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Comment by rusk | Hacker News Reader

Language is really the only differentiator between us and other primates, cognitively

I don't agree. Many other types of animals have rudimentary languages, but I wouldn't dispute the sophistication of human language towers above all others, that in itself rests (along with other uniquely sophisticated behavioural endowments) upon what really differentiates us which is the capacity for imagination and abstract thought. The capability to imagine things that aren't actually real, but perhaps could be. It's thought that the seat of all this is the frontal cortex but I see now on wikipedia that is contentious these days [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe#In_other_animals

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The book Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans makes a cogent argument for my position. It examines carefully the difference between Animal Communication Systems and our own, in all the variety primitive humanity could devise.

https://www.amazon.com/Adams-Tongue-Humans-Made-Language-ebo...

I think BF Skinner tried to take behaviourism here. All behaviour being mediated by conditioning, with thought being the sublimated stimulated response of the vocal chords. I think he made a good bit of headway with this but I think Noam Chomsky (language development being his substantive field) put the kaibosh on it. Can’t remember the nuances of the argument off hand.

I have pets and they try to entertain themselves when they are board. Seems like thet are thinking abstractly with limitations imposed by body and brain.

Can you elaborate? How do you know they're thinking abstractly?

I don’t think it’s the same. They can’t reason about what they’re doing abstractly. That’s why they’re acting it out.

This ape took a selfie all on his own just as good as any human. https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/monkey-selfie...

Ape is a corner case, they're the only species we know of that share to a limited extent the enlarged forebrain that humans have.

A single outlying data-point hardly disproves a theory, and even so, you can't possibly know that the monkey knew what he was doing. It could just be mimicry. Your thinking about what the monkey is thinking is distinctly the distinguishing trait of human psyche I'm talking about.

EDIT: Also relevant. Operant theory can explain seemingly "intelligent" behaviour as random or observed and mimicked actions that are then reinforced by the environment [0]

Your monkey's behaviour could be explained in a similar vein to that which explains "cargo cult" behaviour [1].

Now, you could say that this is indeed "intelligent" behaviour, but then again a dog can be trained to open a door, and pigeons can be trained to orient themselves based on a clicker [2]. But what I'm talking about here is what distinguishes human intelligence from other forms of life on this planet.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning#Origins_o...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult#First_occurrences

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtfQlkGwE2U

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