The Man Machine
Tighten the nuts.
Dr Descartes is now putting forward arguments about how to distinguish people from mere mechanoids. One is that they'd be incapable of using language creatively (i.e., language use that goes beyond what could merely be learnt), even although they might be able to give a verbal response to various stimuli. ("Ouch! You should not poke my diodes like that." "Check out the software on her.") The other is that a machine wouldn't have our range of capabilities, although there might be one thing at which it excels.
Unless our brains are badly miswired, humans can produce novel utterances, whereas creatures which can "speak" merely mimic human speech, but are incapable of producing new strings of words. People who are born deaf and dumb still manage to communicate creatively.
The question is whether the gulf between humans and animals is that great. Animals have ways of communicating and they aren't exactly wholly specialised in their functions either.
Language is something innate to humans. No other animal communicates creatively. It seems pretty much limited to "I'm hungry" or "I'm horny".[1] Whale song might be various, but without structure how can it communicate anything useful if there's no phrase for "There's some tasty plankton here" or "Look out! Japanese research vessels are approaching to conduct legitimate scientific research"? All right, so humans, in general, can't vary the structure,[2] but they can vary the content. Whale song has content, but no apparent structure.
And as for teaching higher primates how to communicate in a human fashion, it's a neat parlour trick, but proves nothing beyond how intelligent they are. Why? Because humans have to teach them. There might be a proto-language faculty in the brains of gorillas and chimpanzees, but it's a long way from allowing them to produce real language. Meanwhile, the apes aren't exactly sitting around talking about what was on the telly last night. And if a silverback male sees you, he'll pull your arms off and use your fingers as toothpicks without asking whether you mind. Primates aren't stupid, but compared with us, they're a long way behind.
Obviously, animals can often do things that humans can't. Cheetahs are quite good at running fast; fish survive in water quite well; most birds are quite good at flying; unaided, humans are a bit rubbish at all these things. Nonetheless, there is a bit more to the lives of these animals than just the single aspect I've mentioned. If in language humans are very different from animals, in other ways, I don't think there is such a great chasm between them and us. On the other hand, animals may be less adaptable beyond their particular niche. Pandas, for example, are a species waiting to become extinct because they only eat a certain sort of bamboo and because they're utter rubbish when it comes to sex (worse than Hong Kongers if the stories about their lack of practice is true). Yet humans turn up trying to fight Nature on this one.
Sorry, I'm drifting off course a bit. All right. Language – we have it; animals don't. Other stuff – we're still animals. So are they.
Notes.
1. This is sounding suspiciously human.
2. Poetry, Hungarian and Warlpiri are exceptions.
Dr Descartes is now putting forward arguments about how to distinguish people from mere mechanoids. One is that they'd be incapable of using language creatively (i.e., language use that goes beyond what could merely be learnt), even although they might be able to give a verbal response to various stimuli. ("Ouch! You should not poke my diodes like that." "Check out the software on her.") The other is that a machine wouldn't have our range of capabilities, although there might be one thing at which it excels.
Unless our brains are badly miswired, humans can produce novel utterances, whereas creatures which can "speak" merely mimic human speech, but are incapable of producing new strings of words. People who are born deaf and dumb still manage to communicate creatively.
The question is whether the gulf between humans and animals is that great. Animals have ways of communicating and they aren't exactly wholly specialised in their functions either.
Language is something innate to humans. No other animal communicates creatively. It seems pretty much limited to "I'm hungry" or "I'm horny".[1] Whale song might be various, but without structure how can it communicate anything useful if there's no phrase for "There's some tasty plankton here" or "Look out! Japanese research vessels are approaching to conduct legitimate scientific research"? All right, so humans, in general, can't vary the structure,[2] but they can vary the content. Whale song has content, but no apparent structure.
And as for teaching higher primates how to communicate in a human fashion, it's a neat parlour trick, but proves nothing beyond how intelligent they are. Why? Because humans have to teach them. There might be a proto-language faculty in the brains of gorillas and chimpanzees, but it's a long way from allowing them to produce real language. Meanwhile, the apes aren't exactly sitting around talking about what was on the telly last night. And if a silverback male sees you, he'll pull your arms off and use your fingers as toothpicks without asking whether you mind. Primates aren't stupid, but compared with us, they're a long way behind.
Obviously, animals can often do things that humans can't. Cheetahs are quite good at running fast; fish survive in water quite well; most birds are quite good at flying; unaided, humans are a bit rubbish at all these things. Nonetheless, there is a bit more to the lives of these animals than just the single aspect I've mentioned. If in language humans are very different from animals, in other ways, I don't think there is such a great chasm between them and us. On the other hand, animals may be less adaptable beyond their particular niche. Pandas, for example, are a species waiting to become extinct because they only eat a certain sort of bamboo and because they're utter rubbish when it comes to sex (worse than Hong Kongers if the stories about their lack of practice is true). Yet humans turn up trying to fight Nature on this one.
Sorry, I'm drifting off course a bit. All right. Language – we have it; animals don't. Other stuff – we're still animals. So are they.
Notes.
1. This is sounding suspiciously human.
2. Poetry, Hungarian and Warlpiri are exceptions.
Comments
But there's a difference between language acquisition and language learning. When you acquire language, your brain is configuring itself to the linguistic input you're receiving. It's not as if your parents or anyone else is busy telling you that the 3rd person sg pres. indic. act. takes -iz after sibilants and affricates; -s after voiceless stops; but -z otherwise. You worked that out for yourself. There may have been a certain amount of correction from overgeneralisation. I know that I used "gotten" for a time when I was little, but that's because I was generalising the participial ending -en. My parents would keep saying "have got". And "have got" it is.
There's also another difference. Humans can produce sentences such as "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously". I doubt whether animals have ever shown the same facility. In other words, the chimp sees the fruit and makes the corresponding noise. It wouldn't see the fruit and then make the noise warning of an approaching leopard. In other words, they're vocalising instinctively but not creatively.
This is also an argument against human language being mere mimicry. If I could only produce sentences that I'd heard, then I wouldn't be able to write this. In fact, language would be impossible, or paradoxical at best. Where would sentences come from? Who'd create new ones? How could new ones be created if we were restricted to imitation? How would language change be possible?
Of course, this is not to forget that native speakers of any language often depend on formulaic phrases which they trot out at the appropriate moment. Nonetheless, such phrases have some internal structure which implies a deeper level of grammar. If we were wholly dependent on phrases rather than words, then I'd expect phrases to lack internal structure. The components of "the fat cat" could then be ordered in any way the speaker so desired.
And you do have to be very careful of colourless green ideas when they're asleep. Almost got eaten by one the other day. Fended it off with a soggy noodle and a rusty can opener.
Do animal communication systems undergo historical change or is the lark of the 21st century (any left?) still singing the same song as the lark of the 11th century? If they are the same, then baby larks would have to be born with the innate knowledge of their song because acquisition of that song in the same way that human languages are transmitted would gradually introduce novel interpretations of the data, thus resulting in a change to the song. (I must admit that I've never even thought about this before.)
It's easy to draw analogies between human languages and the means by which animals communicate apart from pissing here and shitting there.
And Chris, you were warned about colourless green ideas, but clearly you haven't learnt your lesson.
As for the development of lark songs, I don't know, strikes me as being entirely possible, but I've never heard of that before. Language log has thoroughly rubbished claims of animal dialects several times already, though, and that would seem to be somewhat related.
And it's the colourless green nature of the ideas that fools me every time. I know, I'm a slow learner.
I guess that the song would evolve as the bird evolves, perhaps. Too much here that I know nothing of.