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-- Absence of Philosophy
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Originally posted by occrider So than babies are not �human� until they develop the mental capacity to distinguish objects? Furthermore, doesn�t that quote from her merely reference her discovery of language, not the discovery of distinguishing one object from another? If she couldn�t distinguish one object from another than she wouldn�t have been able to eat (or would have been content with eating inanimate objects), she wouldn�t have been able to dress herself (or would have tried to wear a chair or something), she wouldn�t have been able to recognize that fire is hot, and so forth. She always had the sense of touch; I would assume that she had the mental recognizance to differentiate shape through touch in as much as any other human has that ability through sight. Therefore I�m not quite sure how she �acquired� her humanity in a way that is any different from any other human. Furthermore, I�m not entirely sure how this ability to distinguish objects is in anyway different from behavior exhibited by animals.

In my mention of objects I ommited a word, which changed the meaning of the sentence. Obviously she could distinguish between literal ojbects, so there is no need to cite multiple examples of why that doesn't make sense. All would agree. The word I ommitted was "referencing" , as in "no concept of referencing objects".

I'm honestly somewhat confused as to your argument. I will try to reword it to see if I understand the point you are offering us.

A chimpanzee can operate with symbols, and therefore distinctions between what it means to be human an an animal are not so great?

The problem with this is it belies the fundamental understanding of plateaus within development. Take human children. It has been shown that at a young age, if you have a hill, and you place different things on both sides, and then you walk the child around, showing them this fact. And then you ask the child "what would someone see if they were standing on the otherside of this hill?", that the child answers with what they can see from their current perspetive. Even though they've just walked around the hill and seen that its different on the other side.

The point being that at this plateau the child's cognition is limited. The child can use symbols. Chimpanzee's can use symbols. But the world of cognition that opens up as the child advances from plateau to plateau is a world that only humans have access to. The fact that yes symbols are used at each plateau may make the plateaus appear similar but that is because of the potential of symbols, and not the potential of chimpanzees.

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Originally posted by Subey I'm honestly somewhat confused as to your argument. I will try to reword it to see if I understand the point you are offering us.

Simply that I don't really like the argument of "symbols" as what separates humans from animals. Even if an individual were completely isolated and separated from society, and didn�t use symbols in any way whatsoever, does that mean that individual is not a human until he started using symbols? I dunno, I think I would use something else like the ability to rationalize or perhaps the ability to distinguish �right� from �wrong�.

See, the human in all his life would not be human at all, or at least in my not physicality. He would not be able to use symbols, because he never learned any. Therefore, he would have the mind of an animal, but a body of a human. This actually would be a very interesting study, although it could never happen.

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Do they not learn it through speech and mimicry?

Yes. Yes, they do. Your choice of words is very suiting, however. Mimic. An animal can mimic a human action, even emotion. However, they do not know the human meaning of the emotion. In your previous example of the cows getting excited that "they solved the puzzle", I think it would be more reasonable to assume they were simply going to eat. Finding a way to eat wasn't viewed as some puzzle, rather a way to get food. The point of the article is that animals and deaf mutes (before they have learned anything) cannot establish the meanign behind the object.

Actually its funny that page 4 didnt come out, because it deals with this. I must apologize for that I could have sworn I put all of them up and I will go add that now. Here is an exerpt, "Helen confused the word signs for "mug" and "water" because, apparently, both were associated with drinking."

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Originally posted by kush paintings

Primates can be taught sign language, thus they can use symbols.

If you try to differentiate animals from humans on that basis alone you will be unable to. The article was written in 1949, I assume long before anyone had attempted to teach primates ASL, and as the book denotes it is considered a "classic" piece.

The value of the article then isn't in the argument that symbols are the realm of humans alone, that portion is archaic, but rather that the human mastery of symbols (as proven by the ease with with you can translate these black marks into letters, then words then sentences etc.)is the foundation that allows us to build a civilisation that can span the stars instead of just a tribe that spans a river.

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Originally posted by kush paintings See, the human in all his life would not be human at all, or at least in my not physicality. He would not be able to use symbols, because he never learned any. Therefore, he would have the mind of an animal, but a body of a human. This actually would be a very interesting study, although it could never happen.

In that case than I definetely don't like White's interpretation of what distinguishes humans from animals. I simply don't think he makes a strong enough case, particularly when it comes to defining culture as descended from symbolism. But perhaps I am biased because of White's views on cultural evolution:

http://www.aaanet.org/gad/history/088white2.pdf

To me humanity is not something acquired but an innate cognitive quality.

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Yes. Yes, they do. Your choice of words is very suiting, however. Mimic. An animal can mimic a human action, even emotion. However, they do not know the human meaning of the emotion. In your previous example of the cows getting excited that "they solved the puzzle", I think it would be more reasonable to assume they were simply going to eat. Finding a way to eat wasn't viewed as some puzzle, rather a way to get food. The point of the article is that animals and deaf mutes (before they have learned anything) cannot establish the meanign behind the object.

But a child's education is completely based on mimicry. Human behavior is based on mimicry. I learn what something is through education and mimicry and I retain that knowledge to use a means of some form of communication or gain. Similarly some animals learn that certain things signify something and thus they retain that knowledge to attain something. However, what about the evidence of culture developed in chimpanzees? Groups of chimps have specfic forms of communication that have no practical purpose that vary between social groups. They symbolize something, does that make them human? My answer would be no which is why I don't like the symbolism argument.

Look, I'm too brain-exhausted to write, not to mention actually read this thread from post 1 and think about the words you guys are putting in here. But I did read Occrider's post where he disputes that animals and humans are different in cultural learning (i.e. the post above)...

Not that I necessairly disagree with that, but since we are on the subject of philosophy this question has intrigued me very much:


(Why) are humans the only animal that cries and laughs?


I mean in the emotional state, I know apes and hyennas laugh, but is it laughter? caused by happines? because an ape told a joke or just like any other noise coming out of his mouth...

I don't know of any animal that cries though...

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Originally posted by Yoepus Look, I'm too brain-exhausted to write, not to mention actually read this thread from post 1 and think about the words you guys are putting in here. But I did read Occrider's post where he disputes that animals and humans are different in cultural learning (i.e. the post above)... Not that I necessairly disagree with that, but since we are on the subject of philosophy this question has intrigued me very much: (Why) are humans the only animal that cries and laughs? I mean in the emotional state, I know apes and hyennas laugh, but is it laughter? caused by happines? because an ape told a joke or just like any other noise coming out of his mouth... I don't know of any animal that cries though...

Well I just did a quick search that kind of looked into the argument. Essentially it is impossible to verify emotional tears, but animals apparentely do "cry" or express distress in certain situations:

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20030313.html

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Originally posted by occrider Well I just did a quick search that kind of looked into the argument.

Hmm thanks for the link.

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Essentially it is impossible to verify emotional tears, but animals apparentely do "cry" or express distress in certain situations:

Ya, this one always mistified me. We can observe emotion in animals - obviously when a dog wags his tail he is happy, and I can tell when my cats back home for instance are excited (or pissed) to see me, when they are tired, happy, sad, etc.

Obviously animals "cry" without tears - but the human type of crying is much different. Its one thing to see animals cry, another for them to shed a tear, yet another for them to a shed a tear from distress, and yet a completely other thing to shed tears of joy.

just gets you wonderin...

Well it got me curious and I found a few more articles:

http://www.salon.com/health/feature...ears/print.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/union...1c16crying.html

It's interesting how emotional tears produce far more proteins and mineral content than other tears. If other animals have different ways of expressing "sadness" do that expressions serve some kind of evolutionary purpose in aiding the animal? What is the significance of human crying that results in a different composition than other tears? What's the purpose? Good question ...

Edit: and as for laughing this is what I found:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4401695.stm

Better article:

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/m...on/11280248.htm

Thank you for the replies to the subject matter, of humans vs. animals. You have actually clarified a number of things for me.

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