(August 3, 2021 at 2:11 pm)evolcon Wrote:(August 3, 2021 at 9:34 am)brewer Wrote: Not discounting the human advantage of language but there is non-language stored/transmitted information lasoMy main point is simply that the difference between the human mind and the animal mind is language, and only language
And I'm not sure what this has to do with EP other than 'Yea Language'.
A quick example, you may have seen the video of the crow confronted with a piece of food at the bottom of a class tube too deep for him to reach, there are also a few objects laying around including a toothpick type stick. Once the crow realizes that he cannot reach the morsel on his own, he cocks his head and looks around, he spots the toothpick, picks it up with his mouth reaches in the tube, spears the food, lifts it our and eats. (applause all around)
A very resourceful animal, but the difference between the crow and a human is this, if you removed the crow after he saw the situation, but before he had a chance to act, he would not have any memory of the problem, he can only operate on the immediate sensory input, the way humans recall memory is by using internal language, that is how we (humans) do it. no animal has directed thought simply because they don't have language
I can solve that problem, (the treat in the tube) if it described to me, using language, and I can solve it sitting at my desk at home, because using internal language, what we call thought, I can recall the images, food, glass tube and toothpick. and manipulate them in my mind, using internal language, because those images are stored in my mind. and stored associated with names. In short, no animal can solve a problem without immediate sensory input,. he cannot recall images because it has no access to his memory, his memory is only triggered by immediate sensory input. It is language that gives us access to all that is stored in our mind.
That doesn’t seem to be entirely correct. Several kinds of animals (corvids, non-human primates, cetaceans) have been observed to use problem solving learned in one locus in another, and at a later time. The crow in your example, on his first at at the treat-in-the-bottle test, would try the objects at random until he found that the toothpick worked. On subsequent tests, he would use the toothpick immediately, even if it was part of a larger group of objects than in the original experiment. Similarly, dolphins and great apes have been known to pass learned behaviour on to their offspring, and to apply that behaviour in situations markedly different than the original.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson