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Almost certainly our linguistic abilities (and through them, planning skills) are vastly greater than those of all other animals, but that is a matter of degree

by jbotz 12d ago

Almost certainly our linguistic abilities (and through them, planning skills) are vastly greater than those of all other animals, but that is a matter of degree, not of category. The one thing in which we are categorically different from all other animals is that we learned to control and make fire... and quite possibly the linguistic abilities followed from that rather than the other way around[0]. Until the 20th century basically all of the advantages that technology bestowed upon our species directly flowed from our use of fire. Maybe our species should have been called "homo ignis"; the fire ape. Obviously the cetaceans will never have that benefit, even if by some other objective measures they turned out to be as intelligent as humans. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire:_How_Cooking_Made_Us_Human https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire:_How_Cooking_Mad...

sethammons 12d ago
Other animals use fire, while we continue to seem unique in creating it. Fire hawks take burning sticks and alight brush to flush prey. https://wildlife.org/australian-firehawks-use-fire-to-catch-prey/ https://wildlife.org/australian-firehawks-use-fire-to-catch-...
- ChrisMarshallNY 12d ago
  There was an episode (season 1, ep. 4) of Prehistoric Planet[0], where a raptor does that. I guess they got the idea from the firehawk (Lilith, is that you?). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Planet
dotancohen 12d ago
Humans had completely mastered fire by about 200,000 years ago - after 800,000 years of experimentation. Speech is dated to around 60,000 years ago, though some say we started down that path 200,000 years ago: right when we mastered fire.
- DFHippie 11d ago
  How can we date the origin of speech?
  - suddenlybananas 11d ago
    You can't really know for sure, but the typical argument (c.f. Chomsky & Berwick) is there was an enormous explosion in "cultural" products then. Before then, we don't see figurative art, and after we see all sorts of crazy things.
    - DFHippie 11d ago
      That's a pretty thin reed. Chomsky does a fair bit of argument by assertion and displays of confidence. And he's committed to this idea that language emerged in one massive mutation and thus functional analyses of language are pointless. This is a weird stance for a scientist to take.
      - suddenlybananas 11d ago
        I don't understand why you are hostile to me explaining the idea. In any case, you can read their book to see the arguments they use (which are not just assertions, anti-chomskyans just ignore or strawman everything he says). For example, it's not a massive mutation, but specifically a very very small one: the theories called "minimalism" for a reason.
        pixl97 11d ago
        Probably not to you explaining the idea, but to Chomskys ideas that have not been panning out well lately. Genetically is seems it's very unlikely there is a single gene spot that explains human language but a confluence of different factors feeding back into one another in linage we do not have genetic access to at this time. We've done a bit of gene testing around this now, and single gene flips aren't near enough. I think the best analogy would be like playing a video game where you have to flip a number of switched to the correct position to get the system to work together.

by jbotz 12d ago

sethammons 12d ago

Other animals use fire, while we continue to seem unique in creating it. Fire hawks take burning sticks and alight brush to flush prey. https://wildlife.org/australian-firehawks-use-fire-to-catch-prey/ https://wildlife.org/australian-firehawks-use-fire-to-catch-...

ChrisMarshallNY 12d ago
There was an episode (season 1, ep. 4) of Prehistoric Planet[0], where a raptor does that. I guess they got the idea from the firehawk (Lilith, is that you?). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Planet

dotancohen 12d ago

Humans had completely mastered fire by about 200,000 years ago - after 800,000 years of experimentation. Speech is dated to around 60,000 years ago, though some say we started down that path 200,000 years ago: right when we mastered fire.

DFHippie 11d ago
How can we date the origin of speech?
- suddenlybananas 11d ago
  You can't really know for sure, but the typical argument (c.f. Chomsky & Berwick) is there was an enormous explosion in "cultural" products then. Before then, we don't see figurative art, and after we see all sorts of crazy things.
  - DFHippie 11d ago
    That's a pretty thin reed. Chomsky does a fair bit of argument by assertion and displays of confidence. And he's committed to this idea that language emerged in one massive mutation and thus functional analyses of language are pointless. This is a weird stance for a scientist to take.
    - suddenlybananas 11d ago
      I don't understand why you are hostile to me explaining the idea. In any case, you can read their book to see the arguments they use (which are not just assertions, anti-chomskyans just ignore or strawman everything he says). For example, it's not a massive mutation, but specifically a very very small one: the theories called "minimalism" for a reason.
      - pixl97 11d ago
        Probably not to you explaining the idea, but to Chomskys ideas that have not been panning out well lately. Genetically is seems it's very unlikely there is a single gene spot that explains human language but a confluence of different factors feeding back into one another in linage we do not have genetic access to at this time. We've done a bit of gene testing around this now, and single gene flips aren't near enough. I think the best analogy would be like playing a video game where you have to flip a number of switched to the correct position to get the system to work together.