Einstein of the Ape World

[Spinward Scout]

Just picked up the new National Geographic today. On the cover is Inside Animal Minds. Interesting article that could be of some use in Traveller if you want to use pre-sapient or precocious animals in an adventure.

But the most interesting is the article about Kanzi the Bonobo at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. They think this Bonobo might actually be trying to speak English. The article says that the researchers are thinking it is English but too fast and high pitched. He uses stone tools and communicates 'normally' using an iconographic language called lexigrams.

I think I might go for a ride this summer. Des Moines is only 5 hours away from me.

 

[far-trader]

But...

...we haven't even domesticated and enslaved them yet! They aren't supposed to learn to speak until after we all have trained ape servants!

 

[Renaissance Man]

There's actually an interesting debate about Kanzi worth checking out. I've always been fascinated by the origins of language, and the various theories of how it developed in humans, as well as examples of putative animal language.

And you gotta love that photo of Kanji.

 

[Sturn]

But...

...we haven't even domesticated and enslaved them yet! They aren't supposed to learn to speak until after we all have trained ape servants!

That gave me a chuckle. Also, should we now be worried about our cats and dogs dying off from some new disease?

 

[Spinward Scout]

There's actually an interesting debate about Kanzi worth checking out. I've always been fascinated by the origins of language, and the various theories of how it developed in humans, as well as examples of putative animal language.

And you gotta love that photo of Kanji.

Those MIT people seem to have pretty closed minds about it. They don't seem to be looking at it as communication. All creatures communicate in some way. Crickets chirp, birds whistle, whales sing, my cat meows. Just because WE don't know what they mean doesn't mean that it's nonsense. Those MIT people sounded like they would think it's pointless to teach a mentally challenged person to talk. Elitist thinking.

You should read the National Geographic article - I think you'd like it. A lot of libraries can get them if you don't have circulation in your area.

 

[aramis]

The whole issue of language use and development is one that many, especially in the IT side of things, reduce as low as possible down the food chain.

Many programs now are at least as good as some parrots at obeying and parsing subject-verb-object. Many programmers see this as "debunking animal intellect"... it really doesn't, but instead speaks to the caliber of programming.

Many others look to the prgrammers' arguments as well... but without realizing that parsing is but one of several related tasks. Many of which a bonobo can do, but the best computers can't: to act on a novel term and pick the correct novel item. Parrots, too.

Animals are far smarter than many want to admit, and not quite as bright as many fringe-types claim.

 

[veltyen]

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. (B. F. Skinner)

The collary of course is that every time a machine completes a task formerly assumed to only be in the realm of human endeavor, the goalposts are moved. A "mind of the gaps" effect.

 

[Blue Ghost]

My dog could open doors, knew geographical locations, understood commands (as most dommesticated animals are apt to learn), and knew my emotional state, not to mention having self awareness of when she had dome something wrong. And she continued to learn up until her passing over ten years ago.

Animals may not be able to crank out a solution to a third semester calculus problem, but they do communicate with one another, and learn just as we do. They may not be able to carry the number of "intellectual details" that our minds can, and are limited in manipulative capactiy that we can perform, but animals are indeed much more intellegent than the ivory tower types give them credit.