5 ms·

Yeah, I think that Rodríguez absolutely has the right of it here. Animal communication is "simple" in human terms, but is quite rich on its own terms. To anybod

by nkoren 8y ago

Yeah, I think that Rodríguez absolutely has the right of it here. Animal communication is "simple" in human terms, but is quite rich on its own terms. To anybody who spends quality time with animals in their own comfort zones, it is utterly damned obvious that many animals experience and are entirely competent at communicating love, friendship, curiosity, jealousy, covetousness, and many other thoughts/feelings -- and, also, that they are just as able to blur species boundaries as we are. There are varying levels of complexity to this: snakes are too simple-minded to have a sense of humour, for example, but foxes definitely do. Fox humour isn't the same as human humour, but when you anthropomorphize them, and they foxopomorphize you, there's enough overlap for an intersubjectively meaningful exchange to take place. I think that science's unwillingness to acknowledge this has multiple roots. The first is a religious relict of wanting to put Man at the centre of the universe. Descartes, deeply religious, believed that humans were the only beings endowed with a soul, and that therefore animals were necessarily mere automata. This became the default "scientific" dogma, to be considered true unless proven otherwise. But it really is just dogma, with no basis in either rationality or observation. The second is the scientific requirement for experimental controls and reproducibility, which is easiest to do in a laboratory. If animals really were automata, running on instinct, then that would be fine. But they're (mostly) social creatures, formed through interaction as much as we are. If your understanding of human psychology was formed wholly through the observation of humans who spent their lives trapped in Skinner boxes, you'd form some rigorously incorrect notions of what humans are capable of. Ultimately, there's no way to to get a proper understanding of humans in a non-subjective capacity. Same goes for animals.

pharrington 8y ago
"If your understanding of human psychology was formed wholly through the observation of humans who spent their lives trapped in Skinner boxes, you'd form some rigorously incorrect notions of what humans are capable of." My comment's a tangent, but I suspect that's a significant reason why social media is so ridiculously hard for people to healthily use.
- nkoren 8y ago
  Interesting. Yeah, there's something to unpack in that.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> when you anthropomorphize them, and they foxopomorphize you The op is actually part of the word for human, anthrop·os. Substituting "fox" in for "human", you'd get "alopecomorphize".
- mindgam3 8y ago
  You know, you are undoubtedly technically correct, but I really love the use of foxopomorphize. Something about it just so perfectly encapsulates the OP's point about foxes and humans sharing a joke across species boundaries, in the way that "alopecomorphize" does not. I say leave it.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    Alopecomorphize suffers from the fact that nobody knows the ancient Greek word for fox. I had to look it up. (And I left the comment for other people like me, who might wonder.) You could put the whole thing into a more recognizable Latinate form, "vulpiformify", but then you completely lose the parallel to "anthropomorphize". I doubt "arachnomorphize" would have the same issues, though.
    - mindgam3 8y ago
      Although I still prefer OP’s version, I do appreciate you leaving your comment, because there was a small part of me that did wonder what the correct version of foxomorphize was, and now I don’t have to. Also, points for “vulpiformify” as a mid-grade poor man’s alopecomorphize.
  - glandium 8y ago
    foxomorphize would sound better though.
- nkoren 8y ago
  Heheh -- I'm almost as much as a pedant as you! :-) I actually did realise that "op" went with "anthro", and agonised for a bit over whether to include it or do something that was more technically correct. Eventually decided that this would sacrifice comprehensibility for correctness, and that it was actually okay to make a somewhat whimsical point with whimsical language. But, yes, you're entirely correct.
TimTheTinker 8y ago
> Descartes, deeply religious, believed that humans were the only beings endowed with a soul, and that therefore animals were necessarily mere automata. Note that the belief that animals do not have a soul is relatively recent in Christianity -- it originated in roughly the 18th or 19th century around the time of the enlightenment. And still, not all Christians or Christian thinkers espouse this view. > This became the default "scientific" dogma, to be considered true unless proven otherwise. I would argue that instead of taking the cue from recent Christian thought, science owes this view to a strict materialist worldview arising out of 18th century philosophy, which underpins most of its inquiry and rules out non-material hypotheses a priori. Prominent atheist scientists regularly praise materialism as the enabler of successful science. > But it really is just dogma, with no basis in either rationality or observation. Indeed.
Razengan 8y ago
> it is utterly damned obvious that many animals experience and are entirely competent at communicating love, friendship, curiosity, jealousy, covetousness, and many other thoughts/feelings I have definitely observed such sentience in cats and even crows, and many other examples are apparent in numberous animal videos on YouTube etc.
GogoAkira 8y ago
As a muslim I have to believe, and belief is knowledge, therefore I know animals speak and some humans are given ability to speak their language, below is a citing from the Quran where it says animals speak, this only works if you belive that God has said it, it's not a proof to you who disregard it that a human wrote it and who reagard other humanly text's on the subject to be true. anyway ..... And Solomon inherited David. He said, "O people, we have been taught the language of birds, and we have been given from all things. Indeed, this is evident bounty." And gathered for Solomon were his soldiers of the jinn and men and birds, and they were [marching] in rows. Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants, an ant said, "O ants, enter your dwellings that you not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they perceive not." So [Solomon] smiled, amused at her speech, and said, "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to do righteousness of which You approve. And admit me by Your mercy into [the ranks of] Your righteous servants." nd he took attendance of the birds and said, "Why do I not see the hoopoe - or is he among the absent? I will surely punish him with a severe punishment or slaughter him unless he brings me clear authorization." But the hoopoe stayed not long and said, "I have encompassed [in knowledge] that which you have not encompassed, and I have come to you from Sheba with certain news. Indeed, I found [there] a woman ruling them, and she has been given of all things, and she has a great throne. I found her and her people prostrating to the sun instead of Allah, and Satan has made their deeds pleasing to them and averted them from [His] way, so they are not guided, [And] so they do not prostrate to Allah, who brings forth what is hidden within the heavens and the earth and knows what you conceal and what you declare - Allah - there is no deity except Him, Lord of the Great Throne." So here is the prophet of God Suleyman whom God taught to understand animals. Yes animals speak. Once a dog told me there's electricity in the wire i was about to test by barking and I knew what he meant beacause i was thinking of the task, because that was the tast at hand, and so i decided to go up there and double check ,and yes i had switched the live wire and the zero wire and was putting a switch on the negative and that didn't turn it off, so he barked, and i listened, how did i know that's what he meant, because i knew. anyway i came back looked at him he didn't bark, and the switch was turned off cutting of the electricity and i didn't burn my fingers. no the dog didn't speak bosnian, that is such a human thing to say. Scientists say ants have ears and other oragans in place for talking and listening but they are deaf and don't talk they talk through chemicals, sure, when i clap my hands all of the little ants run away, and those who were sleeping wake up and go, well some don't care much for it , they're lazy waking up, they probably think fuck you im sleepy kill me, i don't kill them i like them, i try not to kill them they are creatures of Allah, like all other creatures. Going back to the message, the Ant recognizes who Suleyman is, refers to him by name, and therefore saves her people, i mean saves her ants from being stomped on by horses and humans and Suleyman laughs at her words, not laugh like a mean laugh, but a honest one. Later on the bird is clearly in the service of the prophet of God who was also a king, and the bird went and came back and told the prophet there's a queen who and her people pray to the sun instead of God. the bird know's Allah, the bird clearly knew the prophet of Allah , the bird knows Satan, and the bird knows sun, surely the bird knows its a bird. people are retarded, i don't mean jurnalists here, here i mean scientists, most of them. I've seen a deer mom on the side of the road staring at her dead run over by car child, waiting there for a little bit seeing if it will get up or die. It was a sad scene, as i drove by. She knows the concept of death, all animals do, I mean surely she didn't think oh wow what is happening my child got teleported to a different universe, whaaat one second he was there then he wasn't no. She knows sadness, hapyness, her child was killed. This guy in the article said animals don't lie when they speak, but some animals do know how to trick, there's a bird from David Attenborough show called life of birds, she get's impregrated by a male bird then the second male bird comes and waits for her to eject the seed from the first bird then he has sex with ther and impregnates her and he knows the child is his, so this way the female gets two fathers to provide for the child now, and herself, living a lazy life of wealth, and the first male bird also knows it's his child because he didn't see the second dude fucking his wife. This bird knows honesty and it knows trickery, and the difference. birds know God , some don't just like some humans don't, birds know life and death, they know hunger, they know all these concepts, there is no life without communication , they speak. The fact that we don't understand them does't mean they don't. People are stupid. I don't know why humans imagine this emptiness inside animals when they know ants can count, when they send a specific number of ants to get the crumbs, like what tha fuck do they think they do, lick seven ants with chemichals and then they go, but even if they do that withoug speaking, they still know how to count. I mean animals collect wealth, bees collect polen and honey, ants collect food they grow mycelium. When we humans walk the earth speaks to God, may I swollow them, God answers no. Because the earth sees how we are and what we do, and this is beyond our comprehensions, only thing is that i believe it and some of you might not.

by nkoren 8y ago

pharrington 8y ago

"If your understanding of human psychology was formed wholly through the observation of humans who spent their lives trapped in Skinner boxes, you'd form some rigorously incorrect notions of what humans are capable of." My comment's a tangent, but I suspect that's a significant reason why social media is so ridiculously hard for people to healthily use.

nkoren 8y ago
Interesting. Yeah, there's something to unpack in that.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

> when you anthropomorphize them, and they foxopomorphize you The op is actually part of the word for human, anthrop·os. Substituting "fox" in for "human", you'd get "alopecomorphize".

mindgam3 8y ago
You know, you are undoubtedly technically correct, but I really love the use of foxopomorphize. Something about it just so perfectly encapsulates the OP's point about foxes and humans sharing a joke across species boundaries, in the way that "alopecomorphize" does not. I say leave it.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  Alopecomorphize suffers from the fact that nobody knows the ancient Greek word for fox. I had to look it up. (And I left the comment for other people like me, who might wonder.) You could put the whole thing into a more recognizable Latinate form, "vulpiformify", but then you completely lose the parallel to "anthropomorphize". I doubt "arachnomorphize" would have the same issues, though.
  - mindgam3 8y ago
    Although I still prefer OP’s version, I do appreciate you leaving your comment, because there was a small part of me that did wonder what the correct version of foxomorphize was, and now I don’t have to. Also, points for “vulpiformify” as a mid-grade poor man’s alopecomorphize.
- glandium 8y ago
  foxomorphize would sound better though.
nkoren 8y ago
Heheh -- I'm almost as much as a pedant as you! :-) I actually did realise that "op" went with "anthro", and agonised for a bit over whether to include it or do something that was more technically correct. Eventually decided that this would sacrifice comprehensibility for correctness, and that it was actually okay to make a somewhat whimsical point with whimsical language. But, yes, you're entirely correct.

TimTheTinker 8y ago

> Descartes, deeply religious, believed that humans were the only beings endowed with a soul, and that therefore animals were necessarily mere automata. Note that the belief that animals do not have a soul is relatively recent in Christianity -- it originated in roughly the 18th or 19th century around the time of the enlightenment. And still, not all Christians or Christian thinkers espouse this view. > This became the default "scientific" dogma, to be considered true unless proven otherwise. I would argue that instead of taking the cue from recent Christian thought, science owes this view to a strict materialist worldview arising out of 18th century philosophy, which underpins most of its inquiry and rules out non-material hypotheses a priori. Prominent atheist scientists regularly praise materialism as the enabler of successful science. > But it really is just dogma, with no basis in either rationality or observation. Indeed.

Razengan 8y ago

> it is utterly damned obvious that many animals experience and are entirely competent at communicating love, friendship, curiosity, jealousy, covetousness, and many other thoughts/feelings I have definitely observed such sentience in cats and even crows, and many other examples are apparent in numberous animal videos on YouTube etc.

GogoAkira 8y ago

As a muslim I have to believe, and belief is knowledge, therefore I know animals speak and some humans are given ability to speak their language, below is a citing from the Quran where it says animals speak, this only works if you belive that God has said it, it's not a proof to you who disregard it that a human wrote it and who reagard other humanly text's on the subject to be true. anyway ..... And Solomon inherited David. He said, "O people, we have been taught the language of birds, and we have been given from all things. Indeed, this is evident bounty." And gathered for Solomon were his soldiers of the jinn and men and birds, and they were [marching] in rows. Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants, an ant said, "O ants, enter your dwellings that you not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they perceive not." So [Solomon] smiled, amused at her speech, and said, "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to do righteousness of which You approve. And admit me by Your mercy into [the ranks of] Your righteous servants." nd he took attendance of the birds and said, "Why do I not see the hoopoe - or is he among the absent? I will surely punish him with a severe punishment or slaughter him unless he brings me clear authorization." But the hoopoe stayed not long and said, "I have encompassed [in knowledge] that which you have not encompassed, and I have come to you from Sheba with certain news. Indeed, I found [there] a woman ruling them, and she has been given of all things, and she has a great throne. I found her and her people prostrating to the sun instead of Allah, and Satan has made their deeds pleasing to them and averted them from [His] way, so they are not guided, [And] so they do not prostrate to Allah, who brings forth what is hidden within the heavens and the earth and knows what you conceal and what you declare - Allah - there is no deity except Him, Lord of the Great Throne." So here is the prophet of God Suleyman whom God taught to understand animals. Yes animals speak. Once a dog told me there's electricity in the wire i was about to test by barking and I knew what he meant beacause i was thinking of the task, because that was the tast at hand, and so i decided to go up there and double check ,and yes i had switched the live wire and the zero wire and was putting a switch on the negative and that didn't turn it off, so he barked, and i listened, how did i know that's what he meant, because i knew. anyway i came back looked at him he didn't bark, and the switch was turned off cutting of the electricity and i didn't burn my fingers. no the dog didn't speak bosnian, that is such a human thing to say. Scientists say ants have ears and other oragans in place for talking and listening but they are deaf and don't talk they talk through chemicals, sure, when i clap my hands all of the little ants run away, and those who were sleeping wake up and go, well some don't care much for it , they're lazy waking up, they probably think fuck you im sleepy kill me, i don't kill them i like them, i try not to kill them they are creatures of Allah, like all other creatures. Going back to the message, the Ant recognizes who Suleyman is, refers to him by name, and therefore saves her people, i mean saves her ants from being stomped on by horses and humans and Suleyman laughs at her words, not laugh like a mean laugh, but a honest one. Later on the bird is clearly in the service of the prophet of God who was also a king, and the bird went and came back and told the prophet there's a queen who and her people pray to the sun instead of God. the bird know's Allah, the bird clearly knew the prophet of Allah , the bird knows Satan, and the bird knows sun, surely the bird knows its a bird. people are retarded, i don't mean jurnalists here, here i mean scientists, most of them. I've seen a deer mom on the side of the road staring at her dead run over by car child, waiting there for a little bit seeing if it will get up or die. It was a sad scene, as i drove by. She knows the concept of death, all animals do, I mean surely she didn't think oh wow what is happening my child got teleported to a different universe, whaaat one second he was there then he wasn't no. She knows sadness, hapyness, her child was killed. This guy in the article said animals don't lie when they speak, but some animals do know how to trick, there's a bird from David Attenborough show called life of birds, she get's impregrated by a male bird then the second male bird comes and waits for her to eject the seed from the first bird then he has sex with ther and impregnates her and he knows the child is his, so this way the female gets two fathers to provide for the child now, and herself, living a lazy life of wealth, and the first male bird also knows it's his child because he didn't see the second dude fucking his wife. This bird knows honesty and it knows trickery, and the difference. birds know God , some don't just like some humans don't, birds know life and death, they know hunger, they know all these concepts, there is no life without communication , they speak. The fact that we don't understand them does't mean they don't. People are stupid. I don't know why humans imagine this emptiness inside animals when they know ants can count, when they send a specific number of ants to get the crumbs, like what tha fuck do they think they do, lick seven ants with chemichals and then they go, but even if they do that withoug speaking, they still know how to count. I mean animals collect wealth, bees collect polen and honey, ants collect food they grow mycelium. When we humans walk the earth speaks to God, may I swollow them, God answers no. Because the earth sees how we are and what we do, and this is beyond our comprehensions, only thing is that i believe it and some of you might not.