What makes homo sapiens "human"?

Hi Custard, I do not know if this constitutes "language" but there is an African Gray parrot named Alex that does more than merely mimic human speech. This bird uses appropriate words in appropriate ways and times. I personally own an african gray parrot and he does not say good night in the am. Nor does he say good morning in the nightime. When I come home he says hello, and when I leave he says good bye. Not by my prompting him. I believe this animal has learned to both speak and the meanings of these words and this in my opinion is using language.

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"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

Not to sound too glib, but what is the most in depth conversation you have had with your parrot?I humbly suggest that your parrot has merely learned when to make these sounds through trial and error and observation. My dog has similar behaviors. He will often go to his crate when he sees me preparing to leave (shower, put on clothes, shoes, etc) without prompting. Is he psychic?No, he has simply learned that when I put on my shoes, I'm getting ready to leave. He knows I command him to go to his crate before I leave and that he will probably get a reward for going to his crate.Also, are you sure your parrot NEVER says anything inappropriate? It NEVER says 'hello' for no reason, or 'good morning' after 11 AM? NEVER? I also suggest you may be guilty of selective memory - i.e. remembering the times the parrot said something that seemed appropriate and forgetting the times he said things what were not appropriate.People do this all the time. We focus on the hits because they seem extraordinary and discount the misses because that is what we expected. That's why psychics and fortune tellers still con folks into believing ESP through cold reading.I would be interested to see if you tracked what he said for an entire week, and when he said it. That would be great data to support your position.I don't mean to suggest animals aren't smart, they are. I just haven't seen evidence for their ability to use language.This message has been edited by custard, 06-29-2004 12:03 AM

Hi, Custard I do not know if you have children, but how many in depth conversations have you had with a three year old? If language is leaning and using words to convey meaning then by definition the bird did so. I tried to give a link it does not work.. type in a search: {ALEX Parrot} for more information. I do not know if you have any knowlege of African Grey Parrots but they do seem to exhibit the ability to speak appropriate words, Yes mimic at first and then learn the use of the word. Just like a child would.

Good question. Actually many of my friends have children between ages 2 - 4, and frankly I'm amazed how well kids can communicate when they want to. They can tell you the most fantastic stories, relate actual events, and are capable of understanding abstract ideas such as 'truth' and 'fair.'Do you have kids? Ever heard a three year old try to explain to you why he didn't break the glass in the kitchen? Or who really ate the last cookie?And how about Santa as an abstract idea? Would an animal be capable of understanding what a fat man in a red suit flying around on a sleigh pulled by magic reindeer is doing distributing presents each year? Three year olds have told me why he does these things.Or Jesus. I've had three year olds give me their versions of baby Jesus. They are able to understand that Jesus is a sort of concept and not a real person they will see when they go to church.My point in relating all this is I think people get too impressed by the limited communication animals are capable of performing. There is a massive gulf between people, even children, who use language and an animal that understands some commands and the name of a few objects.Like the linguist I quoted earlier said (paraphrase)"if a child were to communicate like even the best chimp, we would consider him disturbed."

As an emotion, it's certainly "considered apart from concrete existence." "Mad" is certainly abstract."Concrete" are objects that exist in space. You are a concrete object, as am I. "Humanity" is not, because it's "Thought of or stated without reference to a specific instance".Now that we've got that little grammar primer out of the way... Does your dog bark "about" being mad when he's not? Being able to recognize emotional states in other entities is an example of abstract thinking. Your dog takes certain actions when he's mad, but he doesn't make reference to the emotion itself - he has no concept of the temporal nature of emotions. (As far as we know.) You may not have read closely enough. The chimp in question (Panbanisha) was not communicating her own emotional state, but that of another. That's abstract thought and additionally, one of the precursors of consciousness - the ability to form a "theory of self", a mental ability to percieve other individuals as having the same internal faculties (personal narrative, emotional state) as yourself. It's the difference between your dog ringing the bells when he wants to go outside and your dog ringing the bells when he knows another dog wants to go outside. It's the ability to think of others as having the same emotional and mental life that you do.

No, but if he understands another's name, and uses it to reference the other thing, that's abstract thought.I have two cats with different names. To my cats, one name means "high likelyhood of food" and the other means "low likelyhood of food" and none of the other sounds of speech have much meaning for them. That's what it means to recognize names without abstract thought.

Well hell, how about all the times that humans have communicated nonsense, or failed to be interpreted correctly? Does that mean no human can communicate?If you can train a chimp, behaviorally, to go through all the motions of language to such a degree that they appear intelligent, how do I know the same isn't true for you? How do I know that Custard is "really" capable of abstract thought, and not simply the result of very good training?Isn't that what we do to babies? Train them for language, behaviorally? How do we know that all human beings aren't simply "dogs doing tricks"?We're in some pretty deep philosophical waters, now, and at this point, we're talking about what constitutes intelligence. It's like the Turing test for AI in computers - if a computer can convince a human interoggator that it is intelligent in enough situations, isn't it? If that's not sufficient, how do I know that any human is intelligent?This message has been edited by crashfrog, 06-29-2004 12:55 AM

Custard, here is part of one of my earlier posts:
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Perhaps a definition is needed here. As a general clarification: In my initial post, though perhaps not clear, I was thinking of traits as binary - a species either has them or they don't. (Since I obviously know a computer is a far more sophisticated tool than a hammer and anvil...)
___________________________________________I think many of your arguments against language in chimps have to do with degree (you want to see a chimp pen a haiku), animals using human language, and concerns (not invalid) of anthropomorphism.Early field biologists dismissed the idea that chimps had language given their relatively limited vocal expression. Only more recently has the enormous range of gestures and extremely low vocalizations begun to be appreciated (quiet vocalizations and subtle gestures may have evolved as a safety mechanism in the wild). [I think that was in Marc Hauser's "Wild Minds" - but I don't have a copy right now...]In "Next of Kin" (if you choose to trust that particular group of researchers) - the chimps of the study colony had holiday parties as enrichment (I won't disagree that this is problematic). But what was interesting is that the chimps would spontaneously ask about the next appropriate holiday shortly after a current holiday was over, and in an appropriately sequential way. (Like three year old humans and Santa Claus? I don't know.) I don't understand Vietnamese, so it must not be a language? Wasn't that a similar point of yours earlier?If you took the average American, played them a recording of the click language of the East African Bushmen, I'm sure most would say that it wasn't a language.Are whale songs simply mating calls, abstract communication, or jazz music? I'm not sure why an absence of evidence is leading to your conclusion that language does not exist in animals. Wouldn't Jesus have shown his face 'round here if he really existed?Wouldn't an ape have given birth to a human if evolution really occurred?

I humbly, and without guile or malice, suggest that you did, too.

I wonder if chimps consider humans disturbed when we speak - since chimps rarely vocalize above a murmur except during extreme emotionality.

Apes taught ASL have demonstrated this name recognition - some regularly (and emotionally) sign about deceased colony members and their attributes, years after their death. Fairly abstract, methinks.

Hmm. The concept 'mad' may be abstract - e.g. what does it mean to be mad? - but learning the name for a series of actions (e.g. tantrums, screaming, etc) 'mad' is not the same thing. There is nothing in your article to indicate that the chimp is aware of the difference. What I got after re-reading the article yet again, was that the human was the one who interpreted the chimp's meaning and actions. She/he took 'waa waa waa' to mean affirmation of the question she repeated back to the chimp? Why? Why didn't Bobo just sign 'yes?' What's with the 'waa waa' crap. If that is Bobo's vocalization for 'yes' why doesn't it say that in the article? Why write 'which he took to mean..' at all?Look, do you really think a chimp can tell the difference between a concept and a word its been taught to associate with an action or object? Don't you see how there is no comparison between the ability of a child to communicate thoughts, feelings, ideas, and abstractions and a chimp? The critics in your article certainly do, and they say so quite eloquently.Go back and re-read the entire article. It already has far better criticism of your claim, and by far more learned individuals, than anything I can offer.

No offense, but re-read the article. The criticism specifically states that name recognition or assigning a name to an object is not abstract thought. Again, my dog knows what the names of his toys are. Is he capable of abstract thought?As for the death argument, yeah, I hear that all the time. I hear it about cats and dogs too. It doesn't convince me they have any notion or understanding of the concept of death.Look, if you have more articles or data indicating otherwise I'm all ears; but Chicken Soup for Your Pet's Soul stories aren't convincing (e.g. I heard chimps who can do this, I heard whales who can do this, my parrot understands language because he says hello).This message has been edited by custard, 06-29-2004 01:20 AM

No it isn't. That is object recognition. Abstract thought would be if your cat Muffy understood what it meant to be 'Fluffy' not that the other cat who lives in this house is called 'Fluffy.' Muffy doesn't understand Fluffy is a type of animal different from an animate object like a robot or car.Look here is a better example from a PBS program regarding the same chimps from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/chimp_5-6.html: Sorry if that is long, but it illustrates what I am trying to say. Communication does not define language. Word-object association does not mean abstract understanding.This message has been edited by custard, 06-29-2004 01:37 AM

No, that's abstract thought, too. Learning that one word can refer to a set of many words is abstract thought. Well, there's nothing to indicate that any human but me is aware of the difference. Presumably because that chimp has used that to mean "yes" before. When someone nods in response to your questions, why do you take it to mean "yes"? When a chimp is observed using words which don't refer to objects or actions, that's the most likely conclusion. And I felt the researcher adequately addressed those critics - she pointed out, as I said in my post, that they were simply ignoring behaviors in chimps that are considered precursors to language in humans. I find their criticism to be a double standard, and therefore I don't assign a lot of validity to it. And it has better rebuttals to those arguments than anything I can offer. I'm not saying that the question is definitively answered. But it's a duplicitous double standard to simply dismiss the notion that these chimps are actually learning language. The question is far from settled, but you and the critics seem determined to move the goal posts whenever a chimp (or whatever) gets a little closer.