Re: planets

>From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
>Subject: Re: planets
>Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 20:01:49 -0500
>
>Ajin-Kwai wrote:
> >
> > Ummm, I'm just wondering what makes us assume that ANY higher animal
> > showing "intelligence" is not sentient (octopii, chimpanzees,
>dolphins,etc.)
>
>Well, then why don't we say that ants are sentient?  We have to have
>something to define sentience, or intelligence, for that matter.  Maybe
>ants are really super-intelligent, but their thought-processes are so
>alien from ours that we can't understand them?  Sentience is, of course,
>a poorly-defined concept at best, but I'd say that language is a part of
>it, and there's been no evidence of language in non-human animals,
>except MAYBE (and this is highly doubtful, IMO) chimpanzees (and even
>there, AFAIK, no one's claimed that it exists in nature) - but I don't
>want to get into THAT discussion again.
>
>Obviously, there's no way to prove that they DON'T have language either,
>but I feel that with the evidence we have, it's more likely that they
>don't.
>
>Also, I've heard that many dolphin experts say that claims of dolphin
>intelligence are greatly exaggerated - that they're really not much
>smarter than cats or dogs, that they're sense of play misleads humans
>into thinking of them as more intelligent.  Whether or not that's true,
>I'm not qualified to say.  Also, I've noticed that people tend to assign
>intelligence to the cute dolphins, but are less willing to assign it to
>the less cute octopi.
There is some evidence that dolphins have the equivalent of names in
their communiction system, but whether it resembles language elsewise
is unknown. There also evidence of some linguistic competence is some
birds, specifical parrots.
Non-linguistic signs of intelligence are seen in many species. Tool
use by sea otters, birds, and chimps. Octopodes contruct shelters out
of stones. Chimps and octopodes can learn from observation. Pigs
learn somethings faster than chimps, i.e. that controlling a joystick
moves a cursor on a screen.
Sentience is just human type intelligence, does not mean there are
not other types, just that we are likely to either miss it, or not
understand it.
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