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> Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. No they didn't. All human cultures I'm aware of have, at least, the concepts of none, o

> Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. No they didn't. All human cultures I'm aware of have, at least, the concepts of none, one, two, three, and many. They all understand that none is exactly one less than one, and most of them (but not all!) understand that there's no natural limit to the counting numbers, and have a way of expressing some amount of those numbers. But zero is a human invention. It comes from India (probably, might be China) and is probably related to the abacus: but the abacus came to the West without the zero, which followed it later. Zero is both a symbol for null and a placeholder used for writing numbers modulus the radix. This is a conceptually powerful force multiplier, making all arithmetic operations dramatically easier. It also lets us make up a "name" for any integer we want. We can just add more zeroes; when this gets awkward we can start counting the zeroes using exponential notation, and when that becomes inconvenient we can develop ↑ notation, which gets us further than we really need for any practical purpose. It should be obvious that crows neither know about this nor care. It's interesting and cool that they understand none, but so did the Ancient Greeks, who had no idea about zero and could have gotten much further in mathematics if they did.

NoOneNew 5y ago
I watched a thing about how Koko the guerrilla didnt really understand sign language. They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat. A lot of her "understanding", along with other apes undergoing the same treatment, were all heavy interpretations of the "researchers". She never actually learned a real version of sign language either. It was made up by "researchers" who never learned sign language either. Honestly, when you watch the videos, it feels like watching the unedited videos of those tv psychics who fumble at cold readings. Cherry picking editing does wonders as "scientific proof". Moral of the story, after reading this article, I agree with you. This isnt as groundbreaking or interesting as it seems. I'm pretty sure they're finding patterns that dont exist and are over rationalizing. Of course an animal would have the concept of none, a little, a bit more and a lot, especially when applied to the idea of scavenging for food. Appling the idea of mathematical concepts to them, with little support just feels like a cheap attempt for grant money. Which, surprise surprise, was the same sham pulled with Koko. That and some of these tests they talk about, either they're shit at describing them or even I would fail to prove I could count or do arithmetic.
- musingsole 5y ago
  > They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat. ...what do you think human children are doing for the first ~4 years of their life? Also, different learning methods are used by the subject depending on their mood -- most importantly frustration -- and other context. Brute force learning tends to be the last stage before they're so frustrated they give up or become aggressive. It's also a common exploratory tactic. Teaching human sign language over a variant organically developed by the subject and team would have what advantage, exactly? It may be nominally more interesting to know a gorilla could adopt a purely human communication system -- very interesting. But it's also such a corner case of studying communication and particularly interspecies communication that to call it out as a problem is nothing more useful than a nitpick. We're coming from an age where all animals were by default assumed to be a sort of squishy -- sometimes tasty -- automaton. We have a long way to go in unlearning that particular arrogance. Assuming that intelligence can only be demonstrated in the purely human terms you seem to be looking for is just another vestige of that same arrogance.
  - taeric 5y ago
    I think you are grossly underestimating how well kids can pick up sign language. Two year olds can easily pick up some basic sign use.
    - musingsole 5y ago
      Ok...2 instead of 4. I think you are grossly missing the point.
      - taeric 5y ago
        Apologies, I went fast on my post. My point was to tighten your numbers to strengthen your point. As it is, I feel lied to when folks say that it takes kids 4 or more years to get language.
        5y ago

NoOneNew 5y ago

I watched a thing about how Koko the guerrilla didnt really understand sign language. They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat. A lot of her "understanding", along with other apes undergoing the same treatment, were all heavy interpretations of the "researchers". She never actually learned a real version of sign language either. It was made up by "researchers" who never learned sign language either. Honestly, when you watch the videos, it feels like watching the unedited videos of those tv psychics who fumble at cold readings. Cherry picking editing does wonders as "scientific proof". Moral of the story, after reading this article, I agree with you. This isnt as groundbreaking or interesting as it seems. I'm pretty sure they're finding patterns that dont exist and are over rationalizing. Of course an animal would have the concept of none, a little, a bit more and a lot, especially when applied to the idea of scavenging for food. Appling the idea of mathematical concepts to them, with little support just feels like a cheap attempt for grant money. Which, surprise surprise, was the same sham pulled with Koko. That and some of these tests they talk about, either they're shit at describing them or even I would fail to prove I could count or do arithmetic.

musingsole 5y ago
> They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat. ...what do you think human children are doing for the first ~4 years of their life? Also, different learning methods are used by the subject depending on their mood -- most importantly frustration -- and other context. Brute force learning tends to be the last stage before they're so frustrated they give up or become aggressive. It's also a common exploratory tactic. Teaching human sign language over a variant organically developed by the subject and team would have what advantage, exactly? It may be nominally more interesting to know a gorilla could adopt a purely human communication system -- very interesting. But it's also such a corner case of studying communication and particularly interspecies communication that to call it out as a problem is nothing more useful than a nitpick. We're coming from an age where all animals were by default assumed to be a sort of squishy -- sometimes tasty -- automaton. We have a long way to go in unlearning that particular arrogance. Assuming that intelligence can only be demonstrated in the purely human terms you seem to be looking for is just another vestige of that same arrogance.
- taeric 5y ago
  I think you are grossly underestimating how well kids can pick up sign language. Two year olds can easily pick up some basic sign use.
  - musingsole 5y ago
    Ok...2 instead of 4. I think you are grossly missing the point.
    - taeric 5y ago
      Apologies, I went fast on my post. My point was to tighten your numbers to strengthen your point. As it is, I feel lied to when folks say that it takes kids 4 or more years to get language.
      - 5y ago