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Member (Idle past 1434 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Science and Speech in Determining "Human" Kind | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Jon writes: quote: Actually, I did answer that, and will do so again. 'Response to stimuli' becomes 'language' when it stops being 'response to stimuli'. You're misunderstanding (or avoiding) the question. I'm asking how you would literally make the distinction. I'm asking you to design an experiment. You're on one side of the curtain amd somebody (or something) is on the other side. What specific questions would you ask to determine what that enitity was. How, specifically, would you interpret the answers to determine if they were "true speech" or just "response to stimuli"? Assume that you can't identify the subject by way of accent, tone of voice, etc. How would you distinguish, by words alone, between human and animal? Between mature human and immature human? Between human and machine? Until you can demonstrate empirically how you would make the distinction, all you have is a schoolboy hypothesis. “Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels ------------- Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
IamJoseph writes: quote: I think whoever did not select the human kind from a list of all other life forms as possessing a unique factor would fail the test. I'll remind you that you haven't told us yet what the test is. Please post a list of questions that you would ask an unseen subject in order to determine whether that subject was human or non-human. Tell us how you would interpret the various anticipated responses to distinguish speech from non-speech. “Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels ------------- Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Does it mean there's no H and O on Mars? No.
Does it mean if H2O were put on Mars - life would result? No.
Now if one says, the critical conditions are only present on earth, then there goes your adaptation, life from the inanimate, survival of the fittest, etc, etc. I don't know what they are, so I can't tell you to which planets life is potentially limited to. So...speech?
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1434 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
And we were able to, out of a group of three objects of different materials and colours”pink wool, blue leather, green flannel”ask him 'what matpinkrial?', we should assume that he will say 'wool'. Now, we teach him a new colour: 'red'. We teach him ONLY that red is the colour that it is. We run the tests again, this time”pink wool, blue leather, red plastic”ask him 'what ----- ?' (you know what word goes in here, because you have grammar, to demonstrate that, I'm going to leave it blank). Will the bird recognise what you have said? That's the testing that must be done to show grammar. That would be how he learned color. He didn't learn it independently for each type of item.
Thus understanding is not always dependent on the grammar and so just because he deciphers the meaning does not mean he has the grammar stored away in that little bird brain of his. So you concede that he understands the meaning of the words. Dr. Pepperberg says that Alex has a simple syntax. Those put together make communication, speech that is more than rote mimicry.
Clearly, we do not use grammar to get meaning from 'block green' because the grammar isn't correct”i.e., it's missing”; I get meaning from "block green" so I don't know what your problem is. Grammar is the way of connecting simple concepts into more complex concepts, and we can list them plain and simply: blockgreen three wood green block three block wood block three green wood green three wood three green block three wood block three wood green green wood block three green wood block three green block has much more complex meaning than block but more than that we have concepts that modify concepts green block is modified so that "how many green block" is not a question of how many green or how many block. Alex was tested for the first time with that combination of toys and answered that there are three green blocks.
Therefore, when grammar is NOT REQUIRED for there to be MEANING/UNDERSTANDING, showing that the bird understands (if you've even done that much), will NOT show his possession of grammar. To test this, we have to come up with instances in which meaning IS dependent on grammar, such as I've done above. And the examples with the parrot do show that the answers meet the requirements of your test, as noted in the previous post regarding 'k-find-ey' and the like. So, do you want to equivocate, move the goalposts, deny the obvious or admit reality? We have this definition of speech in Message 1:
quote: What part of that is missing in Alex? Enjoy. compare Fiocruz Genome and fight Muscular Dystrophy with Team EvC! (click) we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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Jon Inactive Member |
Grammar is the way of connecting simple concepts into more complex concepts BZZ! Sorry, that's where you're wrong. Can I give it to you all again:
quote: This is the definition used for language:
quote: Note... 'body of words' (lexicon/dictionary) + 'systems for their use' (rules/grammar) = LANGUAGE. This is the formula that I've been repeating to you all over and over and over and over and over again. Mere understanding of vocal cues does not = language. There must be the two parts. GRAMMAR + LEXICON = LANGUAGE
We have this definition of speech in Message 1:
quote: What part of that is missing in Alex? All completely irrelevant. 'Speech' and 'language' have been used as synonyms throughout this thread. IaJ SAW the parrot making vocalisations similar to a humans”I don't think he will deny that the parrot has this faculty. When IaJ, and I might be wrong, talks about 'speech' in terms of its uniqueness to humanity, he is, I am ALMOST CERTAIN, talking about what most would call 'language'. As far as we can tell in time, IaJ is right; language is perhaps the most unique of all features to humanity, and we've yet to find any creature other than ourselves capable of it. If you've been arguing against him using your definition, then I'm sorry to say, you've been fighting a strawman (put up by you in Msg 1) this entire time. Jon
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Jon Inactive Member |
Here are some quotes from the Wiki article on language.
quote: quote: From the Wiki Language Portal, more of the same:
quote: Other sources: ABC.net.au: Page Not Found
quote: quote: quote: quote: More from Wiki on Great Ape Language quote: Wiki on Alex quote: All the studies point to language”what IaJ calls 'speech'”being something which no other creature has been observed to possess, whether naturally acquired or forcefully taught. Humans alone have been shown to have the capacity for langauge; language is a unique kind of communication only possessed by humans. No one has provided any evidence to the contrary. No one has demonstrated that the bird has grammar. No one has addressed the points that the trainer doesn't call it 'language', that Noam Chomsky doesn't call it 'language', that Steven Pinker doesn't call it 'language'. The people who have worked with the bird and the people who have studied language all agree that Alex doesn't possess language. Why is this point so hard for you to grasp? Why is this point so hard for you to refute? Why is this point so hard for you to even address?! All that, on top of the definitions that you've been unwilling to address/unable to refute. The examples that you haven't provided demonstrating grammar-dependent meaning in any of the tests. The list of linguists that was promised, but conveniently never produced. Etc. Your position is completely void of support. When will you give it up? Jon In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist... might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. - Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ En el mundo hay multitud de idiomas, y cada uno tiene su propio significado. - I Corintios 14:10_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ A devout people with its back to the wall can be pushed deeper and deeper into hardening religious nativism, in the end even preferring national suicide to religious compromise. - Colin Wells Sailing from Byzantium
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Jon writes: When will you give it up? When you explain to us, in detail, how you would distinguish between a speaker and a non-speaker - from communication alone, without foreknowledge if it was human or non-human. “Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels ------------- Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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Rrhain Member Posts: 6351 From: San Diego, CA, USA Joined: |
Jon responds to me:
quote: Except that the bird understands the questions presented to him.
quote: Except that the very comprehension of a question is indicative of grammar.
quote: Because that's presumed from the people who were working with him. Have you not read their work in the first place? That's the starting point. You're 0 for 3, friend. Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
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Jon Inactive Member |
Read my other posts. They answer all your questions. Don't reply to me until you have read them, and do not reply to me except with issues pertaining to my more recent posts addressed at your arguments.
If you'd like, I'll link you to them, but most are linked to in the final sentence of message 156.
Because that's presumed from the people who were working with him. Have you not read their work in the first place? Clearly you are the one who has not read it, because the bird's trainer is clear to point out that it's not language. Stop making this claim unless you have specific quotes where they say otherwise. Here's my specific quote (for the billionth damn time):
quote: From the chief trainer herself. Jon
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Jon writes: ... the bird's trainer is clear to point out that it's not language. Dr. Pepperberg is reluctant to call Alex's vocalizations "language". Isn't the issue as much about the understanding of language as about the vocalization of language? He might not be able to speak complex sentences, but if he can understand complex sentences, isn't he using language? “Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels ------------- Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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Jon Inactive Member |
First. It's not my job to prove their is no grammar... it is your job to prove that there is. Nevertheless, I will attempt to address your point.
...explain to us, in detail, how you would distinguish between a speaker and a non-speaker - from communication alone, without foreknowledge if it was human or non-human. I'd ask the individual thinks which are dependent on grammar for comprehension. If the thing failed to comprehend, I'd deduce that it lacked grammar, and so it didn't have language. For example, I'd ask: 'Jack shot Jill. Who died?' Then: 'Jill shot Jack. Who died?' Or, I'd give it a black and white image of a house, and say 'frama', indicating that the image represents a 'frama'. Then, I'd show various slides of colour, telling them each which colour it is: 'red''green' 'pink' 'blue' Then, I'd show it a red house and say 'fredama'. Next, a green house and say 'frgreenama'. Then, a pink house and 'frpinkama'. Finally, I'd show it a table of coloured circles of red, green, blue, and pink; and also with houses of red, green, blue, and pink on that same table. Then, I would ask a question indicating that I want them to point to 'frblueama'. If they possess grammar, they should be able to point to the correct image: blue house. If they do not possess grammar, then we can expect that they will only point to the correct image about 1/2 of the time. In any of these tests, I'd make sure that the meaning of what I was asking was dependent on the presence of grammar, unlike in the questions asked to the bird, where the meaning of 'green block' and 'block green' is the same, and is dependent only on rote memory of the words and their meanings and not dependent on their grammar. You need to make a test that depends on grammar for meaning in order to test grammar. The questions asked for the bird have no hint of a grammar-dependent meaning. How can we figure out if a person knows what a computer is if we never introduce the notion of a computer into the conversation? If we wait for them and they never present it, then we cannot conclude they know the notion of a computer. But, they might know it, and they just never brought it up. So, we need to force them into it by asking 'What's a computer?' And then, by asking a question where the meaning is dependent on the understanding of 'computer', will we be able to deduce if that person knows what a computer is. Likewise, we need to ask a question where the meaning is dependent on the understanding of grammar before being able to determine of an individual possesses grammar or not. Is that more clear? This will be about the fifth time I've given such a similar example. Jon
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Jon Inactive Member |
He might not be able to speak complex sentences, but if he can understand complex sentences, isn't he using language? He was never shown to understand complex sentences where the meaning was dependent on grammar. Read my last reply to you. And besides, the answer's still no: ABC.net.au: Page Not Found
quote: quote: Mere understanding and response doesn't = language. Read that source above. All of it. It answers a lot of your questions. Jon Edited by Jon, : adjustements
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Jon writes: This will be about the fifth time I've given such a similar example. That should be your first clue that you're not answering what's being asked.
It's not my job to prove their is no grammar... it is your job to prove that there is. First, you seem to be under the impression that I'm disagreeing with you and therefore have to provide some "proof" that you're wrong. I'm just asking you to support your position. I haven't taken any particular position of my own. Second, it really isn't about grammar at all. It's about how to distinguish speech from non-speech. If you choose to use grammar as the be-all and end-all requirement for what makes speech, that's fine. But I'm looking for an empirical distinction, not a hypothetical one. As an exercise, how about coming up with a speech/non-speech test that doesn't rely on your favorite definition of grammar? “Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels ------------- Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Jon writes: Mere understanding and response doesn't = language. We're trying to determine a way to distinguish human "kind" from other animals. Are there not apes, etc. whose "mere understanding and response" is better than that of some humans? As long as there's overlap, it's not a difference of "kind" but of degree. “Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels ------------- Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1434 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
All completely irrelevant. 'Speech' and 'language' have been used as synonyms throughout this thread. BZZ! Sorry, that's where you're wrong. Can I give it to you all again:
Message 1 (the OP) In many messages IamJoseph asserts that speech is a marker of the "human" kind. A typical post is ... The question is how do we ascertain this "speech endowed" characteristic using science. Now to determine whether this "speech endowed" characteristic appears in other animals we need a definition of what we mean by "SPEECH" that we can agree on.
quote: I think we can agree that definition (1) is the appropriate definition, and that this corresponds with the "Speech is the expression of ideas and thoughts by means of articulate vocal sounds, or the faculty of thus expressing ideas and thoughts" under synonyms. Thus a member of the "speech endowed" kind of organisms would have the "ability to express one's thoughts and emotions by speech sounds and gesture." If you will look at the opening post and who wrote it, then you will realize that I don't care what games you have been playing with the language issue, the topic deals with speech. You WILL ALSO note that I quoted from Message 1 in the previous post, so it de facto CANNOT be irrelevant to the topic.
This is the definition used for language: Now that AND your definition for grammar ARE irrelevant, for the issue is speech and speech alone to determine what IamJoseph means by the speech-endowed. BTW -- I also note that you go down to the 4th definition for grammar to meet your needs, while you ignore others that don't:
We don't need complete grammar, and we certainly don't need a specialized definition (Generative Grammar) when a general one is sufficient. We most are definitely NOT speaking of a study of all the rules possible for all possible languages. The first definition gives us "the way of connecting simple concepts into more complex concepts," and the second is the appearance of syntax within the speech connecting simple concepts into more complex concepts. All we need is syntax in the communications for it to qualify as speech, and not all the rules of grammar for a whole language. Nor does one need a vast knowledge of the words of the language to to "express one's thoughts and emotions" and meet the needs of speech. And the language used can be any language with any syntax -- the least it needs to be is a "pidgin" language to still qualify as speech by the definition given:
Note the emphasis on speech there. This is definitely what we are talking about in regards to communication between humans and any other species, not just speech between people of different languages and cultures. As noted in Message 145, Alex's use of english has a simplistic syntax (for it is a pidgin english):
She (Dr. Pepperberg) says Alex has simple syntax.
... talks about 'speech' in terms of its uniqueness to humanity, he is, I am ALMOST CERTAIN, talking about what most would call 'language'. And I am certain he is not, for he has denied anything but it being a human trait. His only definition is that "speech" is human speech, so that then "speech-endowed" shows you are human. Nothing but trite tautological self-serving nonsense. If you can get more out of him, by all means go for it.
As far as we can tell in time, IaJ is right; language is perhaps the most unique of all features to humanity, ... Aside from being off topic, this too is patently false, for the only way to come by it is to make the same tautological, begging the question, definition(s) of language -- you are requiring animals to use human language to show that they have the capacity for language -- and completely ignore the communications between animals in their own languages. The fact that humans have yet to comprehend the intricacies of those languages of other species does not reflect poorly on them so much as on us -- if we truly are superior. If it were only simple syntax and sounds -- as you seem to claim -- then we should be able to decipher it easily. It should be a done deal ... unless it is as complicated and intricate as a human language if not more so. But we can teach some languages\symbols\sounds\etc that we know and then speak with them in a pidgin language, communicate in a fashion that would be totally impossible if they had no native language of their own and no capacity for one.
RAZD Message 154 So, do you want to equivocate, move the goalposts, deny the obvious or admit reality? What part of that (definition of speech) is missing in Alex? Want to try again? Enjoy. compare Fiocruz Genome and fight Muscular Dystrophy with Team EvC! (click) we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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