What a Border Collie Taught a Linguist About Language
wired.com
wired.com
Highly recommend Donald McCaig's book, Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men: https://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Dogs-Dangerous-Men-Searching/...
I think it's because they are so damn smart. It's the closest thing to having a human, except all the benefits of having a dog. My dog was insanely in-tune with my body language. I don't think I trained him very well but we naturally communicated very well. I could nod my head from across the dog park and he knew it was time to go home, stuff like that. If we were walking, I could glance my eyes in a certain direction and he knew to cross the street. (I usually didn't have him on a leash).
He made judgement calls. I would watch him do stuff he knew was wrong, and I refuse to believe it was an impulse. It was calculated. You could see it was conflicted but he seriously thought it through and concluded; eating raw chicken > ramifications. I could look in his eyes and _know_ what he was thinking.... Maybe that was all in my head but I don't think so.
That said, the key is having a very smart dog. It can exist outside of the BC breed but with BC's you have a high success rate of having an intelligent dog. We've had Labs too. Some similar to the BC, others good loving dogs but just dogs. We have a Yorkie now, she's an idiot.
When I go shopping I'll leave all my windows completely down and she just hangs on the edge and waits, despite being able to jump out she never does. When we get back she helps carry bags back into the house.
They read humans incredibly well. Their constantly trying to predict your next move so they can take the appropriate action. so when we yell at my newphew to get away from the door the dog will physically get in his way. After a few times she just knows to do it.
Likewise she's great during parties to herd people into the right areas. I point at something she grabs it, I get angry at someone she starts growling, I don't want to be disturbed, she intercepts people getting close to my desk.
I'm sure many other breeds can get to a similar point but it might not be as easy or intuitive for them. I never tried especially hard to train my dog.
So then what I have I found unique about border collies?
Some other posters have already shared about the border collie aptitude for communicating with and understanding people.
I think that personality traits of dogs are probably amplified by their lineage, by their breeding. Border collies (and other kinds of dogs as well) have a long history of functional utility. Many people still use these dogs to work farms and in other scenarios taking care of herds of animals. But whether if they are employed in that manner or not, it is still in their nature to assist people with work, with activities.
Border collies are described as being poor choices to have if you're not going to routinely engage them. That plausibly negative trait is probably the very same positive trait that makes them intimately interested in everything you do. If you do the laundry, your border collie is there watching, ready to help. If you clean the garage, your border collie is there watching, ready to help. If you are debugging C code, your border collie is there watching, ready to help.
Other dogs I have personally experienced seem totally fine to do things with you, but also totally fine to be off by themselves, or to do nothing at all.
I do get the impression that, to one degree or another, many dogs which excel at similar activities (herding, flyball, agility, etc.) may share personality traits with border collies.
Does all of that equate to a "better" dog? Absolutely not. In fact, I can readily imagine many people NOT finding border collie traits desirable. I've seen border collie breeders admonish would-be adopters to strongly consider other kinds of dogs unless they are quite certain that a border collie is what they want. And I would advise the same: please don't get a border collie if you're not sure.
I live in the suburbs with a good-sized yard about a block away from a large nature park. As much as I love the hustle & bustle of Boston and New York City, my dog would be miserable there.
I'd like to highlight this for prospective dog owners who are reading this and are are thinking about Border Collies.
Border Collies are generally very fond of being with their owners. Some of them might get destructive when they feel abandoned, but even for those who can stay alone at home for some time: imagine what it feels like to sit in a featureless room (with no smartphone), having a highly active mind and simply having to wait...
Some dogs revel in lazing about whilst their human is out socialising or doing whatever. Some Border Collies can bear it, but in my experience, it's always detrimental. They are not convenience dogs.
It makes me wonder if the ability experience boredom, and to undertake activities to alleviate boredom, is part and parcel of higher level intelligence. Most lower animals don't have sufficient time aside from basic survival activities to allow it?
I didn't notice until I started walking with other dogs. Some of these were smart and eager to please as well, but it always felt different, somehow "clunky".
Border collies seem to be able to respond to intent instead of command.
It wasn't until I started paying closer attention to this mind reading capability that I figured out I, for example, slightly tilted my head before I indicated a direction to go in. That was seemingly enough to prime my dog.
With this ability to pick up on subconscious cues, it's not hard to start feeling your border collie is not just a companion, but is an extension of yourself.
Even though this sounds great, and something every dog owner would want, I wouldn't recommend having a Border Collie.
I feel some of these desirable traits lie very close to neurosis, which can manifest itself in various ways. Some harmless, some destructive.
Also, I feel because they are intelligent and highly active, they are more prone to psychological damage.
I'd say only get a border collie as a pet if you're willing to let a dog determine a significant part of your life for a long time. If you do so, however, you will have a "magic dog".
Crazy smart dog, allegedly he would escape their fence and go hitch hiking along the highway. They didn't know where he was escaping to until a friend told them she saw him on the road and he jumped in her car.
I may sound crazy, but I really believe my GSD has some sense of language and is not just barking instinctively.
His "I want to pee", "I want to eat", and "I need to poop" barks are different enough that I can reliably understand him.
When he is outside in the yard and wants to get back in, he calls me with a short guttural bark, whereas with my wife he uses a long whiny call. When we are both home, the type of call seems to correlate pretty well with the person he wants to see. It's like he's given us names.
Neil Degrasse Tyson demonstrates the above with the actual dog Chaser:
https://youtu.be/_6479QAJuz8?t=66
I almost always prefer the written explanation rather than watching a video, but this is one case where it's worth seeing.
In regards to: "Cooperation leading to the development of language is one of the leading hypotheses for what makes human beings unique among the animals."
The core difference between humans and animals is that humans can reason; we possess cogitative powers. Philosophers of mind and language, like PMS Hacker, have written extensively on this topic. Humans can ask "why?", can plan, can hope, can wish, can dream, all through language. Language is an ability and allows us to reason, give reasons, and have reasons. Dogs and animals can't ask "why?" "Why?" is beyond their limit of expression because they do not possess language. They can be confused, but confusion is not asking "why?" because "why?" is a demand for reasons. Confusion is simply not knowing what is going on, while reasoning is thinking in future and past tenses, it allows us to plan and introspect.
I think the equation of whistling with full language is interesting, but it potentially reads cogitative powers in dogs when it might simply be the humans reading themselves into the dogs.
The point around cooperation is fascinating in this regard, in which case, the cooperation might be that humans reason for the dog. In other words, the dogs provide the brawn and the handlers supply the brains. We domesticated dogs because they worked for us.
Maybe we have larger neuron capacity than animals that allows to store signals, relationships that "maybe" will later resolve that why, while they just have to accept that confusion and just go along doing something else, maybe remembering a map (context, confusion, avoid).
So there's a body of research suggesting beyond reasonable doubt that no animal - except us - is capable of reason? Do you have a link?
Clearly there are some differences between humans and other animals, even other primates. But it's hard to quantify those exactly. If humans have reasoning score of 10, do dogs have reasoning of 1 or 5? Even the variability among people and measurable differences between individual dogs or breed of dog further complicates that.
The problem with your argument is computers and animals are not cogitative, in any way similar to humans. There might be instances when animals come close, but that is no reason to imply all animals can. That means some come close.
Animals can solve puzzles. Solving puzzles, however, doesn't mean you can reason in the same way humans can. For instance, humans can ask why they are solving the puzzle. That's an expression of cogitative ability that animals don't have.
And we are fully capable of investigating that reason, that why, to find out whether it is reasonable or whether a better why can be provided. Animals cannot assign a reason, nor can we "investigate an animal's reason", because that's nonsense. Animals don't give why's.
Monkeys, crows, ravens, octopuses and other animals have been shown to be able to do stuff like this.
> but that is no reason to imply all animals can
I don't think anyone was making the claim that all animals can. (In case you're not a native english speaker, GP said "all sorts of animals", which means "many different kinds of animals" and not "all animals")
Furthermore, I'd say that your over-focus on reasoning is misguided. There are many aspects of cognition and consciousness, and reasoning is just one of them. (And, as others have mentioned, there's plenty of evidence for various forms of abstract reasoning in studied animals.) Wikipedia's article on Animal Cognition has a convenient listing of different aspects that have been studied:
"The core difference between humans and animals is that humans can reason; we possess cogitative powers." (I have emphasized the point that was missed.)
A core difference between humans and animals is the cogitative powers of humans. Animals simply do not show the same cogitative powers. Animals do have cognition. I don't question that at all. I'm saying, in regards to cogitation (introspection), animals pale to humans.
For instance, your invocation of "introspection" is covered in the linked article by "theory of mind". And maybe in the second paragraph covering metacognition in "consciousness". I think this quote covers the ideas succinctly:
"Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates." [0]
We've found evidence in some animal or another for pretty much everything we've ever thought was unique about human cognitive abilities. So far, the only unique thing about humans is how broad and powerful our cognition is. Which is maybe what you mean, and are having a hard time expressing.
[0] http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...
Meanwhile, anyone who has a dog knows they have both dreams and nightmares, which is certainly some form of internal contemplation.
with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future. One can remember not only where – as exhibited in an animal’s seeking or homing behaviour – but also when. Non-human animals may prepare for the future – bury food for later consumption, build dams or dig burrows, but only man can plan for the future."
What particularly defines an "internally rich contemplative life" besides what is possible for humans, and not assigned to animals by humans?
Animals have an internal life. They are conscious. But by what means do we have to understand them as self-conscious? Can they distinguish between myself and my self? There is considerable debate about this. You end up in philosophy. You end up in conceptual analysis.
Eventually, it comes down to principles of sense and nonsense in language. What does it make sense to say of animals? Does it make sense to say a dog is planning for the next walk on August 30th? Or does it make more sense to say I think he is planning? The two say imply different things about the dog's capabilities.
Obviously yes. There's nothing special to reason that requires a human.
Animals may end indecision, but ending a state of indecision is not the same as choosing something for this or that reason. The limits of thought are the behavioral expression of thought. With the absence of language, it is nonsense to apply rational thought to animals. That's even in the article itself when they discuss how animals displaying complex behaviours can fall a part when presented new problems. That doesn't mean they don't think. Far from it. It means they do not have the same cogitative powers that we have.
Analytic philosophy has touched on these ideas at length starting with Ludwig Wittgenstein. Two good books on the subject are PMS Hacker's series, which, coincidentally, often use dogs as an example:
1. Human Nature: The Categorical Framework 2. The Intellectual Powers: A study of human nature
(I should add that PMS Hacker's series heavily interacts with cognitive neuroscience.)
Do you have anything in particular in mind with the somewhat arbitrary sounding "3 days ord 4"? Otherwise my answer is a definite yes. I have seen cats, dogs, pigs, ferrets, rodents, and corvids perform well thought out, planned, and by all appearencies deliberate and conscious strategies.
The "arbitrariness" of "3 or 4 days" is to emphasize that language is the means we have of expressing our cogitative powers. We have language, an ability to express our reasoning. Animals don't. We are introspective, ruminative, hopeful, and fearful, we can be those things because we have the language and the cogitative and conceptual depth to express them. Animals think, and animals are intelligent. They can plan. But that is no reason to assign any amount of the depth of our cogitative powers to animals. Because they can't express that cogitative depth because they lack language.
As much as this is an appeal to authority, I'll refer back to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness [0]:
"The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young humanand non-human animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus)."
[0] http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...
EDIT: I'd like to point out that human language does, as far as we know, have some very unique features which have not been entirely duplicated by any animal. However, that very fact is also what makes it extremely limiting and self-serving as a "barrier of entry".
I'll put a similar quote, for my argument, from the philosopher PMS Hacker who has written extensively on this topic:
"Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to understand our lives and the place of death in life....
The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future. One can remember not only where – as exhibited in an animal’s seeking or homing behaviour – but also when. Non-human animals may prepare for the future – bury food for later consumption, build dams or dig burrows, but only man can plan for the future.
If a creature has mastered a language with logical connectives and quantifiers, then and only then is it possible for it to conceive of general truths, to think both of how things are and how they are not, to think both of what exists and of what does not exist, to think conditional thoughts, and with the aid of tensed verbs and modal expressions, counterfactual thoughts."
This is from Human Nature: The Categorical Framework, pg.238, published 2007. I had to pull the book out to get the quote right lol.
Disagree. There's plenty of documentation of dogs understanding dangerous situations and assisting humans in exiting them. If they only had "fear", this would not be possible. They obviously have enough agency overcome such basic instinct.
"The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future."
Also disagree. Genie [0] was raised without language. When discovered, she could not use language to describe her experiences. Later, after learning language, she could retroactively describe these situations. That means that her experience was not limited by not having known language. This also includes emotive elements of the experiences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recall...
there is some evidence. [1] depends on what exactly you mean by reason. This demonstrates planning via self control.
[1] http://portal.research.lu.se/portal/en/publications/ravens-n...
Animals are able to spontaneously develop a motive toward a goal, analyze situations and solve problems in order to get to that goal.
For instance, chimpanzees are able to use simple tools.
However, substantially less intelligent animals are also capable of problem solving.
If someone attacks you, and your dog turns on them, perceiving that you are in danger, that is obvious reasoning.
What is the definition of "reasoning"? A vending machine performs reasoning when it decides that a can of pop should be dispensed when a button is pressed and sufficient money has been put in, and that change should also be paid out.
> Dogs and animals can't ask "why?" "Why?" is beyond their limit of expression because they do not possess language
See the quote from Hacker's "Wittgenstein: Comparisons and Context" here:
"The limits of thought are the behavioral expression of thought. It is perfectly possible, in certain circumstances, for an animal to think and not show it. But it makes sense to ascribe thinking to an animal only insofar as the animal's behavioral repertoire includes such behavior as would express what the animal is said to think."
Why should they do it the same way humans do?
Behaving exactly like humans do is not a prerequisite for intelligence or reasoning. I think its a mistake to put us on a pedestal and saying "if its not like this, then it doesn't count".
Anyway, many creatures can and do plan, just not necessarily the same way that humans do:
From http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160121-jumping-sp... These tiny spiders are able to plan their attacks and take different approaches depending on their prey (even if they've never encountered their prey before! They're extremely fascinating creatures): "In the 1980s and 1990s, Robert Jackson of New Zealand’s University of Canterbury demonstrated that Portia fimbriata, a member of this spider-snacking subfamily, methodically plans winding detours to sneak up on prey spiders. Portia can even find hidden prey, suggesting that the predator can visualize its prey's location and a path to get there."
From https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/07/more-evidence-that-ravens... "The study, published yesterday in Science, shows that ravens (Corvus corax) can anticipate the nature, time and location of future events based on prior experiences." (study linked within)
Apparently apes can plan: https://www.livescience.com/2620-humans-apes-plan.html
The article for this post discusses this. Many animals have complex behaviors. For instance, the two links you have posted are examples. But faced with new problems they buckle and cannot deal.
The ravens are interesting, I will read that study. But saying they're intelligent is not the same thing as saying they are cogitative, for they don't possess the language to express cogitative experiences in the same we, and only we, do.
This has been a discussion point in Analytical Philosophy for a number of years, particularly during the rise of Cognitive Neuroscience. PMS Hacker, in particular, has written a lot about this topic, I would recommend his two books:
(https://www.amazon.com/Human-Nature-Categorial-Framework-Hac...) "This major study examines the most fundamental categories in terms of which we conceive of ourselves, critically surveying the concepts of substance, causation, agency, teleology, rationality, mind, body and person, and elaborating the conceptual fields in which they are embedded."
And;
(https://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Powers-Study-Human-Natur...) "The Intellectual Powers is a philosophical investigation into the cognitive and cogitative powers of mankind. It develops a connective analysis of our powers of consciousness, intentionality, mastery of language, knowledge, belief, certainty, sensation, perception, memory, thought, and imagination, by one of Britain’s leading philosophers. It is an essential guide and handbook for philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists."
Both of which heavily interact with relevant research and articles in cognitive neuroscience and neuroscience more broadly.
Did you intend to address this?
Is your whole perspective shaped by this one author? I am extremely wary when people cite books, as opposed to papers, when discussing scientific topics.
They don't need to do it in the same way humans do; they don't do it in the same way humans do. In the absence of language, they have no way of expressing the depths of cogitation in the same way humans can.
In regards to your last question, I have found PMS Hacker a particularly compelling author in this area. He is a very good analytical philosopher. His works are peer-reviewed, and extensively researched and amply sourced. He's an established professional philosopher. He has also written extensively with M.R. Bennet, an established neuroscientist with many papers, a good book of theirs is: The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-140510838X...)
I'm not a professional scientist, I don't have access to papers. I have access to books.
Perhaps some animals, or even most animals, don't have language.
But whalesong and bird songs can be very complex, and I am not at all convinced that they do not have language.
Can you prove that they don't have language?
He plans, hopes, and most definitely has and could express wishes. And while his intelligence is limited and very material in a pragmatic way he does possess a language (that I'm still learning) and he could reason.
He is not into abstractions, but, perhaps, could master one or two with a sufficiently tasty motivation. But he understands generalisations, conditionals and iterations.
Citation needed.
Many animals are dumb, Many are smarter than we give them credit for. In past few decades there have been a great many papers indicating some animals can do things just short of what we can do and many people used to think that animals could think, feels emotions, learn by trial/error or even communicate.
You are making an assertion "No animal thinks 'Why?'" without evidence. You could be right or wrong, but you have chosen an odd place to stand. You are inside an ever receding pocket of ignorance.
I agree that human language makes it possible for human beings to do all sorts of cognitive things that animals can't.
That said, you are making the term "reason" have a single meaning, whereas there are actually many types of cognitive activity, some of which animals can do, and some of which they can't. You really need to be more specific about the different types of reasoning, and each different type of reasoning should get a distinctive label.
They need a yard/open space as they are very lively dogs, and we have a large backyard. They are not meant to be apartment dog.