect to human qualities. Thus, as we tend to consider ourselves as the most intelligent species, we compare other species to ourselves. Yet, is this really possible? One scientist suggests that humans tend to ignore any intelligence that is somewhat different than our own: "We willingly accept the idea of intelligence in a lifeform only if the intelligence displayed is on the same evolutionary wavelength as our own. Technology automicatically indicates intelligence. An absence of technology translates into an absence of intelligence."
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of Troy I think you are underestimating the cognitive skills of at least some of the great apes. You would enjoy Jane Goodall's wonderful books about her study of chimpanzees, In the Shadow of Man and Through a Window. The chimps have some impressive abilities that I was unaware of until I read those books. You will have no doubt that they are able to not only think about the future, but also conceive of solutions to problems and then carry them out. They are also aware of the past and grieve over the deaths of loved ones.
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the biggest mystery is not why we humans developed language, but why nobody else didTHE BEE LANGUAGETwo thousand years ago the Poet Virgil wrote a book about bees and the joys of bee-keeping; in classic Latin but largely childish fables. Although the insect has been studied for ages, the whole story and the true story of its wonderful ways is not yet half told. In 1901, Count Maeterlinck's famous "The Life of the Bee", proclaimed honeybees to be so human-like and intelligent that they had a language -- an idea ridiculed by John Burroughs, the naturalist, and other scientists.
Experiments by a professor at the University of Munich, Karl von Frisch, have proven that the facts about bees are more amazing than any of the many romantic poems and melodramatic fables. For instance, a worker bee which has discovered a new supply of food can, after her return to the inside of the hive, in total darkness, give other workers precise information about it and its location!
Only a bare outline can be given here but the many marvels of bee language are told in fascinating detail by von Frisch in a little book published by Cornell University
Press.http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/300-399/nb337.htmUCR Entomologists Report Bee-Dancing Brings More Food To Honeybee ColoniesSource: University Of California - Riverside Date: 2002-12-16 "The dance language is the most complex example of symbolic communication in any animal other than primates," said Visscher. "Our study is the first test of the adaptive value of the dance language. It provides insights that may be of use in manipulating foraging behavior of honeybees for pollination of crops."
There has been a long-simmering controversy over whether the direction and distance information in the dance is actually decoded by the recruits which follow the dances, or whether recruitment is based on the recruits learning only the odor food source from the dancer, and subsequently searching out the food based on odor alone. Several experiments have been published that have convinced most scientists that the bees can decode the direction and distance information, but the relative role of odor and location information has remained in question.To test the effect of the information in the dance, Sherman and Visscher turned the normally vertical beehive on its side. With the combs horizontal, there was no upward reference for the dancer to use in orienting her waggle runs, and it performed disoriented dances, in which the waggle runs pointed in all directions. To experimentally restore dance information, the experimenters provided a directional light source, which the bees interpreted as the sun. The bees proceeded to do well-oriented dances at the angle relative to the light.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021216071100.htm
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Does anyone remember the name of a book that came out a few years ago (exerpt in Readers Digest, I lost the scrap I wrote the title on) that looked at animal intelligence in terms of their ability to problem solve in order to achieve their own needs. He didn't attempt a scientific approach but used information from trainers, keepers, etc.
Includes anecdotes like the orangutan who sound a piece of wire and not only learned to pick the simple padlock of his cage but kept the wire hidden, often in his cheek, for a few weeks. Left the keepers mystified as to how he and the other orangs kept getting out of their night cages.
The most amazing story to me was of the orca, unused to swimming with trainers, which without instruction held position in its pool while a trainer climbed on its head to free the sling which had jammed holding its calf a few feet above the water. It made me reassess my ideas about animal's ability to think in terms of future possible and to conceive solutions.
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Jackie's quote says it for me:
The link also offers this interesting comment, mav, which I think speaks more to what you were saying--or to the discussion you were trying to engender?--although it does not refer to language:
Often we define intelligence with respect to human qualities. Thus, as we tend to consider ourselves as the most intelligent species, we compare other species to ourselves. Yet, is this really possible? One scientist suggests that humans tend to ignore any intelligence that is somewhat different than our own: "We willingly accept the idea of intelligence in a lifeform only if the intelligence displayed is on the same evolutionary wavelength as our own. Technology automicatically indicates intelligence. An absence of technology translates into an absence of intelligence."
we think we are so damn superior...
and evolution ain't done yet....
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So has anyone read anything on the Aquatic Ape stuff?
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well, I got 65,000 googlits (AllTheWebs, actually...) which ranged from total support, to Wikipedia, to measured dissent, to bunk. and more, which after a couple of glasses of wine, aren't really going to sink in (haha, sink in...), so I'll google again tomorrow... oh, and a Grauniad article, too! 
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The silver disks don't really change this communication -- if it is one -- in any essential way.
I beg to differ. You can't eat a silver disk. The monkey recognized the symbolic nature of the silver disk. The grape all by itself doesn't have symbolic value; it's food.
In the other article the author seems to be suggesting that there are forms of animal communication that don't have a mode of communication. Ummm …, huh?
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> So why the difference between our species and others?
An unpopular theory:
The North African jungles receded toward the end of the most recent ice age, giving way to grasslands, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the branches and took up a life out in the open - following around herds of ungulates, nibbling what they could along the way.
Among the new items in their diet were mushrooms growing in the dung of these ungulate herds. The changes caused by the introduction of this diet containing psilocybin created the synesthesia which led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.
About 12,000 years ago, further climate changes removed the mushroom from the human diet, resulting in a new set of profound changes in our species as we reverted to pre-mushroomed and frankly brutal primate social structures that had been modified and/or repressed by frequent consumption of psilocybin.
All primates - and we certainly are primates - have what are called 'male dominance hierarchies'. This means that the meanest monkey in a tribe takes control of the group resources, the females, the weaker males, and this character runs the show, and this is pretty much how we do it today.
In the manure of the ungulate animals that evolved with the primates on the grasslands of Africa, was the mushroom which acted as a force for directing the evolution of human beings away from that of the rest of the anthropoid apes and toward the unique adaptation that we see as special to human beings today.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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> dood, that's kewl.
Yeah, right on man.
I think it's the only, repeat, only compelling theory there is unless you just go for the, 'well it was bound to happen' or 'there were many reasons' option or assume that there are simply massive holes in our understanding of human movements and development (i.e. that we didn't come from Northern Africa, etc.)
I mean, thick skinned dead elephants... it's pretty wafer thin.
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Re: All primates - and we certainly are primates - have what are called 'male dominance hierarchies'. This means that the meanest monkey in a tribe takes control of the group resources, the females, the weaker males, and this character runs the show, and this is pretty much how we do it today.
i don't agree with statement.
1--not all primate have male dominated 'social' structures--many do, but not all.
and human's have had (and continue to have) many forms of social living.. matriarchial societies are not abnormal for humans, less common perhaps, but many societies have had matrilinal succession of 'kings/queens', and many societies value village elder (men and woman) equally.
anthropologist have noted, the size of males sex organs are a good indicator if a primate society is generally poligamous, or monogamst.. and humans (as indicated by the size, relively, of male sex organs) tend to be closer to a monogamast.. and tend to have one to one relationships, even if, serially, partners are changed every few years.
We might not mate for life, but generally men have one to one relationship with females.
for the most part, men are unable to perform multiple sex acts, (with one or several partners) with any frequency. and they are unable to sustain 'harems' based on sex, and keeping the females satisfied (sexually) or even just pregnant, since women living in a 'harem' type situation tend to sychronize their ovulation.)
harams have existed.. but most often they were shows of power (money/assets) rather than a situation were one dominate male being responsible for impregnating all submissive females --something a Silver back ape can do--Mature Silver backs can have sex a dozen or more times a day, for days on end.. a feat few 20 year old men can accomplish--and almost no mature (40year old) man can boast of- and all the viagra, cialis and other drugs in the world doesn't change this.
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> not all primate have male dominated 'social' structures--many do, but not all.
I would be interested to learn of these exceptions - I don't know of them.
> Human's have had (and continue to have) many forms of social living..
No doubt. That societies outside our Western history have non-patriarchal societies seems like a good signposting to me. But who would deny that our history is a tale of male domination and present state is one of continuing lopsidedness. The only female figures who stand out in history are almost always presented as whores either to emotion or men (e.g. Mary Magdalena, Cleopatra).
Let me say that I think mongamy, and not polygamy, is a central feature of male-dominated societies. As monogamy ensures (to some extent) that patrilinear genetics can be followed.
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So has anyone read anything on the Aquatic Ape stuff? I have read the book some years ago, and was so enthusiastic about it that I lent it to a friend - and it never came back. Recently there was an article about Elaine Morgan in the "New Scientist". She is still going strong.
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anthropologist have noted, the size of males sex organs are a good indicator if a primate society is generally poligamous, or monogamst.. and humans (as indicated by the size, relively, of male sex organs) tend to be closer to a monogamast
So ... is size directly or inversely related to the number of partners?
I have managed to resist posting about a dozen bawdy jokes. But I'm losing control, fast.
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the bigger the bollox, the more he frolix.
Animals that 'keep harems' of females tend to have larger sex organs than animals that tend to live in sex seperate groups that only meet once in while when a female is in heat.
Horses keep harems.. elephants don't.
some 4 legged animals have long and bony penises.. (simple to physically get to the female, but harem keeping animals (especially among primates) have large than, well, larger than needed sex organs. (and higher levels of testosterone) in order to show dominance and maintain order (by frequently engaging in sex acts.)
among all primates, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy... and one way to keep mama happy is sex.
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>among all primates, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy... and one way to keep mama happy is sex.
Apart from the rather disturbing oedipal overtones of the above, "all primates" is taking it a bit far. Last time I looked, I approximated the definition of a primate, but I gotta say that I would be hard-pressed to think of anything that was less important to me , or less relevant to my survival, than my mama's happiness.
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max, redefine mama as your current wife..
now- now important is her happiness to your current life?
Personal politics, --getting along with family members, work mates, neighbors is vital to all of us.. we are social animals, that chose, (generally) to live in groups.
sometimes a group as small as 2.. often larger than that.
Primates that live in harems, (where one male dominates and is father to all of the children of the group) re-enforce dominance with sex.
a new male coming into a group will often kill any unweaned young, and immediately set about getting the females pregnant with his sire.
Not all primates live in Single male dominated (or even in male dominate groups) but for all animals that live in groups, social interaction (from simple grooming) to who gets to have sex with who, and how often are big part of the social structure.
one group of monkeys has 'solved' the problems of tension between members by freely, and frequently engaging in sex.
the young are taught (by example) to masterbate, and engage in sex play. the adult are the human equivalent of 'swingers'. there are very few 'partners'--rather all members of the troop sexually interact with each other. including male to male and female to female sex acts.
Researchers freely admit, that animals that behave in ways that human society are uncomfortable with, often don't reported on, or their behaviors are glossed over.
in addition to other characteristic we share, sexual pleasure seem to be import to a number of other primates.
sexual is used to bond relationships, at one extreme by dominating and controling the sex females can get (where a single dominate male gets all the woman and all the sex,) or at the other extreme by equalizing and reducing tension by having all females available to all comers at all times..
and by many other behaviors that fall between these extremes.
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In reply to:
max, redefine mama as your current wife..
HELL NO! Yrch, that's a nightmare it's gonig to take a while to scrub out of my synapses. If your previous post hinted at Oedipus, the above screams it. You'll forgive me if I find the idea repulsive beyond words.
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How do you pronounce that?
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>How do you pronounce that?
Sorry, my limited Quenya has a heavy NZ accent (which might make it more authentic these days).
I hope I didn't spoil sjmaxq's fun by revealing where he got "Yrch" from.
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The more that research is done on "harems" within the animal world the more it is found that this is unclear at best and wishful thinking at worst. It is the dominant mare of a herd of wild horses that decides where they will graze etc. The impressive looking male of a pride of lions is dependant on the females for successful hunting and often to help him chase off encroaching males. If they withdraw their support he doesn't last long. A documentary of one type of primates (macacs???) showed that they lived in a large herd of smaller family groups consisting of related females and their young and an unrelated "dominant male". At one point the females of one family suddenly turned on their male and very aggressively drove him off even biting him. The cause seemed to be some injury to an infant, possibly accidental. Eventually he was allowed back and spent a great deal of time grooming the females and cuddling babies to regain his position. With many primates the infants are very important and a male with adultory on his mind may make friends with a baby first to gain entry to a group since no one will attack when he is holding an infant. It seems that many of the so called harems out there are actually matriarchies with a kept stud. 
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The only female figures who stand out in history are almost always presented as whores either to emotion or men (e.g. Mary Magdalena, Cleopatra).
Hatshepsut, Elizabeth I of England, Catherine the Great, Catherine de Medici, Artemesia Gentileschi, Christine de Pisan, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the dowager Empress of China, Abigail Hancock, Nellie McClung, Mrs. Pankhurst, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters; all, all, obviously whores to emotion or men.
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It seems that many of the so called harems out there are actually matriarchies with a kept stud.
When I kept sheep, I made sure that I made a pet of my dominant ewe, because where she went, the flock followed. Both times I had wolf attacks, I lost the ram, who stood and fought while the ewes and lambs got the hell outta there. We also noted the formation of matrilineal mini-flocks within the larger flock - mother, daughters, granddaughters sticking together while the grandsons and sons (those who didn't take the tour of Northern Quality Meats) split off into a bachelor flock that stayed apart from the ewe flock - a state encouraged by the lead ram.
One year my bachelor flock consisted of two - Laughing Boy, our "pony with wool" and Fafnir, an impressively horned white Icelandic ram. Eystein, the black ram, kept them away from the ladies and lambs. The two of them busted through the fence and took up residence in a beaver meadow on our property. There was a stream running through the meadow, and a young bear lived on the other side of the stream. He never bothered the boys - too fond of his hide, I daresay.
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Thank you for your list, Elizabeth. Other names also come to mind but I think the point is made.
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The paper’s author has taken issue with Mark Liberman’s discussion of Dead Elephants: http://www.derekbickerton.com/blog/_archives/2005/7/1/989877.html Amongst other points he says this: Mark, in quoting from The Symbolic Species you seem altogether unaware of the main point of the book, which began with just what you call the biggest mystery–why lots of creatures don't have language. And Terry answered it–symbolism is very hard to achieve, and dead counter to the way other animals' minds work. There's a second good answer: they don't need it. It's all very well to point out the various advantages language confers, but evolution has no look-ahead, so no animal could know any of this.This seems to me to be logically flawed on a fundamental level. To extrapolate his argument, if evolution did have a “look-ahead” he seems to be implying that other animal forms would have developed language. Rubbish. The way we know evolution works is nothing to do with this kind of ‘motivational’ effect – it’s to do with post-facto outcomes. In other words, evolution is a constant process of variation which liberates the seeds of new possibilities, and converse pressures of environment and competition dictate which prove to be an advantage. Those animals carrying an evolutionary change that so proves to be a practical advantage will be more likely to carry those genetic characteristics into the next generation, whilst unsuccessful characteristics will tend to be extinguished. So in the case of language, I suggest his position is untenable: since he accepts language confers many benefits, the question still remains why no other species seems to have developed the same kind of conceptualising capacity we have. Of course, the aquatic ape theory does suggest some possible links with animals like dolphins which seem to have come closest…
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Mayhap it would be more correct to say: no other species seems to have developed the same kind of conceptualising capacity we have. ...yet. Who's to say that dolphins' minds, for ex., won't evolve to a higher level? Perhaps where they are now is maybe the equivalent to our Homo Erectus, or something.
But then again, I don't know if any other creature will ever need to develop brains enough to follow the relationships at the wedding I went to last night. I'll have to use names; otherwise some of the descriptions are going to take a paragraph each. Okay:
The bride and groom were Jake and Jade (sorry, I feel compelled to disguise the names, just in case).
Jade is the daughter of the man who used to be married to my sister-in-law Amy, who pretty much raised her. Jade's father and Amy divorced some time ago, so does that make Jade Amy's ex-step-daughter?
Now on to the complicated stuff. Jade has two children by a previous relationship and two children, Darla and Cindy, with Jake. Jake's children from a previous relationship, Bob and Lynn, were there, as were Lynn's two children, who are Jake's grandchildren Ellen and Eileen.
So--I think--Jake's two youngest children, Darla and Cindy, are aunts to the children--Ellen and Eileen--of his grown daughter Lynn. And yes--it's as mind-boggling to try and get it all straight when you know them as it is reading about it. Just to add to the mix, Jade's biological mother was there, as well as Amy, and Jade's half-brother--the product of Amy with Jade's father (who was there), and also Jade's full sister.
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
> mind-boggling to try and get it all straight
LOL! Well, I tried, but as you say...
Mebbe the dolphins are already smarter than us, like Douglas Adams implies!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
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So--I think--Jake's two youngest children, Darla and Cindy, are aunts to the children--Ellen and Eileen--of his grown daughter Lynn. And yes--it's as mind-boggling to try and get it all straight when you know them as it is reading about it. Just to add to the mix, Jade's biological mother was there, as well as Amy, and Jade's half-brother--the product of Amy with Jade's father (who was there), and also Jade's full sister.Why is that I heard the persistent, distant sound of duelling banjos while I read this? 
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Awwright, now I have to add this: Jake is a country boy--er, man (yes, I think he's about 15 years older than Jade) who was obviously uncomfortable in his wedding tux. When he first came out to wait for his bride, his pale green silk vest and tie were angling to the right, while his coat was angled to the left. He was sweating (this was outdoors) and struggling with them, at one point yanking so hard that his boutonniere (sp?) literally flew out into the air, and he caught it and put it back. Finally his grown son came over and helped him get everything straightened out, by which time we in the audience were grinning broadly. But that was nothing to the laughter virtually everybody broke out in when, in his finally straight tuxedo coat, vest, pants and tie, he hauled a bright blue bandanna out of his pocket to mop his brow with.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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They's gittin louder. Alla time!
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