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Comment by mabub24 | Hacker News Reader

Really interesting article.

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.

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>The core difference between humans and animals is that humans can reason

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?

Do you have evidence that animals can reason? Have you seen an animal give or express a reason for planning to do something in 3 days or 4?

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.)

You seem to be severely confusing absence of evidence with evidence of absence.

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.

It was a rhetorical question to make a point. You seem to be severely confusing the difference between cogitative and cognitive powers. Animals aren't stupid, but all animals are not humans. We are different in quite particular ways that animals simply are not or so far from us that it is nonsense to imply that gap means we are similar.

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.

You seem to be arbitrarily limiting "language" to a specifically-human definition. Animals can certainly express thoughts and emotions, and there's no reason to suggest that they have any limit on the levels of emotions they feel. If you want to see hope, just wait for an animal to start hoping that you'll feed them in the very near future... And they'll likely communicate the idea very clearly as well. Language so far has only been a barrier in human understanding and acknowledgement of these capabilities in animals.

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".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language

You have to be careful about describing an animal's emotions, even more-so with assigning language to animals. You brought up leaving a dog without food. It very well might hope you come with food. But the sensation it is feeling is hunger. From its behavior, you understand it is hungry: it whines, runs around, looks for where the food normally comes from (you/owner). But the dog is not saying "I hope I can get food." It's not saying, "If I have one hope in the world, above all other hopes, I hope my food would come." Because it can't say that. That's our language, us, assigning concepts to the dog.

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...

Rather, GP is simply confusing abundance of evidence with absence of evidence.

> Do you have evidence that animals can reason?

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...

> Do you have evidence that animals can reason?

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.

There's significant evidence to the contrary, all sorts of animals can solve puzzles.

Computers can solve puzzles too. Would you say, then, that computers can reason?

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.

Computers are tools. They don't reason; they do exactly what they're instructed to. A stick can solve a problem too, but it's still a tool, because it only does exactly what you tell it to. This will be true until we develop an AI with intrinsic agency.

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:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition

This whole comment chain started because the quote missed the core part of first sentence.

"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.

Disagree. This has been a "fact" which has been steadily eroded as time goes on. It started with humans using tools... Until we found animals using tools. And it's been a series of dominos falling ever since, with the current studies on animal linguistics just being another one in the line.

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...

I too disagree. I'm discussing cogitation rather than cognition. I'm in no way saying animals are not cognitive. I'm saying animals do not possess even close to equal cogitative powers as humans do. Animals are conscious, but if we are frank, their consciousness is not as deep as our own. A sword does not make one a soldier if he does not use it as a soldier. Animals don't have, or possess only the simplest, language. They have no means to express their cogitating or cogitation. We do.

Someone else already pointed this out to you: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What evidence do you have that animals don't have an internally-rich, deep, contemplative life? Your only substantial point is that they haven't walked up to us and start talking about it... If your barrier is "human language and socialization", then of course by definition no other animal has the capability! It's a self-serving definition. But I have certainly had many different animals communicate with me in various physical and verbal ways -- they certainly can express themselves, and in ways that we can understand. And they have certainly verified that they can understand to some extent our language and communications.

Meanwhile, anyone who has a dog knows they have both dreams and nightmares, which is certainly some form of internal contemplation.

The evidence that I have is observation. Animals can feel, can have sensations, and can act with volition, they get hungry and they get tired. They get excited and they get sad. But to what extent can you say they wonder why they are that way? Can you assuredly say you have seen that? As Hacker argues in Human Nature: The Categorical Framework, "They can intelligibly (truly or falsely) be said to think only what they can express in their behaviour....

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.

If they can learn a technique on one problem and then use that technique on a completely different problem based on some observation, then sure. Why not?

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")

>Computers can solve puzzles too. Would you say, then, that computers can reason?

Obviously yes. There's nothing special to reason that requires a human.

animals solve without being told how to by a human, in contrast to a computer. of course newer AI is different, and it's called AI for a reason.

Newer AI is entirely limited by the algorithmic and logical frameworks assigned to it by others than itself. Machine learning is not "true" AI. It's called AI because it's slick marketing.

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.

This whole discussion is just about people unsure whether something else is smarter than thdm or not.

If you ask a human why they are doing something they will often make up a reason and not even realize they're doing so. Especially when emotions are involved.

That's true, but rather than "make-up" they are assigning a reason to their actions because they did them voluntarily. That is a rational thing to do, that gives a why for their action through their introspection, or sheer need for justification. If it is not voluntary, they'll often say that or it is immediately apparent, or they are ill.

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.

computers solve puzzles because we program them to do so. animals solve puzzles because it provides a reward to them, the same way it does for us.

I would be skeptical of research that says other animals are incapable of reasoning. I think it would be more along the lines of the limits of their reasoning, and other abilities to utilize the reasoning they're capable of.

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.

Sure, the fossil record ;) Animals who reason well enough to encroach our comfortable territory atop the food chain, tend to get killed off by H. Sapiens. The animals we see around are those whose tepid reasoning abilities we can abide.

I think you are confusing inability to communicate with inability to think.

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.

>The core difference between humans and animals is that humans can reason; we possess cogitative powers.

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.

Well a lot of time I asked why and was confused. Lots of people are even more confused. They may ask why but have no clue whatsoever about anything they're looking at.

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).

My shepherd is by no means special yet he asks 'Why?'.

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.

Why is language required to ask why?

> Dogs and animals can't ask "why?" "Why?" is beyond their limit of expression because they do not possess language

Because dogs have no means to express the concept "why?" Animals don't plan in an animate sense in any form observable in the same way humans do.

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."

> Animals don't plan in an animate sense in any form observable in the same way humans do.

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

I think you should look again at my original comment. I'm not saying animals are unintelligent. They possess cognitive powers. But I'm talking about cogitative powers. That's introspection. It's not that it must be like humans to count, it's that humans are the only ones that show it, as far as we know.

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.

> 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".

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.

The original comment I was responding to in the article was concerning the ways humans were unique from animals. I'm not describing intelligence full stop, or claiming that animals are the basis for intelligence or reasoning. I'm not saying animals need to be like humans to be intelligent. My point is that the thing that makes humans unique from animals is our ability to reason, our cogitative powers.

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.

You say that animals don't have language. But I am not convinced.

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?

>Dogs and animals can't ask "why?" "Why?" is beyond their limit of expression because they do not possess language.

Citation needed.

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