: ...Why draw an
: arbitrary line and say "Other humans are enough
: like me that they probably have self-awareness like I
: do, but apes aren't?"
The "arbitrary" line I've drawn is based on the fact that our ape cousins don't use a complex symbolic language unless they're taught it, and even then, I could argue that we can't know whether the trained apes are responding to cues or whether they're exhibiting unequivocal signs of intelligence. And that's true. We *can't* know.
: Notice that I said the *capacity* to possess a complex
: culture--the same way that we were capable of making
: fire, rockets and computers a million years ago, but
: hadn't done any of it.
Berkeleyites Allan Wilson and Rebecca Cahn set the origin or our species at about 35,000 ya, FYI, based on molecular data. Even their staunchest critics (e.g. Milford Wolpoff at the Univ. of Michigan) would guess a 150,000 ya origin for our species. Australopithecus and Homo Erectus 1 Mya probably did not have the intellectual prowess to build rockets. :)
Nature abhors a vacuum, as the saying goes, and I think that if you observe the biological and cultural evolution of our species relative to others, you'll see something phenomenal take place in the last 2000 years. A kind of exodus from the dark ages our ape cousins and other species are still chained to.
: We know that chimps use various
: tools, that these tools are "standardized"
: within a given troop but vary in nature and
: construction from region to region, that some chimp
: cultures use synchronized drumming as a means of
: social interaction while others do not, that chimps
: can learn to communicate via sign language or
: keyboards if given the opportunity.
(Feeding from my earlier point) By "opportunity" do you mean put in a cage and only let out for feedings and lessons? :P But seriously, would chimps and apes get this opportunity if we weren't able to learn and teach the language ourselves? Why don't they do it?
: We didn't do much
: better for the first million-and-a-half years of our
: species' existence.
I agree. So... what made the difference? Why this explosion of technology and population in the last 2000 years?
: Would you settle for the "Where's my goddamn
: breakfast" part? A number of apes, at least, have
: demonstrated considerable skill at mastery of
: human-created languages. Koko...
Both Patterson and her critics (among them Smithers Green formerly of the University of Michigan) acknowledge that for all the success stories told about Koko's ability to talk, there were lots of confusing attempts at communication, too. What the public has been told about Koko is a kind of Bible Code. Certain truths have been extracted from the noise and made to look like a pattern.
But let me say this. I'm left as unimpressed by our species' sentience as I am by our species' attempts at defining it. That doesn't mean we aren't special. And it doesn't mean our cousins and flippered friends are close to us intellectually, as much as some of us ::pokes SD:: would like to create the concept of the BIG HAPPY WORLD OF WILDLIFE in the image of Disney's Bambi (minus the hunting scene).
Bleh, I've rambled long enough.
-David
