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Koko's language skills were misrepresented in a pretty extreme way. Very few recordings of Koko communicating anything more than short phrases were ever release

Koko's language skills were misrepresented in a pretty extreme way. Very few recordings of Koko communicating anything more than short phrases were ever released, and those that were never demonstrated much more than word association. I've met dogs and pigs that were able to go fetch the "carrot" versus the "bunny" stuffed animals based on verbal commands, but I'm not going to claim that constitutes mastery of language. Koko primarily communicated via repeating individual words that she'd been able to correlate with getting immediate effects. "Food", "Water", etc. When she did use multi-word phrases, they had no semblance of grammar: human babies will quickly work out the difference between "Me bite him" and "him bite me", whereas Koko never did. Frankly, despite being billed as a decisive blow against the Chomsky school of linguistics, Koko probably stands as strong evidence for it. IMO, the massive complexity gap between human-level language compared to the relatively tight pack of merely possessing vocabulary animals, pretty directly correlated with levels of problem solving skills and tool use, should signal that there's something to the idea that our cognitive and language abilities are pretty closely linked. Mimicking human behavior may not be necessary for intelligence, but some kind of language likely is.

WalterBright 4y ago
Language has also been called the "operating system" of the brain. When we think about things, we think in terms of words and language.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > When we think about things, we think in terms of words and language. This is commonly believed for no reason that I'm aware of. It is obviously not true.
  - Talanes 4y ago
    >It is obviously not true. Different people tend to have differing levels of internal monologue. Mine is so constant that nearly all conscious thought filters through it, to the point that it would be very easy to mistake the monologue for the totality of consciousness. It's a theory that rings true with people who think like I do, but still assume that everyone else thinks the same way too.
    - deafpolygon 4y ago
      And some people, like myself, have no monologue or internal dialogue. What then? I have no consciousness or intelligence?
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        We call people like you "philosophical zombies". ;D
      - bell-cot 4y ago
        Worse than that. Manners of speaking, narration, works of fiction, etc. will - both for convenience and from actual bias - focus strongly on people quite unlike you. So strongly that many people will start to doubt that your kind even exist. Welcome to the short and dirty end of yet another dimension of human cognitive bias.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        > And some people, like myself, have no monologue or internal dialogue. What then? I have no consciousness or intelligence? I don't have this either, but I would still say I think in language. It might be concepts that link together in hierarchies or graphs, but those concepts are described in words.
        thaumasiotes 4y ago
        The concepts are described in words, but you're not describing your thoughts to yourself. You have your own thoughts directly. The words are a side effect, to be called upon when you want to talk to someone else. Saying that you think in words is saying that the computer from GalaxyQuest thinks in words because every time it does something, it reports what it has just done over the loudspeakers. You're confusing the effect with the cause.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        > Saying that you think in words is saying that the computer from GalaxyQuest thinks in words because every time it does something, it reports what it has just done over the loudspeakers. You're confusing the effect with the cause. This seems a bit silly. I'm not saying that speaking words is what constitutes thought. I'm saying concepts generally need names before we can reason about them.
- pxc 4y ago
  This doctrine is called 'linguistic determinism', for those curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism I don't think it's well-supported but it seems to intuitively appeal to a lot of people.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  I sometimes use words, but just as often use pictures or schemas, or nothing specifically name-able at all. "what language do you think in?" "um... I think in pictures?"

WalterBright 4y ago

Language has also been called the "operating system" of the brain. When we think about things, we think in terms of words and language.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> When we think about things, we think in terms of words and language. This is commonly believed for no reason that I'm aware of. It is obviously not true.
- Talanes 4y ago
  >It is obviously not true. Different people tend to have differing levels of internal monologue. Mine is so constant that nearly all conscious thought filters through it, to the point that it would be very easy to mistake the monologue for the totality of consciousness. It's a theory that rings true with people who think like I do, but still assume that everyone else thinks the same way too.
  - deafpolygon 4y ago
    And some people, like myself, have no monologue or internal dialogue. What then? I have no consciousness or intelligence?
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      We call people like you "philosophical zombies". ;D
    - bell-cot 4y ago
      Worse than that. Manners of speaking, narration, works of fiction, etc. will - both for convenience and from actual bias - focus strongly on people quite unlike you. So strongly that many people will start to doubt that your kind even exist. Welcome to the short and dirty end of yet another dimension of human cognitive bias.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      > And some people, like myself, have no monologue or internal dialogue. What then? I have no consciousness or intelligence? I don't have this either, but I would still say I think in language. It might be concepts that link together in hierarchies or graphs, but those concepts are described in words.
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        The concepts are described in words, but you're not describing your thoughts to yourself. You have your own thoughts directly. The words are a side effect, to be called upon when you want to talk to someone else. Saying that you think in words is saying that the computer from GalaxyQuest thinks in words because every time it does something, it reports what it has just done over the loudspeakers. You're confusing the effect with the cause.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        > Saying that you think in words is saying that the computer from GalaxyQuest thinks in words because every time it does something, it reports what it has just done over the loudspeakers. You're confusing the effect with the cause. This seems a bit silly. I'm not saying that speaking words is what constitutes thought. I'm saying concepts generally need names before we can reason about them.
pxc 4y ago
This doctrine is called 'linguistic determinism', for those curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism I don't think it's well-supported but it seems to intuitively appeal to a lot of people.
Kim_Bruning 4y ago
I sometimes use words, but just as often use pictures or schemas, or nothing specifically name-able at all. "what language do you think in?" "um... I think in pictures?"