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> Why do you think they don't I don't. The points are (i) how do you prove that without invoking the 'humans have language" as an axiom or "I can talk to a hu

by srean 8y ago

> Why do you think they don't I don't. The points are (i) how do you prove that without invoking the 'humans have language" as an axiom or "I can talk to a human' privilege and (ii) does one use the same standards to prove or disprove that Koko had or did not have a language. You would need a scientific experiment capable of proving or disproving that the subject possesses a language but the inference procedure does not use the 'human' privilege. If you do need the privilege the experiment is incapable of proving a non-human has language even when they do.

foldr 8y ago
It's not an "axiom" that humans have language. We have overwhelming empirical evidence that all human societies have languages. You might as well doubt whether the Sentinelese fart. Koko did not have language because, inter alia,she could not form sentences with a hierarchical structure, something which all cognitively normal humans are capable of. So yes, judging by the exact same standards, we have language and she doesn't. The reason that you have the "privilege" of talking to humans and not to gorillas is simply that humans can talk (and/or sign) whereas gorillas can't. This is all entirely clear cut and uncontroversial, whatever a few silly newspaper articles might have said.
- srean 8y ago
  You are proving by extrapolation. That's no good when we want to use it to gauge whether animals have language. That line of argument will work only for humans. I used Sentinelese just as an example to bring out the fact that we would jump to the conclusion that they have a language just because they are human. Prove to me that Sentinelese have language without extrapolating. That is prove it without using "all humans have language. Sentinelese are human. Therefore Sentinelese have language". Nothing wrong with that line of reasoning, but its limited in scope. I am asking for specification of a scientific experiment that can be used to check with acceptable false positives and false negatives whether someone/something has a language that can work beyond the human species. From your tone of authority it should be a piece of cake for you.
  - foldr 8y ago
    There's no "extrapolation" involved -- just empirical observation of humans and gorillas. I mean, do you think there's a serious possibility that gorillas have language and we just haven't noticed? That seems about as plausible as the idea that penguins can secretly fly, or that tigers don't actually have fur. You don't need a fancy experiment to figure this stuff out. The people doing the fancy experiments were trying to find support for an inherently implausible hypothesis (that gorillas have a dormant linguistic capacity), and failed to find any such evidence. Case closed. Thanks to their pointless research program, we are now even more* sure that gorillas don't have language than we were before. >I used Sentinelese just as an example to bring out the fact that we would jump to the conclusion that they have a language just because they are human Well, yes, and we would jump to the conclusion that a pig couldn't fly just because it's a pig. So there's no sense in which that kind of argument is limited to humans. We know enough about humans to know that any human society will have a language, and we know enough about gorillas to know that they don't have language.
    - srean 8y ago
      You are persistently avoiding the question by deflecting focus to what I think. What I think is irrelevant. This is the question I asked: I am asking for specification of a scientific experiment that can be used to check with acceptable false positives and false negatives whether someone/something has a language that can work beyond the human species. From your tone of authority it should be a piece of cake for you. > That seems about as plausible as the idea that penguins can secretly fly, or that tigers don't actually have fur. Then it would be an easy peasy to prove it. Please indulge me. > we know enough about gorillas to know that they don't have language Citation needed. I am not disputing that. What I am interested in is specification/description of a scientific experiment that is capable of showing "foo does not have a language"
      - foldr 8y ago
        You might as well ask for a specification of a scientific experiment proving that dogs can't perform operas. Humans have been observing gorillas for a long time and have seen no indication of a linguistic capacity. Perhaps a gorilla will surprise us and speak. And maybe a dog will surprise us by performing Nessun Dorma. It's not the business of science to rule out every mad fantasy someone might dream up.
upvotinglurker 8y ago
This is the first time I've heard of the Sentinelese, but based on the Wikipedia articles[0], they have been observed using enough words, grammar, etc. for linguists to make hypotheses about how it is (or is not) related to and inter-intelligible with the languages of nearby ethnic groups. If "the Sentinelese have been observed using sounds and patterns of sounds in ways that match what we have always known/referred to as language, therefore they have language" is not an acceptable statement, then it's hard to see how any statement on the subject can be made at all (including the statement "Koko has language"). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language, as well as the one you linked directly to
- srean 8y ago
  Thanks for joining the thread even though everyone has probably left the building. In the very first paragraph of the Wikipedia page you linked, you will see this -- "Due to the lack of contact between the Sentinelese people and the rest of the world for the past three centuries, nothing is known of their language" -- from your [0] Everything about their language is a presumption/guess: "These people are geographically close to these other tribes we know, therefore its very likely they have a similar language." Nothing wrong with that line of reasoning, except that it has very limited scope. My purpose of introducing the Sentinelese to the discussion was precisely to show that our judgement of whether someone or something has a language is strongly biased. Case in point the Sentinelese. No one for a second will doubt that they have a language but there is no direct verification, only extrapolation. "It is presumed that the islanders speak a single language and that it is a member of one of the Andamanese language families.[4] Based on what little is known about similarities in culture and technology and their geographical proximity, it is supposed that their language is related to the Ongan languages, such as Jarawa, rather than to Great Andamanese.[6] On the two documented occasions when Onge-speaking individuals were taken to North Sentinel Island in order to attempt communication, they were unable to recognise any of the language spoken by the inhabitants in the brief and hostile exchanges that resulted." -- from your [0] Our mechanisms for language detection are too limited in scope to be applied widely. Forget cross species inference even within humans it runs into difficulties -- case in point Indus valley script. Consider a non-native English speaker barely skilled in English. Her English will very likely not adhere to English grammar and may not have the expected recursive structure. Consider the language with which we interact with Google search, most of the time they don't have recursive structure. It would be presumptuous of an observer (say from another planet) to deem that the one interacting with Google does not have language because there is no rich/recursive linguistic structure.

by srean 8y ago

foldr 8y ago

It's not an "axiom" that humans have language. We have overwhelming empirical evidence that all human societies have languages. You might as well doubt whether the Sentinelese fart. Koko did not have language because, inter alia,she could not form sentences with a hierarchical structure, something which all cognitively normal humans are capable of. So yes, judging by the exact same standards, we have language and she doesn't. The reason that you have the "privilege" of talking to humans and not to gorillas is simply that humans can talk (and/or sign) whereas gorillas can't. This is all entirely clear cut and uncontroversial, whatever a few silly newspaper articles might have said.

srean 8y ago
You are proving by extrapolation. That's no good when we want to use it to gauge whether animals have language. That line of argument will work only for humans. I used Sentinelese just as an example to bring out the fact that we would jump to the conclusion that they have a language just because they are human. Prove to me that Sentinelese have language without extrapolating. That is prove it without using "all humans have language. Sentinelese are human. Therefore Sentinelese have language". Nothing wrong with that line of reasoning, but its limited in scope. I am asking for specification of a scientific experiment that can be used to check with acceptable false positives and false negatives whether someone/something has a language that can work beyond the human species. From your tone of authority it should be a piece of cake for you.
- foldr 8y ago
  There's no "extrapolation" involved -- just empirical observation of humans and gorillas. I mean, do you think there's a serious possibility that gorillas have language and we just haven't noticed? That seems about as plausible as the idea that penguins can secretly fly, or that tigers don't actually have fur. You don't need a fancy experiment to figure this stuff out. The people doing the fancy experiments were trying to find support for an inherently implausible hypothesis (that gorillas have a dormant linguistic capacity), and failed to find any such evidence. Case closed. Thanks to their pointless research program, we are now even more* sure that gorillas don't have language than we were before. >I used Sentinelese just as an example to bring out the fact that we would jump to the conclusion that they have a language just because they are human Well, yes, and we would jump to the conclusion that a pig couldn't fly just because it's a pig. So there's no sense in which that kind of argument is limited to humans. We know enough about humans to know that any human society will have a language, and we know enough about gorillas to know that they don't have language.
  - srean 8y ago
    You are persistently avoiding the question by deflecting focus to what I think. What I think is irrelevant. This is the question I asked: I am asking for specification of a scientific experiment that can be used to check with acceptable false positives and false negatives whether someone/something has a language that can work beyond the human species. From your tone of authority it should be a piece of cake for you. > That seems about as plausible as the idea that penguins can secretly fly, or that tigers don't actually have fur. Then it would be an easy peasy to prove it. Please indulge me. > we know enough about gorillas to know that they don't have language Citation needed. I am not disputing that. What I am interested in is specification/description of a scientific experiment that is capable of showing "foo does not have a language"
    - foldr 8y ago
      You might as well ask for a specification of a scientific experiment proving that dogs can't perform operas. Humans have been observing gorillas for a long time and have seen no indication of a linguistic capacity. Perhaps a gorilla will surprise us and speak. And maybe a dog will surprise us by performing Nessun Dorma. It's not the business of science to rule out every mad fantasy someone might dream up.

upvotinglurker 8y ago

This is the first time I've heard of the Sentinelese, but based on the Wikipedia articles[0], they have been observed using enough words, grammar, etc. for linguists to make hypotheses about how it is (or is not) related to and inter-intelligible with the languages of nearby ethnic groups. If "the Sentinelese have been observed using sounds and patterns of sounds in ways that match what we have always known/referred to as language, therefore they have language" is not an acceptable statement, then it's hard to see how any statement on the subject can be made at all (including the statement "Koko has language"). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language, as well as the one you linked directly to

srean 8y ago
Thanks for joining the thread even though everyone has probably left the building. In the very first paragraph of the Wikipedia page you linked, you will see this -- "Due to the lack of contact between the Sentinelese people and the rest of the world for the past three centuries, nothing is known of their language" -- from your [0] Everything about their language is a presumption/guess: "These people are geographically close to these other tribes we know, therefore its very likely they have a similar language." Nothing wrong with that line of reasoning, except that it has very limited scope. My purpose of introducing the Sentinelese to the discussion was precisely to show that our judgement of whether someone or something has a language is strongly biased. Case in point the Sentinelese. No one for a second will doubt that they have a language but there is no direct verification, only extrapolation. "It is presumed that the islanders speak a single language and that it is a member of one of the Andamanese language families.[4] Based on what little is known about similarities in culture and technology and their geographical proximity, it is supposed that their language is related to the Ongan languages, such as Jarawa, rather than to Great Andamanese.[6] On the two documented occasions when Onge-speaking individuals were taken to North Sentinel Island in order to attempt communication, they were unable to recognise any of the language spoken by the inhabitants in the brief and hostile exchanges that resulted." -- from your [0] Our mechanisms for language detection are too limited in scope to be applied widely. Forget cross species inference even within humans it runs into difficulties -- case in point Indus valley script. Consider a non-native English speaker barely skilled in English. Her English will very likely not adhere to English grammar and may not have the expected recursive structure. Consider the language with which we interact with Google search, most of the time they don't have recursive structure. It would be presumptuous of an observer (say from another planet) to deem that the one interacting with Google does not have language because there is no rich/recursive linguistic structure.