7 ms·

We attribute intelligence to humans, most of which are barely able to parrot what they hear from each other. I don't see why being generous to animals is any ki

by Retra 11y ago

We attribute intelligence to humans, most of which are barely able to parrot what they hear from each other. I don't see why being generous to animals is any kind of a problem... I have a very strong suspicion that our idea of intelligence basically boils down to "can you communicate with it easily?"

salmonfamine 11y ago
> We attribute intelligence to humans, most of which are barely able to parrot what they hear from each other. I don't see why being generous to animals is any kind of a problem... Barely? Humans have an incredibly unique ability to constantly create new sentences, infinitely many of which can express the same idea. That is a unique facet of the human brain. Being snide about humans doesn't make apes any more intelligent. They simply don't have the same linguistic capabilities.
- grecy 11y ago
  >They simply don't have the same linguistic capabilities Which has nothing to do with them being intelligent or not. It would be awesome to see aliens land here with blatantly superior technology, but they have no linguistics at all. Finally everyone would stop thinking you can't have intelligence without linguistics.
  - Swizec 11y ago
    It's almost like our definition of intelligence is biased to favor us. News at 11.
  - stan_rogers 11y ago
    That only makes sense if you conceive of language as primarily an instrument of communication rather than of thought; that is, language is merely communication turned up to eleven. What inclines you to believe that's the case? That isn't to say that a "mechanism" for symbolic thought needs to resemble human language in any particular way, at least as far as serialization goes.
    - ollyfg 11y ago
      This reminds me of the way Big Brother is working on a new language that doesn't have words for things you're not allowed to do - if there's no word for it, how can you think about doing it?
    - panic 11y ago
      The entire concept of a "symbol" is a very human thing -- there are no natural symbols outside the human mind (except maybe inside of a computer, a human invention). Do you need to use symbols in order to organize matter into "technology"? Edit: it occurs to me that DNA/RNA are made of natural symbols, which is a pretty good argument for symbols being important.
      - darkmighty 11y ago
        I think all of this is explained by a linguistics 101 course (I have seen a few excerpts of one lecture). A good reason to use symbols in communication is for reliability (which is needed in the DNA). With a discrete set of symbols you have most likely no degradation (instead some recovery occurs -- like when you interpret a poorly written letter), and with a small chance you understand a completely different symbol. This stops error propagation. Moreover, symbols allow for easy combination, which expands indefinitely the vocabulary with a fixed cost.
      - Scarblac 11y ago
        Bee dancing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance ) is a clear example of symbolism.
    - Natsu 11y ago
      I see language as a sort of 'programming' that we acquire. If it's like software, it should require relatively compatible hardware in order to run the program. It doesn't seem like chimps are able to acquire that the same as humans are, given things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky The signs end up being things like "Grape eat Nim" or "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you."
  - Silfen 11y ago
    Seems unlikely to me, but of course this is all pure conjecture. If human history is any lesson, we've only been able to increase our levels of technology because of positive feedback loops facilitated by our ability to communicate. Could you build a better $technology without the relevant domain knowledge, passed down to you through human language? I seriously doubt it. Instead of making incremental improvements, you'd have to come up with the entire concept from scratch. Edit: Individuals may be smart with or without language. I believe that to be an open question. But technology is the domain of culture, and communication between individuals (diffusion and reuse of ideas, especially) becomes a lot more important.
    - grecy 11y ago
      Of course, I left it vague - who knows, maybe the aliens (i.e. any life form) are communicating in ways we can even detect? Maybe we're simply not intelligent enough to realize that our own form of communication is actually very primitive, and a sign of little intelligence, not great intelligence.
      - 1stop 11y ago
        Then you have changed the point you are making. Intelligence does require communication. You admit that yourself now.
        robotkilla 11y ago
        >Intelligence does require communication The claim he made is that people think intelligence requires linguistics - he then goes on to say that aliens may be communicating in some different way that doesn't require linguistics. At any rate, a number of the arguments made in this thread are absolutely absurd. Of course intelligence doesn't require linguistics - linguistics is merely one of the markers of intelligence. And of course creatures can communicate without language - it happens in nature every day.
        cscurmudgeon 11y ago
  - tiglionabbit 11y ago
    Intelligence aside, a mortal species probably can't have advanced technology without language. You need some way to pass knowledge on when someone dies.
- Retra 11y ago
  What do you mean "incredibly unique?" And what is the value in expressing the same thing in so many different ways? I don't see how you can argue that saying the same things over and over is intelligent. >They simply don't have the same linguistic capabilities. They are really not very different from us in terms of linguistic abilities. Our linguistic abilities are mostly a matter of socialization of history. Feral humans won't be much smarter than an ape.
  - salmonfamine 11y ago
    > What do you mean "incredibly unique?" I mean that no other species has the ability to do the same. > And what is the value in expressing the same thing in so many different ways? I don't see how you can argue that saying the same things over and over is intelligent. Saying the same thing over and over again is not "intelligent." But being able to produce an infinite set of linguistic expressions which express the same idea is atomically indicative of a higher order of linguistic creativity than anything any other species is capable of. I'd say that qualifies as intelligence. > They are really not very different from us in terms of linguistic abilities. Our linguistic abilities are mostly a matter of socialization of history. I'm going to have to disagree in a major way with this. Humans have an innate, generative grammar that allows for a completely different system of communication and thought than that of animals. Animals, at best, may have something like words. But they do not have grammar. That's huge. > Feral humans won't be much smarter than an ape. Difficult to judge which would be "smarter." Secondly, not sure what argument you're making. You're saying that our linguistic abilities are not very different than apes, because they are socializations. But you also claim that humans without language are roughly as intelligent as apes. So, if language does not correspond to intelligence, does that imply that feral humans are just as intelligent as normal humans? Feral humans lack language because the brief period of time in which the human brain greatly expands its linguistic learning capabilities (infancy and young toddler-hood) is spent in isolation -- critical linguistic facets of the brain are never exercised. That period of development does not come back. Their brains are simply underdeveloped, in a fundamental way. I'd say that qualifies as less intelligent. I'd recommend picking up "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker.
    - 11y ago
random_rr 11y ago
Yeah, everyone but you is soooo dumb. Come on man, this isn't very Hacker News-ish, did I stumble on to reddit?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 11y ago
  Nuclear Weapons. Justin Bieber. Sarah Palin. Pet Rocks. Vibram FiveFingers. Need I say more?
xmonkee 11y ago
>We attribute intelligence to humans, most of which are barely able to parrot what they hear from each other edgy/10
sliverstorm 11y ago
our idea of intelligence basically boils down to "can you communicate with it easily?" That's just the main way we are able to recognize intelligence. At least thus far we have had a devil of a time figuring out how to identify intelligence in the absence of communication. The eyes might be windows to the soul, but communication is the best window to the brain that I know of.
7Figures2Commas 11y ago
> We attribute intelligence to humans, most of which are barely able to parrot what they hear from each other. You heard a human recently?!? All I've been getting for the past couple of years are incoherent emails and text messages with all sorts of weird smiley faces. Every time I go out I see lots of humans but they're all staring at these strange devices that you used to be able to talk into.
- tedajax 11y ago
  All these social media/chat app companies are totally wasting their time. It's impossible for humans to even understand each other why do they need to communicate?!!!!
baddox 11y ago
Still, humans are clearly far better than apes at parroting what they hear from humans.
- Retra 11y ago
  That's probably a necessary but insufficient stepping stone to intelligence -- that is, the kinds of behaviors that lead to large scale, relatively immediate multiplication of value.

by Retra 11y ago

salmonfamine 11y ago

> We attribute intelligence to humans, most of which are barely able to parrot what they hear from each other. I don't see why being generous to animals is any kind of a problem... Barely? Humans have an incredibly unique ability to constantly create new sentences, infinitely many of which can express the same idea. That is a unique facet of the human brain. Being snide about humans doesn't make apes any more intelligent. They simply don't have the same linguistic capabilities.

grecy 11y ago
>They simply don't have the same linguistic capabilities Which has nothing to do with them being intelligent or not. It would be awesome to see aliens land here with blatantly superior technology, but they have no linguistics at all. Finally everyone would stop thinking you can't have intelligence without linguistics.
- Swizec 11y ago
  It's almost like our definition of intelligence is biased to favor us. News at 11.
- stan_rogers 11y ago
  That only makes sense if you conceive of language as primarily an instrument of communication rather than of thought; that is, language is merely communication turned up to eleven. What inclines you to believe that's the case? That isn't to say that a "mechanism" for symbolic thought needs to resemble human language in any particular way, at least as far as serialization goes.
  - ollyfg 11y ago
    This reminds me of the way Big Brother is working on a new language that doesn't have words for things you're not allowed to do - if there's no word for it, how can you think about doing it?
  - panic 11y ago
    The entire concept of a "symbol" is a very human thing -- there are no natural symbols outside the human mind (except maybe inside of a computer, a human invention). Do you need to use symbols in order to organize matter into "technology"? Edit: it occurs to me that DNA/RNA are made of natural symbols, which is a pretty good argument for symbols being important.
    - darkmighty 11y ago
      I think all of this is explained by a linguistics 101 course (I have seen a few excerpts of one lecture). A good reason to use symbols in communication is for reliability (which is needed in the DNA). With a discrete set of symbols you have most likely no degradation (instead some recovery occurs -- like when you interpret a poorly written letter), and with a small chance you understand a completely different symbol. This stops error propagation. Moreover, symbols allow for easy combination, which expands indefinitely the vocabulary with a fixed cost.
    - Scarblac 11y ago
      Bee dancing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance ) is a clear example of symbolism.
  - Natsu 11y ago
    I see language as a sort of 'programming' that we acquire. If it's like software, it should require relatively compatible hardware in order to run the program. It doesn't seem like chimps are able to acquire that the same as humans are, given things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky The signs end up being things like "Grape eat Nim" or "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you."
- Silfen 11y ago
  Seems unlikely to me, but of course this is all pure conjecture. If human history is any lesson, we've only been able to increase our levels of technology because of positive feedback loops facilitated by our ability to communicate. Could you build a better $technology without the relevant domain knowledge, passed down to you through human language? I seriously doubt it. Instead of making incremental improvements, you'd have to come up with the entire concept from scratch. Edit: Individuals may be smart with or without language. I believe that to be an open question. But technology is the domain of culture, and communication between individuals (diffusion and reuse of ideas, especially) becomes a lot more important.
  - grecy 11y ago
    Of course, I left it vague - who knows, maybe the aliens (i.e. any life form) are communicating in ways we can even detect? Maybe we're simply not intelligent enough to realize that our own form of communication is actually very primitive, and a sign of little intelligence, not great intelligence.
    - 1stop 11y ago
      Then you have changed the point you are making. Intelligence does require communication. You admit that yourself now.
      - robotkilla 11y ago
        >Intelligence does require communication The claim he made is that people think intelligence requires linguistics - he then goes on to say that aliens may be communicating in some different way that doesn't require linguistics. At any rate, a number of the arguments made in this thread are absolutely absurd. Of course intelligence doesn't require linguistics - linguistics is merely one of the markers of intelligence. And of course creatures can communicate without language - it happens in nature every day.
        cscurmudgeon 11y ago
- tiglionabbit 11y ago
  Intelligence aside, a mortal species probably can't have advanced technology without language. You need some way to pass knowledge on when someone dies.
Retra 11y ago
What do you mean "incredibly unique?" And what is the value in expressing the same thing in so many different ways? I don't see how you can argue that saying the same things over and over is intelligent. >They simply don't have the same linguistic capabilities. They are really not very different from us in terms of linguistic abilities. Our linguistic abilities are mostly a matter of socialization of history. Feral humans won't be much smarter than an ape.
- salmonfamine 11y ago
  > What do you mean "incredibly unique?" I mean that no other species has the ability to do the same. > And what is the value in expressing the same thing in so many different ways? I don't see how you can argue that saying the same things over and over is intelligent. Saying the same thing over and over again is not "intelligent." But being able to produce an infinite set of linguistic expressions which express the same idea is atomically indicative of a higher order of linguistic creativity than anything any other species is capable of. I'd say that qualifies as intelligence. > They are really not very different from us in terms of linguistic abilities. Our linguistic abilities are mostly a matter of socialization of history. I'm going to have to disagree in a major way with this. Humans have an innate, generative grammar that allows for a completely different system of communication and thought than that of animals. Animals, at best, may have something like words. But they do not have grammar. That's huge. > Feral humans won't be much smarter than an ape. Difficult to judge which would be "smarter." Secondly, not sure what argument you're making. You're saying that our linguistic abilities are not very different than apes, because they are socializations. But you also claim that humans without language are roughly as intelligent as apes. So, if language does not correspond to intelligence, does that imply that feral humans are just as intelligent as normal humans? Feral humans lack language because the brief period of time in which the human brain greatly expands its linguistic learning capabilities (infancy and young toddler-hood) is spent in isolation -- critical linguistic facets of the brain are never exercised. That period of development does not come back. Their brains are simply underdeveloped, in a fundamental way. I'd say that qualifies as less intelligent. I'd recommend picking up "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker.
  - 11y ago

random_rr 11y ago

Yeah, everyone but you is soooo dumb. Come on man, this isn't very Hacker News-ish, did I stumble on to reddit?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 11y ago
Nuclear Weapons. Justin Bieber. Sarah Palin. Pet Rocks. Vibram FiveFingers. Need I say more?

xmonkee 11y ago

>We attribute intelligence to humans, most of which are barely able to parrot what they hear from each other edgy/10

sliverstorm 11y ago

our idea of intelligence basically boils down to "can you communicate with it easily?" That's just the main way we are able to recognize intelligence. At least thus far we have had a devil of a time figuring out how to identify intelligence in the absence of communication. The eyes might be windows to the soul, but communication is the best window to the brain that I know of.

7Figures2Commas 11y ago

> We attribute intelligence to humans, most of which are barely able to parrot what they hear from each other. You heard a human recently?!? All I've been getting for the past couple of years are incoherent emails and text messages with all sorts of weird smiley faces. Every time I go out I see lots of humans but they're all staring at these strange devices that you used to be able to talk into.

tedajax 11y ago
All these social media/chat app companies are totally wasting their time. It's impossible for humans to even understand each other why do they need to communicate?!!!!

baddox 11y ago

Still, humans are clearly far better than apes at parroting what they hear from humans.

Retra 11y ago
That's probably a necessary but insufficient stepping stone to intelligence -- that is, the kinds of behaviors that lead to large scale, relatively immediate multiplication of value.