Thomas_More
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Macron making dangerous statements. Says ground troops being sent to Ukraine not to be ruled out.
Human communication (language, vocal or not) fulfils the needs of the human.
Nonhuman communication (language, vocal or not) fulfils the needs of the nonhuman species concerned.Both communicate in forms necessary for their needs.
Both suffice to themselves and the lives they lead.Nonhumans are not steps that failed on a path to becoming human. Species difference and diversity is not a comparing game.
You can recite Hamlet’s soliloquy. A dog does not need to.
Your tail is a remnant you cannot wag. But you don’t need to.Also, a libertine was once a freethinker. The churches then decreed that a freethinker who rejects Christianity must by definition be immoral and a filthy lecher – which is what the word still means today.
Likewise, materialists must be greedy and selfish, indulging in worldly delights, since they deny all things spiritual – which is what materialism means today.
Oxford Languages: Socialism definition.
(in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.
“socialism is the first stage of the worldwide transition to communism”Thanks DJP.
BJ, I don’t give a fig for your narrowness backed up by traditional prejudice.
This need for you to separate language from communication is the narrowing by you of the definition of language to apply only to the human ape. I have provided links where the word language is used, by scientists, in reference to many species who use both vocal sounds and body language to share information, different types of information, etc. But you will never allow the use of the word in application to other species.
I put forward that the word is for speciesists such a bastion of human “uniqueness” that it must never be applied to other species lest we be “dethroned.”
The policy has to be, in debate over nonhuman intelligence, societies and abilities, that it must be proven whether nonhuman animals “match up” to the human. This assumption, rooted in human society, judges all life by comparison to the human, who is (as a Socialist Standard article once called) “Nature’s supreme achievement.”
Pyramidal hierarchicalism writ large! (That article went on to say that, having produced us, this planet has nothing further of any interest to produce).“As humans, we have a very linear view of time and a constrained view of language.”
This need for you to separate language from communication is, regardless of your protestations, the narrowing by you of the definition of language to apply only to the human ape. I have provided links where the word language is used, by scientists, in reference to many species who use both vocal sounds and body language to share information, different types of information, etc. But you will never allow the use of the word in application to other species, although you say “maybe.”
I put forward that the word is for speciesists (including kind-hearted paternalistic ones) such a bastion of human “uniqueness” that it must never be applied to other species lest we be “dethroned.”
The policy has to be, in debate over nonhuman intelligence, societies and abilities, that it must be proven whether nonhuman animals “match up” to the human. This assumption, rooted in human society, judges all life by comparison to the human, who is (as a Socialist Standard article once called) “Nature’s supreme achievement.”
Pyramidal, hierarchicalism writ large! (That article went on to say that, having produced us, this planet has nothing further of any interest to produce.It manipulates too, to trap prey, and it conveys emotions to others, such as humans who deign to notice.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/animal-emotions/202308/octopuses-the-fascinating-lives-of-sensitive-clever-beingsOctopus Communication Unveiled: Unlocking Their Secret Language
Now we have established that fellow animals also possess language, maybe we can get this thread back on track discussing language and society in general.
Ok. Thank you.
Well, i would say prairie dogs. Bees. The fish mentioned in the article i linked to, who use different signs to convey a definite message, and all animals, both aquatic and terrestrial, that, like octopuses and squids, use colour changes and touch to convey emotions and closeness in the same way.
And definite sign and vocal language accompanies mating, and death. Elephants, monkeys, lions, birds and insects mark death with “funerals”, and display ritual behaviour.
Wolves too have a rich repertoire of sounds signifying different things. Lionesses hunting make use of a complex set of processes to isolate prey and manipulate it into their trap. Squids have acted in unison to destroy human traditional fishermen in small boats. The list goes on.
The error is to compare between species. We do what we do; they do what they do.Define the word language, including non-vocal body language. What divides body language from “mere” communication? And why is nonhuman communication not body language? Or does only your own species deserve the word?
See Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and [other] Animals.
The fact that you would separate language and communication shows that you only define language in its verbal, human-specific form. Then you allow communication as something other animals and machines (fire alarm) have in common, relegating the former to the status of the latter.
Then, when challenged, you both squeak “That’s not what i said.”
Then you bring up head lice and trees to bolster your prejudice and to make fun.
All are typical ploys used again and again here on all threads where nonhuman animal intelligence is mentioned.
Yes … Tells me a lot about you, comrades.So you are cleverer in zoology than the scientists whose reviews i have provided links to, are you? Like Marc Bekoff, whose entire life has been spent studying nonhuman emotions and interactions.
Woe betide anything should threaten your smug human centrality, or anyone suggest you read some science and familiarise yourself with anything new that challenges that centrality and “species uniqueness.”
