Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know about a Lion, but I think Wittgenstein could have benefited from having a pet.

I train my cat and while I can't always understand her I think one of the most impressive features of the human mind is to be able to have such great understanding of others. We have theory of mind, joint attention, triadic awareness, and much more. My cat can understand me a bit but it's definitely asymmetric.

It's definitely not easy to understand other animals. As Wittgenstein suggests, their minds are alien to us. But we seem to be able to adapt. I'm much better at understanding my cat than my girlfriend (all the local street cats love me, and I teach many of them tricks) but I'm also nothing compared to experts I've seen.

Honestly, I think everyone studying AI could benefit by spending some more time studying animal cognition. While not like computer minds these are testable "alien minds" and can help us better understand the general nature of intelligence

Cats are domestic animals, and dogs are even more.

You probably didn't adapt to understanding cats as much as cats have adapted over millennia to be understood by humans. Working with and being understood by the dominant specie that is humans is a big evolutionary advantage.

Understanding a wild animal like a lion is a different story. There is a reason why most specialists will say that keeping wild animals as pets is a bad idea, they tend to be unpredictable, which, in other words, mean we don't understand them.

I agree with the logic, but I don't think it doesn't properly accounts for people who work very closely with wild animals.

You or I, yeah, probably not going to understand a lion pretty well. But someone who works at the zoo? A lion tamer? Someone studying lion cognition? Hell, people have figured out how to train hippos so that they can clean their teeth[0], and these are one of, if not the, most aggressive animals in the world. Humans have gotten impressively good at communicating with many different animals and training them. There's plenty of Steve Irwin types who have strong understandings about many creatures who would be quite alien to the rest of us. Which, that requires at least one side to have a strong understanding of the other's desires and how they perceive the world. But me? I have no doubt that hippo would murder me.

My point isn't so much about would we understand the lion, but rather could we. Wittgenstein implied we wouldn't be able to. I'm pointing to evidence that we, to at least some degree, can. How much we ultimately will be able to, is still unknown. But I certainly don't think it is an impossible task.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMoWvh2AtKk

FWIW I don't think this is quite true for domestic cats - cross-species collaboration is very common in carnivores. A famous example is the coyote and badger, which will team up to hunt prairie dogs: the badger chases them out of the burrows, the coyote catches them outside, and they split the meat 70-30 in acknowledgement that the coyote is larger and needs more food. Recently the same has been observed with ocelots and possums. It seems like most mammals are able to at least somewhat understand the mood and intentions of other mammals - note that we share facial expressions and body language.

OTOH feral cats are known for being highly social compared to other cats, forming large semi-collaborative colonies. And adult cats have much more difficulty socializing to humans than adult dogs, even if they don't have trauma/etc. I suspect the real story of cat domestication goes both ways: an unusually gregarious subspecies of African wildcat started forming colonies near human settlements and forming cross-carnivore collaborations with the humans who lived there. This was also true for dogs - it likely started with unusually peaceful Siberian wolves - but I believe cats were more "accidental." Humans have been deliberately creating dog breeds since antiquity, but with a tiny number of exceptions cat breeds are modern. I doubt ancient humans ever "bred" cats like they did dogs, it seems closer to natural selection.

Fwiw, a lot of cat breeds are very old. Especially the ones coming out of northeast Africa (like Egypt).

But yes, both accidental domestication happens as well as non human cross species collaboration. Another famous example is with the cleaner fish and sharks. Animals also frequently collaborate with plants. Ants even have farms, both fungi and other insects

I think the response is generally you are communicating with your cat as an animal, as a mammal. Yes, communication is possible because we too are mammals, animals, etc.

But Lion is not just animal, it is not just mammal, it is something more. Something which I have no idea how we would communicate with.

  > But Lion is not just animal, it is not just mammal, it is something more.

Are you saying "lion" is a stand-in for "an arbitrary creature"? If so, yes, that is how I understand Wittgenstein and it doesn't change my comment.

No. I'm saying the areas you point out that you feel you could communicate, are ones in which you share a lived experience with the lion. You are both animals, you are both mammals. You get cold, hungry, thirsty, etc.

But lions, and us, are not just animals + mammals. Being a lion or a human means more. Ultimately, there is a uniquely human or lion element. Wittgenstein is saying we cannot communicate this.

Yes, I understand that. But obviously I don't buy it. I don't believe our communication is limited by our experiences

I'm much better at understanding my cat than my girlfriend

Huh. Apparently attention isn't all we need in order to parse that sentence.

It has multiple readings out of context, but I think in context one is much clearer than the other. Language is heavily overloaded, which is ironically directly relevant to the conversation.

Also, your comment still made me laugh. Women can be mysterious...

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