Re: Octupus and Sentients

abrigon wrote:
>
> I think that just cause we use speech that it is the only way is
> a bit of speciesial bias).
The point wasn't speech, but rather LANGUAGE, which can take many forms,
even in humans, there are at least three major forms that language takes
- audial (speech), gestural (sign language) and various forms of marks
on certain substances (writing).  I suppose you could include tactile
(Braille) - so, three senses used by Humans - sight, hearing, and touch.

Language is a specialized form of communication, which enables complex
thoughts to be transmitted, it is flexible and broad.  Bees have a form
of communication to indicate where a food-source is, but it's extremely
specialized, only indicating where food is.  Other animals have ways of
indicating specific types of predators, but that's not flexible, it
can't be extended, nor can it indicate other concepts.  Language, on the
other hand, is broad, flexible, and "modular", so to speak, that is, it
is made up of specific units (phonemes, morphemes) which can be combined
in an infinite number of combinations to communicate any concept
imaginable to the speakers of said language.

> I know of whole sci-fi novels where the two species/cultures had
> to figure out how to communicate..
Yeah, no way of knowing how other creatures might have language, but
there would be evidence of language, behaviors passed on from individual
to individual that are too complex to have been learned by mere
observation, for instance.

My favorite form of non-audial communication would have to be colors,
which an octopus or chameleon could presumably use.