>>>However, that communication is quite limited. I doubt that one dog can or
>would even think of describing to another dog the beauty of a sunset he had
>witnessed.
>...>>
>
>You missed one point, Bill. I'm looking for data points
>which are without question. I'm asking science here, not philosophy.
Okay. Fair enough. Although I'm not ready to concede yet that there is no
possibility of scientific comparison of human and animal communication.
>
>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.
What is WEW?
>
>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 ...
However, important differences may not be easily expressible as absolutes.
As I said in an earlier post, I believe humans have an ability to use
abstractions that is not present in animals. One of the examples I gave
was banking and investment. But I suppose you could demur that that's just
a refinement of money, and that certain types of birds use sticks (for
example) as a medium of exchange and therefore money exists in the animal
world.
>
[snip]
>
>>> 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.
If this is universal behavior on the part of dogs (and though I've never
conducted controlled experiments, I've never seen a dog show an interest in
representational art), it still says something about the difference between
dogs and humans: Humans are _interested_ in abstract representations, dogs
are not. I chose dogs because they are reasonably intelligent. Perhaps we
should investigate chimps. I recognize the difficulty of investigating all
animals and propose we constrain the universe we investigate to some subset
that is reasonable. That subset should be chosen so that if we can
establish that it cannot or does not do something humans do, it is unlikely
that the rest can or do either.
>Also -- you'd have to test EVERY non-human
>life form assuming you could unambiguously measure it).
Establish for me that an amoeba can appreciate Picasso and I'll buy you a
steak dinner. I think we could probably establish some reasonable limits
on the scope of our investigation that would make it a less daunting task.
We could limit it to animals with lenses in their eyes, as well as having
the senses of taste, smell, touch and hearing and some minimal manipulating
capability in their limbs. It would also be reasonable to put some
constraints on nervous system development which would eliminate creatures
like snails.
I just had a thought on the issue of clothing. A hermit crab occupies the
shell of another animal that has died. Does that qualify as clothing?
There is a pest called a bagworm -- a catepillar which encases itself
partially in leaf fragments cemented together with spittle (I presume).
They apparently do this for protection while they are still active,
_before_ they enter the pupa stage. Does that qualify as clothing?
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)
hamilton@gmr.com (office) | whamilto@mich.com (home)