If people evolved from worms, then there is a tubular aspect to humanity. We seem to have a tube that goes from mouth to anus. I believe that all mammals have this tubular aspect.
While I do believe there is such a thing as cross-species communication (we can talk to dogs, and throw frisbees to them, and they get it), can we actually share communion with a dog, or a cat? Are they capable of spiritual recognition having to do with the presence of God in a wafer? Or is a wafer always just a wafer to a dog or a cat? Can an animal think symbolically about the notion of eternity?
When we say that some peoples are "closer to nature," as it is often said of Native Americans, for instance, is that a good thing?
Cowboys are really horsemen. That is, the men who herd cattle, are generally seen as satyrs, men riding horses to the extent that they seem almost inseparable, joined at the hip. Such men have been thought to represent something important about America. What is it? Independence? And yet, neither the cow nor the horse is independent. We are all three very social species.
We can teach animals tricks. We can use them as symbols (the owl of Minerva, or the Sacred Bat in the Jim Carrey vehicles).
And we can become more like animals to some extent. We can say that someone is quietly walking like a cat, or that they have the curiosity of a cat, or that they are catty, to take one example of how we use the different characteristics of a cat to name similar propensities in people. (The more obvious brunt of the cat's simplicity clarifies similar attitudes that are harder to put your finger on in people.)
People can be like bears, or they can be like mountain goats. And sometimes whole populations take up a skill that is more or less like an animal's general propensity. Mountain-climbing Nazis, people speaking out of their rear end, or we say that older women who go after younger men are "cougars."
And increasingly we want to free animals. It may have started with the book and later the film, Turtle Diary. No, before that is certainly Black Beauty (written by a Quaker). And now more recently we've had Free Willie. In Free Willie whales are given many of the characteristics of humans -- long-term recognition of family, and the ability to strategize carefully, and play on human emotions.
The boundary between man and animal is unclear. If we have evolved from worms (most significantly at the Diet of Wurms), and yet still retain a tubular aspect (indicative of evolution), what does this mean?
Does it mean that animals have souls, and thus deserve human rights? What about slave-holding ants? When the painter Edward Hicks choreographs his animal kingdom paintings having to do with lions lying down with lambs, how do we correlate it with the PEACE that is present as a kind of end-game in communist theory? Peter Singer (a known Hegelian) and the animal rights people try to extend the logic of the Constitution (all men) to all species.
If we were created by God to play steward over the rest of creation, our superiority is clear. And yet there is the tubular aspect which seems to remind us that we are diet for worms.
We appear to be living in what might be described as a rotisserie of animal flesh in which our affinity for animals gives way to our rending of their flesh (our teeth indicate that we were intended as omnivores even if many today would have us living in harmony, and putting away our forks, and taking the subway to a vegetarian cookout in Safari Park).
Our church still has basement dinners after the service. I noted this weekend that there were "devilled" eggs, and "angel food" cake, as well as ham and muffins. If we cannot have a saintly attitude toward all living beings, then how can we be one with the universe? We clearly are not one with the universe if we must eat parts of it, in order to salvage our physical unity.
We eat (which is generally kind of disgusting). And worse, we poop. We do that in absolute private, turning the water faucet on to disguise the air rushing from the tube, and try not to fart in public, because it is yet another reminder of the tubular aspect. The spiritual significance of evolution has yet to be clocked. When we really hate someone we say that they are an animal. Can the faith be reconciled to the reality of evolution?
One aspect that is rarely discussed is sexuality. While the ELCA condoned masturbation in 1957, and since then has eased strictures on homosexuality, (they're just about to ordain homosexuals), they retain the stricture against abortion (at least it's frowned on, indicating they believe in the SANCTITY OF LIFE), the fact that we're bipedal as opposed to quadrupeds (so are chickens) and the fact of procreation itself (which the Catholic monks are not allowed to practice) remain vestigial traces of a disembodied spirituality which has yet to take on the facts of evolution. What does it mean that we are competitive, and that our genes must procreate, as our only means toward eternity, which is what the Darwinians claim?
Marxists are perhaps even more messianic in their drive toward non-competition than Christians. In the light of Darwin, is this realistic?
The tubular aspect threatens to destroy all values, and make us into mere animals. And yet at the same time, there is the attempt to make all animals into saints. The ontological uproar of Darwin's discoveries (the huge heads of Easter Island!) have yet to be reterritorialized into a clear understanding of our role in the world.
The tendency is for us to be dissociative, to deny the tube, even if it means turning on the tube. But now of course, there's Animal Planet right next to EWTN.
30 comments:
Very nice.
If people evolved from worms, then there is a tubular aspect to humanity.
Actually, there's a tubular nature to humans whether or not they evolved from worms, but the later explains the former, along with a lot of other things.
I believe that all mammals have this tubular aspect.
Not just mammals. All vertebrates are chordates, hence worms. So fish are tubular, and frogs are tubular too.
The boundary between man and animal is unclear.
I don't think we'd have any difficulty classifying various animals living today as human or non-human. It's only when you consider the question over evolutionary time that it becomes difficult. Were the Neanderthals human? What about Homo erectus? Australopithecus?
I think language matters. We know that lesser animals (gorillas, whales, birds) have language, so it is not a simple matter that having language makes you human, and not having it doesn't. Perhaps we need a language sufficiently powerful to express the notion of God.
If we were created by God to play steward over the rest of creation, our superiority is clear. And yet there is the tubular aspect which seems to remind us that we are diet for worms.
I don't know as stewardship implies superiority. But yes, we are animals in our physiology, which should remind us that we are a part of nature, not something disconnected from it. We can't damage nature without damaging ourselves.
One aspect that is rarely discussed is sexuality. While the ELCA condoned masturbation in 1957, and since then has eased strictures on homosexuality, (they're just about to ordain homosexuals)...
I'm not sure this is right. I've read "faith and trust" which deals with the issue of homosexuality generally, and it doesn't do much more than try to establish a shared scriptural and theological framework for discussion going forward. It tries proactively to detoxify and de-demonize (is that a word?!) the debate, giving pretty much everyone credit for good faith. It does make positive statements about the need for sex ed. to be taught, realistically, and with values attached. It comes down against sexual exploitation (gee, there's a tough call). That sort of thing. I'm told that there's another document that addresses issues around ordination. My expectation is that there will be no blanket lifting of the stricture against ordaining sexually-active homosexuals, but the door will be opened a crack, permitting (but not requiring) individual synods to ordain sexually-active homosexuals for certain ministries. A trial, if you will. But I've seen social statements suffer some peculiar fates on the convention floor -- and I for one think we'll just have to wait and see.
What does it mean that we are competitive, and that our genes must procreate, as our only means toward eternity, which is what the Darwinians claim?
You're saying more than Darwin ever did. Evolutionary biology does not deny the existence of God and the soul, although some who practice it do. What does it mean? One thing is that we've come from a long line of evolutionary winners. Every single one of our ancestors succeeded in procreating. Of course, this is true of everyone around you -- even the worms.
You wrote:
"Our church still has basement dinners after the service."
Did the basement women cook the meal for the congregation? Or was it potluck and egalitarian.
WW
(of course I had to ask!)
It was Father's Day so the women did cook and were happy to do it. I haven't heard the term Basement Women except from you, though. Geez, what a terrible term.
Like the Night of the Living Dead.
Thanks to Stewart for the lengthy and kindly response.
I'm in woodstock, NY (the famous one ) at their library.
Not sure what that means, but I thought I would tell you this.
We may have evolved from worm-like creatures, but not from earthworms. Earthworms, by the way, are annelids, not chordates. We appear to be more closely related to starfish, for example, than earthworms.
stu wrote: We know that lesser animals (gorillas, whales, birds) have language, so it is not a simple matter that having language makes you human, and not having it doesn't.
It is not generally accepted that gorillas, whales, or birds have language. Yes, they communicate, but bacteria communicate, too. No nonhuman communication system has ever been demonstrated to have, for example, a recursive grammar like human language. There really are major differences between languages and animal communication.
George --
I believe you introduced the term "earthworm" as distinct from worm. I did specify chordates in my comment, which a more generous correspondent might have taken as evidence that I'm not completely innocent of biology. I prefer to be corrected for errors that I actually made.
As for language, I never claimed that nonhuman animals have recursive grammars, just that they have language, which to me means vocabulary and grammar with an associated semantics. And yes, I know that without recursion, grammars can only generate finite sets. Even so, there are still good theoretical reasons based on learning theory for thinking about finite sets in terms of grammars that generate them (e.g., minimum description length). Still in all, it seems to me that having a vocabulary (and this is generally granted for the species I name), and the ability to use that vocabulary in combinations (thereby gaining a multiplicative increase in expressive power, again generally granted) qualifies as language. If it does not to you, that's fine. But I will say this -- if you're going to draw the line at recursion, be prepared to be embarrassed. That we haven't found it yet doesn't mean that it's not there, and even though recursion buys you a lot in generative and expressive terms, once you've got a grammar-based language, you're most of the way there.
Grump.
i would say that as long as whales sing
they have language as long as gorillas grunt and screech they have langauge as long as birds tweet and warble it can be said to be language
it's odd to think that simply because we are epistemological we know that we know we tend to think that our communication system is the most complex and nuanced
and perhaps it is
but we don't know for sure
perhaps one of the big ignorances of empirical science in biology is the preupposition that we are observing inferior species
i guess the only distinction that i can see is that humans do homour they do stand up they do gestures calculated to make people laugh
i know dogs sometimes respond to human laughter
we've seen dogs that sing
howl OK but that's singing
i am a worm and no man
ps. 22
humility is tubular i guess
it is a disparagement to ignore the intellect to that extent i agree with george there is nothing on the planet that we observe to match the intricate curiosity and analysis and description ability of the human mind...so while anything can consume the sanctified bread and wine it cannot convey grace as when we consume our lord
for we associate something deeper something essentially ritualistic something completely human...through the practice of partaking in the sacrament we continually open ourselves to the possibility of living a holier life where as anything else would simply treat as food
i'm still not convinced that evolution is the ticket
i mean the ants i see could very well have appeared as the very ants that were around 3 million yrs ago...with very little change
it seems like something happened to change the direction of humanity but i think everything else has pretty much stayed the same nothin has changed for millions of years except some things are extinct like the dodo
panpsychism read all about it on steve shaviros blog
i would tend to agree with the idea that all of live is infused with a discernible energy we might as well call mind
i mean there are flowers that eat flies...not that they think about it but maybe they resonate with pleasure
uvular hells
st benedict is fond of the saying from ps 22
i am a man worm and no man
monks are supposed to bear that in mind in the practice of humility
kinda slimey
yo
j
stu,
I won't be embarrassed if any animal ever is discovered to have a communication system with recursive grammar. On the contrary, I would be very excited. My feeling, however, is that developing recursion is more difficult than you apparently think. I could well be wrong, however.
I don't know of any strong evidence for animal grammar, though, although I admit I haven't looked for it for a while now. I've seen come forms of grammar claimed in the past, but it never seemed convincing to me that it was grammar rather than (merely) the stringing of vocabulary items together. Maybe there's been something more recent I'm not aware of; I'd appreciate it if you could point me toward something.
Looking back, I see that earthworms hadn't been mentioned specifically by name. I'm sorry. Kirby's picture of an earthworm got lodged in my mind.
When you can honestly say that earning a master's degree in English lit is the worst thing that ever happened to you it's pretty hard to maintain that you've led anything other than a charmed life.
George --
I won't be embarrassed if any animal ever is discovered to have a communication system with recursive grammar.
I can think of one animal species with a recursive grammar. Our's.
My feeling, however, is that developing recursion is more difficult than you apparently think.
We have an easy existence proof that it's happened once.
Actually, it's worth being a bit fastidious here. We don't. The current standard models for linguistic capability in humans are based on grammars, but its clear that actual human language production has limitations that are not easily captured within this formalism. There are also features of a few languages (the most accessible is respectively clauses in English, but there are better examples out there) that grammars (at least CFLs and their ilk) can't capture. So there is active research on alternative formalisms.
I don't know of any strong evidence for animal grammar, though, although I admit I haven't looked for it for a while now.
Google "birdsong grammar." I believe that the case for underlying grammars is better established in the case of songs than, e.g., the use of language by gorillas. This actually makes a lot of sense, given the relative complexity of song. Indeed, wouldn't it be amusing if a critical step in the evolution of human language was mimicking birdsong? That, in some fundamental way, we needed to sing before we could speak?
And don't worry about the worms -- you caught me at a grumpy moment. I recognize my own failing in that.
jh --
perhaps one of the big ignorances of empirical science in biology is the preupposition that we are observing inferior species
Actually, I think that Biologists have encouraged us to think about our connectedness to other species, and so have chipped away at the sense that we're special, rather like the Astronomers. That said, the old ways of thinking still pervade our language, and therefore continue to inform our intuitions at a very deep level. I don't think that Biologists lose much sleep over the pain and suffering their science requires that they inflict on laboratory mice. Their hope, of course, is that the results of their work will save human pain and suffering, which they regard more highly -- but this embodies the phenomenon you spoke of.
stu,
A quick look through some search results for "birdsong grammar" leaves me distinctly unconvinced. I'm probably just using the word differently, though. To me, the existence of a "grammar" implies that some utterances would be ungrammatical, lacking well-formedness. The preference of female finches (or whatever) for more "complex" songs doesn't seem to me to be at all the same thing.
It seems to me more akin to something like competitive skateboarding (or something similar). There are a lot of different moves and stunts skateboarders can do, and the better routines are more complex and more difficult. Impressive, yes; language, no.
A quick look through some search results for "birdsong grammar" leaves me distinctly unconvinced.
I thought the article "De novo establishment of wild-type song culture in the zebra finch" was worth considering. The basic idea that a zebra finch colony raised in isolation, over the course of several generations, formed song patterns that converged (in some sense) on wild songs. The fact that it happened, but required several generations, to me argues for innate capability coupled with learning, modification, and selection.
stu,
Learning, modification, and selection, yes. But how is that like language? That's certainly not how human languages behave over time. If people are isolated, their language doesn't converge to some predetermined type. This experiment has essentially been done with deaf children and sign languages, and the sign languages that developed weren't similar either to each other or previously existing sign languages.
Learning, modification, and selection, yes. But how is that like language? That's certainly not how human languages behave over time. If people are isolated, their language doesn't converge to some predetermined type.
Of course not -- there are many languages. Convergence is to a subspace, not to a point. But they do emerge. Likewise, I think, with the zebra finches. It's not that they converged on the same song (I suspect there's spacial and temporal variation in the wild), but to songs which had similar characteristics.
This suggests that the space of birdsongs, like the space of languages, is constrained in interesting ways. A natural way to express those constraints is often via grammars, which is where we began.
I wondered how long it might be until the two Lutheran mathematicians came, and sparred, on the blog. Not long. About a week.
Recursion I understand as looping back, and looked it up, and found it here. I did read Hofstadter on Godel, too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion
I think the main point here is that recursiveness tends toward the infinite, as in an Escher drawing.
Otherwise we're talking about a finite string tha tdoesn't signify anything beyond itself.
And this made me think about a book on Godel I tried to read. I didn't understand anything but the abstract, and even that I may have misunderstood. It said that Godel thought that thought was infinite, and that the human mind was infinite, and that mathematics was infinite.
I then read a biographical account of Godel which mentioned that he was Lutheran.
How Lutheran?
Last week they had a talk about birdsong and human speech at the World Science Foundation but I didn't go. I wanted to go, but got slowed down by something, and didn't end up going. I wonder if something that was said there touches upon this topic.
I think our main question here is how does the human mind's recursiveness rise into the infinite in a way in which the worm's mind does not.
Hofstadter seemed to me to be saying that recursiveness was a feature of life, all life, not just human life. But Chomsky apparently argues that recursiveness is what separates us from all the other animals in terms of our language versus theirs. But there are challenges from two sides, one is that some human languages are not recursive, and two is that some animal languages are recursive.
Could recursive mean also ability to reflect on oneself, as in a memoir?
Can a chimp look back over her life and wish to take back all the bananas she took from other chimps?
Can a chimp feel regret over past actions, and then resolve to do better, and then actually do better? Is that a kind of moral recursiveness?
I don't think a chicken or a pigeon or any other bird (except maybe a crow) could manage that.
Were dinosaurs the irreflective twits that they were usually portrayed as? We do still have living dinosaurs. Birds. All birds stem from the lineage of dinosaurs, apparently, and of those, the crow does seem to be able to reflect.
I think they even possess law.
I'm not sure that crows possess law. But in Seattle a cat ate a baby crow. For years after the crows harassed that particular cat, and eventually a crow pecked out one eye of the cat. After that, they left the cat alone.
An eye for an eye, is something that crows more or less understand, and that they wanted the cat to understand. I don't know if the cat did understand any more, but it stopped going out.
In Hithccock's The Birds he imagines the moral outrage of birds. Sort of like the revolution going on in the streets of Teheran. The mad mullahs are not yet scared, though.
is it a congress
or
a murder of crows
??
j
A natural way to express those constraints is often via grammars, which is where we began.
But where is the grammar? I remain unconvinced that there is "grammar" in birdsong: Do the birds parse the utterances they hear? Are there ungrammatical utterances? Do the utterances exhibit dependencies in "meaning" between "words" at some distances from each other? Perhaps they do, but I've not seen any evidence of such. So where is the grammar?
But where is the grammar?
Presumably, in the capability that birds have for birdsong. That's Chomsky's claim, anyway, that lies at the heart of linguistics.
I remain unconvinced that there is "grammar" in birdsong: Do the birds parse the utterances they hear?
Actually, a more interesting question is whether or not humans parse the utterances they hear. There is reason for doubt. In formal language theory, we're used to thinking about different processes for generation and parsing. But my linguist friends tell me that human speech recognition is built on top of language generation, which is how they explain the "surprise" intrinsic in garden path sentences.
Are there ungrammatical utterances? Do the utterances exhibit dependencies in "meaning" between "words" at some distances from each other? Perhaps they do, but I've not seen any evidence of such. So where is the grammar?
Actually, I think there are "ungrammatical" birdsongs. Sing it wrong, dude bird, and there's no mate for you!
Certainly, you read about notions like "subsongs," and if you've got a half-way decent ear, and a varied bird population locally, you can go outside and hear birdsong that contains repeated elements, indeed in ways that resemble nontrivial rhyming patterns: e.g., AABBA, for the limrick bird :-). I did this this morning, and the first bird I listened to was singing (AB)*, where the nonterminals corresponded to obvious pause separated, word like vocalizations. And this kind of structure certainly suggests (again, via MDL considerations) grammar.
Presumably, in the capability that birds have for birdsong. That's Chomsky's claim, anyway, that lies at the heart of linguistics.
Chomsky's claims are often quite controversial, and Chomsky is not the be-all and end-all of linguistics.
Actually, a more interesting question is whether or not humans parse the utterances they hear. There is reason for doubt. In formal language theory, we're used to thinking about different processes for generation and parsing. But my linguist friends tell me that human speech recognition is built on top of language generation, which is how they explain the "surprise" intrinsic in garden path sentences.
Of course, humans parse language. Garden path sentences show that certain constructions can be ambiguous in their parsing up to a point, and that it's possible to begin parsing with the incorrect interpretation, then later in the sentence realize that that cannot have been the intended construction. This doesn't mean we don't parse language.
Actually, I think there are "ungrammatical" birdsongs.
Perhaps, but the papers I've read don't show this.
Sing it wrong, dude bird, and there's no mate for you!
That doesn't necessarily mean it's ungrammatical (i.e., meaningless due to being ill-formed). That means it's not attractive to the females.
Certainly, you read about notions like "subsongs," and if you've got a half-way decent ear, and a varied bird population locally, you can go outside and hear birdsong that contains repeated elements, indeed in ways that resemble nontrivial rhyming patterns: e.g., AABBA, for the limrick bird :-). I did this this morning, and the first bird I listened to was singing (AB)*, where the nonterminals corresponded to obvious pause separated, word like vocalizations.
Oh, yes, I've heard this many times.
And this kind of structure certainly suggests (again, via MDL considerations) grammar.
It doesn't suggest grammar to me. It suggests rhythm recognition. Again, this seems akin to designing a skateboarding routine, or writing a musical composition. Certainly it's a nontrivial task, and requires intelligence, but how is it language?
Chomsky's claims are often quite controversial, and Chomsky is not the be-all and end-all of linguistics.
Of course they're controversial—that's the point. And while he may not be the be-all and end-all, he's not chopped liver, either.
Garden path sentences show that certain constructions can be ambiguous in their parsing up to a point, and that it's possible to begin parsing with the incorrect interpretation, then later in the sentence realize that that cannot have been the intended construction. This doesn't mean we don't parse language.
OK, there's parse, and there's parse. Humans use their generation capability to drive predictive parsing, where semantic mapping occurs in parallel, online. This is a performance hack to take advantage of the parallel capabilities and mitigate the serial processing limitations of the wetware. My point, though, was that the human parsing process does not resemble in any way DPDA approaches. Nor is it clear that a there is ever a full parse tree constructed—since the semantic assignment is the goal, and subtrees are chunked, mapped, and discarded while the token stream is being processed. This makes garden path sentences very expensive to understand, because by the time the error is manifest, too much of the earlier parse has been thrown out, and there's not much alternative but to reprocess the whole token stream, with a few new hints guiding the process. Happy now?
>Sing it wrong, dude bird, and there's no mate for you!
That doesn't necessarily mean it's ungrammatical (i.e., meaningless due to being ill-formed). That means it's not attractive to the females.
Hey, the message was, “Let's get it on, baby!” She didn't get it. Whether you call this ungrammatical or unattractive hardly matters from an evolutionary point of view. Genes not transfered, whatever the cause, equals failure.
>And this kind of structure certainly suggests (again, via MDL considerations) grammar.
It doesn't suggest grammar to me. It suggests rhythm recognition.
Friend, we are going to have to agree to disagree. It's a pretty tangential point, anyway. This all started with my contention that I think language is relevant in trying to understand what we mean by human. The point I raised in assigning a language capability to non-human animals, though, is that it's not a simple matter of "you have language, or you don't," and I'm not confident that we will find easy agreement on where to draw the line. E.g., perhaps H. Erectus populations had two dozen calls, signifying a similiarly limited palette of ideas. Perhaps this palette was more or less constant, but the vocalizations themselves had to be learned, and were idiosyncratic to the population. Is that language? Probably not, but it's not an easy call, and there's a high probability that there will be intermediate points where people of good will will disagree. So by arguing over birdsong, you're helping to make my point.
i have mastered at least one loon call
and i get responses
i am sure of it
j
stu,
And while he may not be the be-all and end-all, he's not chopped liver, either.
My point is merely that saying "Chomsky says" is neither evidence nor argument, that's all.
Humans use their generation capability to drive predictive parsing, where semantic mapping occurs in parallel, online.
This was basically my point. I was responding to your claim that "a more interesting question is whether or not humans parse the utterances they hear." Of course they do. The interesting question isn't whether they do, it's how they do. There's a lot we have yet to learn about this, and phenomema like garden-path sentences are useful tools to help us understand.
Hey, the message was, “Let's get it on, baby!” She didn't get it.
But how do you know she didn't get it? She didn't respond the way that the male bird would have liked, but that doesn't mean she didn't get the message.
The point I raised in assigning a language capability to non-human animals, though, is that it's not a simple matter of "you have language, or you don't," and I'm not confident that we will find easy agreement on where to draw the line.
I'm sure you're right here. But my point is that, so far as we know now, there is in fact a vast difference between human language and any animal communication system we are aware of. This is not a disparagement of animal communication systems. They are quite often very complex and no doubt the animals find them very useful. But they really don't appear to be language in anything like the same sense that "English" or "Tagalog" are languages.
So by arguing over birdsong, you're helping to make my point.
If you say so.
My main objection is simply that there is a tendency for people to make grandiose proclamations about animals and their communication abilities for which the evidence is nonexistent or ambiguous at best. There are indeed certain analogies between people and animals and the ways they communicate, but animal language? It would be immensely cool. But what we do see of animal communication is already immensely cool.
i have mastered at least one loon call
and i get responses
i am sure of it
Darn it, jh, you're making people stare at me!
My main objection is simply that there is a tendency for people to make grandiose proclamations about animals and their communication abilities for which the evidence is nonexistent or ambiguous at best.
But there is evidence. That it is not entirely conclusive is hardly the point.
Language capability isn't a one-bit switch. If we imagine projecting language capability onto the continuum, with a rock having a language capability of 0, and humans having a language capability of 1, what is the language capability of a zebra finch? I'll grant that it's nothing like being on par with human language capability, but would you give it a zero? I wouldn't. But maybe 0.01. You would then argue that that's a lot closer to zero than one. True enough. I'd argue that it's not zero, and therefore represents a significant capacity, and a step in the direction of language that shouldn't be brushed aside.
And suppose that we were comparing the hypothetical language system of H. Erectus (a couple dozen calls) with birdsong. Then the gap is much less, and calling one language and the other not begins to feel either arbitrary or Homo-centric.
This all really began with Kirby's statement that the boundary between man and animal is unclear. I think he was wrong, if the question is interpreted to apply to modern forms, but I right if applied to ancestral forms as well. I suggested language capability as a means to reduce the "contested" set. I still think this is a reasonable position.
There was a science program a few years ago which told the story of a weird parasitic worm which is endemic to Southeast Asia, a black flat worm. This worm predates upon other worms. Hideous thing, kind of like a flattened leech, it's blind like other worms, and when it makes contact with a regular worm, it slimes up and over it, attaching itself, and sucking the life-juices out of the victim.
These worms were somehow transported to rural Scotland, where they've been destroying the countryside. Apparently, certain kinds of peaty, boggy down must be aerated through worm action, or they become logged and muff-up with big tufts, making them agriculturally useless. These introduced alien worms completely depopulated the resident domestic worms, and fields all over Scotland had been decimated.
This problem of species migration is happening all over the world. There's a foreign kelp from Asia that's been destroying parts of the Mediterranean. In California, there are these weird non-native parasitic snails which kill trout.
This is a big problem.
Anyway, worms.
Kenneth Burke argued that man is the animal that practices yellow journalism. So he was saying that we were in a sense worse than all the other animals. We have evolved an intelligence that we used to malign others, and pull them down, levelling them, so to speak. I think he was being witty, as usual, rather than really honest, but he got at part of our simian heritage, I suspect, and how we use language in certain ways. It's interesting to think about how this tendency is curtailed in authoritarian regimes precisely because they are aware of how often it is effective in destroying authority. Jesus used language very effectively, for instance. His questions still haunt me, and us. The parable of the Good Samaritan is only 150 words. It's not exactly yellow journalism, but it does wipe out the priestly elite, and others, while pushing the Samaritans up, an ironic thing to do since the Jews and the Samaritans were at odds and viewed one another with suspicion.
I don't know if birds can practice yellow journalism in terms of their calls. It does seem that crows have a bit of sarcasm, but do they really?
But there is evidence. That it is not entirely conclusive is hardly the point.
Yes, there is evidence, but I think it's still a long ways from "not entirely conclusive".
Language capability isn't a one-bit switch. If we imagine projecting language capability onto the continuum, with a rock having a language capability of 0, and humans having a language capability of 1, what is the language capability of a zebra finch? I'll grant that it's nothing like being on par with human language capability, but would you give it a zero? I wouldn't. But maybe 0.01. You would then argue that that's a lot closer to zero than one. True enough. I'd argue that it's not zero, and therefore represents a significant capacity, and a step in the direction of language that shouldn't be brushed aside.
I think we don't know nearly enough about how humans developed language historically and currently process language to know whether zebra finch's songs are a significant step in the direction of a human-like language or a blind alley (towards a human-like language, in any case; it seems to serve finches well enough). Assigning a linear scale from 0 to 1 essentially is making the assumption that it is, in fact, not a blind alley. I think it likely is not, but remain unconvinced.
That is, communication ability is not a one-bit switch, but neither is it a one-dimensional continuum.
all creatures follow the law of their habitus...the ants have a law that says you have to be able to carry things bigger than your self
the crows have a law of raiding nests
the squirrels have a scampering law
the worms and other tubular type things have orgies
loons sing one song in the spring another predomintaes through the summer and yet another song comes forth when autumn breeze begins to blow
cows on the priarie know enough to stick their asses in the wind to get rid of flies
territoriality amongst domesticated cats and dogs is generally acknowledged by cats and dogs
the poker playing dogs all have an agreement that they will on occasion chase cats
carrion birds are communal
it's the law
herd instinct is a law
racoons and turtles and deer in the upper midwest all have a suicide law in the summer months they simply agree that cars will take some of them out and that's the way it goes...law of chance i don't think so
yeah i don't know about the winners of the big dog shows i mean do the dogs take on vanity like hollywood starlets do
does a horse know it won the kentucky derby or is it just happy to get back to some food and farting in the barn
i remember being fascinated by dogs who dreamed out loud who ran and barked in their sleep
to have ponderred long the intricacies of nature without having presumed to condense the observations into science is the truest path to wisdom
musical tubes
trumpets tubas sax flute oboe bells organ pipes bagpipes whistles
tubesounds
j
At any rate, I liked some of the vadlo biology cartoons!
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