You missed one point, Bill. I'm looking for data points
which are without question. I'm asking science here, not philosophy.
Dogs may or may not communicate between themselves about
the beauty of a sunset -- no way to measure. Although, in
WEW, the author describes two situations, one involving
chimps, the other bears, which strongly suggest
such communication.
Communication between non-human life forms may (or may not)
be quite limited compared to that among humans; it is not, however, null.
I'm looking for an absolute, of the form:
All humans do (or exhibit) (or do not do) X
No non-humans ...
To make the exercise simpler, confine "humans" to mature adults with no
known handicaps, such as deafness, etc. Likewise the non-humans.
>> Show any human a statue or painting of a
human, and he/she recognizes it. Show it to a dog and, so far as the dog
is concerned it's just a rock or a colored flat surface.>>
That's a conclusion, Bill, not a scientific observation. The dog may
simply not be interested. Also -- you'd have to test EVERY non-human
life form assuming you could unambiguously measure it).
>>Would a worker bee's dance to show the hive where honey (or danger. Don't
they do it to alert the hive to threats too?) is qualify? >>
I was referring to "dance" in the sense of play here. Maybe bees play.
Dolphins certainly seem to play. Under the terms of my search then,
dance" does not qualify.
Burgy