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> or communicate with each other in a manner more complex than what we hear as a bark or a chirp.

If you're suggesting the supernatural, that's just silly. If you're suggesting linguists have been missing the bit between the formants all this time, I'm pretty sure the literature stands in opposibtion.

> How do we know they aren't communicating concepts as complicated as "Be careful there is a human approaching and it looks dangerous." with one syllable?

Because we already understand the difference between various and sundry monkey calls. In one group, one shriek means a particular ground based predator, and a doubled shriek means a particular air/tree based predator. There's no (physical) room for the nuance you seek to impute.

> If you look at trends in human communication, across all languages, then you'll find syllable reduction increases as the word frequency increases.

And yet, all those other words stick around, and we don't fall into monosyllabic speech. And yet, from monosyllabic "speech" of animals, you jump into advanced consciousness.

It's not the case that we don't understand animal communication. Very simple hypotheses explain a great deal of animal communication. Compare this to quantum physics, some bit of it that we don't yet understand, and see where the difference is found.

> I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it.

How do you measure animal pleasure? Have you studied the motivations for chimps killing other chimps? Have you examined why bulldogs attack children, or perhaps, why dingos eat babies? Aside from the fact that you stacked the question to favor your presupposed answer, the "I don't know" defense doesn't hold when you don't seem to have done any research.

(Ever watch a cat play with a mouse? Seems pretty fun. This is not an argument for an advanced cat consciousness.)

I'm not suggesting "supernatural" but rather, "superobservational." For example, due to our use of human range sound recordings, we had studied elephants for a very long time before understanding that they use low frequency communication through the ground over distances of many miles.

With those monkey calls, how do you know that an increasing freqency through the life of the monkey call doesn't mean something different from a decreasing freqency? Perhaps the length of the call indicates the size of the predator?

The trend I have noticed is that as we study them more and more, some of the ideas we thought in the past incorrectly assumed that communications between animals is less complex than recent ideas. The impression of the complexity of nonhuman communication and, according to the linked article spawning this debate, even moral decision making, is increasing over time.

How do you measure human pleasure? A smile? A wink? A laugh. These same outward expressions of emotions are found in other species as well.

> With those monkey calls, how do you know that an increasing freqency through the life of the monkey call doesn't mean something different from a decreasing freqency? Perhaps the length of the call indicates the size of the predator?

Perhaps the bit where they react the same to calls that differ in the ways you are trying to suggest. There is no reason to impute a greater meaning when the more parsimonious explanation fits the observations.

> How do you measure human pleasure? A smile? A wink? A laugh. These same outward expressions of emotions are found in other species as well.

What I'm afraid of is that you don't think this is a facetious answer. (As a hint, in case you are trying to be serious: http://www.ehow.com/how_2070118_fake-laughter.html and additionally a note that happiness data is generally gained by self-report questions.)

Self-reporting is notoriously bad. Also, through my studies of autism, I am keenly aware of the problems of associating physical gestures with internal emotions. If it weren't possible, there'd be no actors. But no, it wasn't facetious. All humans use these cues to gauge the emotions of others. Sometimes, yes, the measurements are inaccurate. Humans lie, but so do other animals.

To your first point, the reason to suggest that there may be more information contained in the monkey calls is because as a trend over time, as observe more, we are finding that the communication between animals, does in fact, contain more information than we believed in the past.

Are you denying this trend?

For example, in the past, our understanding of chimpanzee communication didn't lead us to believe that they could conspire with others and plot against other chimpanizees, but since then, we have observed that groups of chimps would lie to a target chimp, then isolate that chimp, then murder that chimp. I suspect it takes quite a bit of complex communication skills to pull off pre-meditated murder of a fellow clansman.

Your chimpanzee murder examlpe seems at variance3 with your first comment above: I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it. That seems quite morally corrupt. Animals kill other animals for what appear to be rationalizable reasons, food, competition, self-preservation.

Obviously this is only a casual conversation, but you argue that unknowns in animal communication may obscure a greater moral sensibility (than that of humans), then provide an example of apparent immorality, which seems to refute your original contention. You make interesting points throughout, but they don't seem very coherent. Can you back up and clarify your thesis a little?

Well, considering electromagnetic's numbers and insightful comments, perhaps it isn't that these species have greater moral sensibility, but that they haven't evolved the ability to disregard morality. It may be my perception that people are more likely to disregard morality that makes me believe they are less moral, rather than animals being more moral. It also seems apparent that humans can express moral behaviors that surpass many species, so I may have jumped the gun by saying animals are more moral than people. If humans can disregard morality and other animals cannot, though that would seem to mesh with the "sense" I have about them being more moral.

I don't really know, just kind of typing it and thinking it at the same time. It is still a question in my mind.

I was thinking about this last night. I was at my aunt's house and she has some dogs that were running around and appeared to be happy and excited. I just thought how amazing it was that that they always seem happy to see people and I couldn't imagine them trying to hurt anyone or being mean. So perhaps my thoughts here are a little bit temporally biased.

Yeah, not very coherent. I'm still formulating thoughts in my own head as well on this topic.

The fact of the matter is that humans tend to get all of our information through language, either written or verbal. We extend this expectation to other animals, that any intelligent animal must have a complex verbal language.

However, we frequently underestimate the audible range. You mentioned elephants ULF calls, which are known to travel between herds. However likely low in information.

Yet man's best friend (dog's) communicate almost exclusively through body language and scent. One of my friend's dogs barks viciously at anyone, to the point strangers are scared of it. However, take one step towards it after it backs and it runs away. People mistakenly take the bark as aggression, when it's really fear. Essentially the dog is able to lie to us.

I frequently hear the statistic that communication is 10% verbal and 90% body language: touches, glances, winks. There is information in these gestures as well. Of course this very conversation is an example of how much we can communicate with words.

"Even when fighting for mates, the loser of a battle is allowed to escape with its life. Sometimes accidents happen and the animals die of injuries, but death is not the intent. Humans intend to kill when they battle."

Usually, when human males fistfight over a woman, the loser is still allowed to escape with his life. Murder doesn't usually enter the picture outside of adultery, but a cuckolded alpha wolf will not be all too kind, either (and most cuckolded humans don't murder, either.)

Humans will fight to the death over resources, but we are not the only species that will do that.

Nice one! I love this stuff. I suppose more powerful tools of battle increase accidental death in all species.

I can see an evolutionary rationale for cuckolded violence. Unfaithful mates introduce other genes that take resources the cuckolded mates could be providing to their own offspring. The unfaithful mates, once driven away, increase the probability that all raised offspring are genetic descendents and is an incentive to reduce infidelity by future mates.

Animals have been documented killing for fun. Chimps do it often. Orcas play with seals. Hell even cats bat that mouse around before they finally take the life out of its body.

Either these animals don't know that there an issue with torturing their victims, or they simply don't care. Either way your point about humans being the only animal to kill for sport is moot.

Actually very few animal species kill for fun, you pretty much mention the only two other than humans. Chimps are the one species outside of humans known to kill their own kind for sheer cruelty; they'll attack opponents to the brink of death and then leave them to suffer, usually dying days or weeks later from their injuries.

Orcas do appear to play with their food for amusement, usually it's their last catch. However, the catch seems to be donated to the youngest member who is learning the beaching techniques and the behavior is not usually seen in Orcas that don't beach, which either gives them different social and cultural mores between the two distinct groups of Orcas (nomadic and sedentary) or it serves a purpose in training the young to hunt.

The domestic cat frequently behaves in the same way as a lion or tiger cub that hasn't been taught to hunt. When any cat is taught to hunt by its mother (big or small) it's obvious that they don't play with their food. Mature fully trained Orca's seemingly play with their food, however mature fully trained cats never play with their food. All domestic cat's 'play' behaviors with its prey, are exclusively hunting tactics.

I don't exactly see how humans being the only animal killing for sport is moot, it's not wholly accurate but it's damn near so. As these are all mammals it means the behavior is exhibited on a roughly 1:1300 of species that kill for fun and species that don't.

For all the species that apparently present morality to have evolved it on their own is highly unlikely. This means that it has a biological underpinning, which means potentially every mammal on the planet could exhibit some form of morality. Which then means only 4 species (currently only 2 confirmed) out of roughly 5400 have the ability to disregard morality.

But domestic cats kill far more than necessary for food. I've had cats that were very aggressive hunters, but never ate their prey, and another cat that preferred her kills to what we fed her, but nonetheless killed far more than she ate.

If this wasn't for "sport", then what was it? Did I just happen to have extra sociopathic pets? It seems more likely to me that they just liked killing little things, and this behavior is not unusual in felix domesticus.

Note that domestic cats are rare among felines in this, and they kill for fun even when they go feral. It seems likely that it's a trait that humans helped to encourage, by feeding the cats than brought home the most mice.

The question of whether or not it's "moral" for a cat to kill a mouse he isn't going to eat is bigger than this conversation, and clearly not self evident.

While it's very true cats can kill more than they need, they'll often donate the catch. My cats frequently brought gifts, when you find a 2-3 lb rat on your doorstep in the morning and a cat looking all pleased it's often quite hard to reward the critter.

I think the very nature of domestic cats largely exceeds our understanding. The question of morality in a species specifically bred as verminators is complex. Especially when cats are one of the few species that is commonly seen adopting other species. One of my childhood cats even taught the puppy we got how to hunt birds, although ten years older and he's yet to catch one.

I think the study of morality in other creatures, especially our domesticated species is a key philosophical and ethical question. I think proving morality in our domestic pets would help give more power to the SPCA's to protect species from the immorality of us. I don't know the effect it would have on the food production industry, but as a whole I think we've largely ignored the moral and ethical issues there for long enough that we'll still manage to ignore it for a lot longer.

> I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it.

How do you know why an animal does something?

Sure, it may eat after it killed, but humans sacrifice a goat it's reasonable to say that they didn't kill it for food even if they do get around to eating it.

When a cat brings mouse butts to its owner, did it kill the mouse for to eat or just as a side effect of the offering? How do you know? Heck - what is the intent of the offering?

BTW - Writing "I don't know any animal" suggests that your knowledge of/experience with animals is comprensive enough to offer as evidence. How about describing said knowledge/experience especially wrt its range? (I've spent hundreds of hours with horses, but I don't claim to know what they're thinking; it's barely enough to make a good guess as to what they might do. I might have a clue wrt cats and dogs, at least specific ones, but I have no chance with birds, reptiles, fish, sea mammals, cattle, elephants, other primates, and so on.)

Yeah, that's a good point. Kind of contradictory of me to say humans are arrogant to pretend to know what animals are thinking and then say myself that animals don't kill for sheer pleasure. So I can't say this for sure, because I don't know.

By "I don't know of" I mean, I haven't observed it, or rather more specifically, I haven't observed behavior that is similar, but I'm still a student of this field of knowledge. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. The chihuahua example above from mrbgty is a curious case. It is interesting though that chihuahuas are an invention of man, bred by man with certain personality traits that may not exist in the wild outside such human influence. Of course there could be myriad examples of it we (I) am not aware of, because we can't read their minds. I'd love to be able to read animal minds though, how awesome would that be?!

As far as my knowledge, just what biology classes I have taken and reading some books like Darwin's expression of emotions in man and animal. Good read, many versions here: http://books.google.com/books?q=editions:ISBN1417958944&...

I'm no zoologist of course. I did watch a lot of Nature on PBS and that sort of thing, but definitely no expert. Mostly I just find it a fascinating question of what really separates man and animal.

I have a chihuahua that (when left unsupervised) would kill chickens and kittens for fun.

When all its doing is breaking a neck and moving to the next one, it's hard to say that it was just hungry.

Ah... that is interesting! I wonder why that is.

My first reaction is to think that perhaps the behavior you describe and that behavior in humans is the result of surplus supply of prey. In the wild, prey are difficult to find and so they are eaten when killed. When there are more prey than can be eaten, the drive to play and gain hunting experience, becomes killing for sport and a display of suitability for mating.

Second reaction... If there is a range of moral "quality" so to speak of decisions made by humans, and animals also exhibit morality in decision making, then why might there not also be a range of moral quality in animal decisions. Perhaps your murderous chihuahua was on the morally depraved end of that spectrum...

She's definitely some form of demon.

Quite possibly my favorite HN comment ever. :)

> How do we know they aren't communicating concepts as complicated as "Be careful there is a human approaching and it looks dangerous." with one syllable?

You can look at the number of different calls an animal makes. If each different call stands alone as a meaning (i.e. no multi-syllable words) then that gives an idea of how specific the meaning of a call is.

> I don't know any animal, other than humans, that will kill another animal just for the sheer pleasure of it.

You haven't met my cat. He loves killing mice and birds.

> Even when fighting for mates, the loser of a battle is allowed to escape with its life. Sometimes accidents happen and the animals die of injuries, but death is not the intent.

Nonsense. You have too romantic a conception of the niceness of nature. Nature isn't nice, it's red in tooth and claw. For example, when male lions take over a pride, they routinely kill offspring by other males.

Intraspecific killing is the cause of maybe 4% of human deaths (average over the 20th century), which I imagine is higher than most mammalian species, but I expect there are species where the number is higher.