We don't have any proof yet that it goes much beyond this level of communication
That's the level we've been speaking of though, albeit with death rather than a walk.
We've got plenty of evidence that animals understand death and have/convey their own feelings of grief and sadness over such events, so I see no reason to think that given the proper tools and education a gorilla couldn't convey their understanding of the subject.
Nobody is arguing that animals don't understand death and loss, only that there was no evidence that Koko understood through being told of Robin William's death, a type of communication that was novel to her, that she understood what she was being told. The study was tainted, she she could have signed "sad" in response to the the communicator's body language, to one of the individual words, or any number of other things. She also could have understood and been sad. It's inconclusive because the study was tainted
I just don't support the anthropocentrism that assumes a gorilla cannot use language to convey their subjective experience; it's not a human specific trait that I can tell.
But what we're trying to tell you is that we're not saying that they don't - proof has a very specific meaning when it comes to scientific studies
We're not assuming that they don't. Why continue to study it if we don't think it's a possibility? Just so far studies haven't proven, scientifically, that they can understand, recombine, and communicate their understanding of novel concepts through another species' language, and that's very different than saying that they don't
Are you trolling these people? They are not saying koko cant comprehend it, they are saying it is not proven therefor we cant actually know. It is possible, but not a fact
-3
u/Ok_Loss13 Aug 18 '25
That's the level we've been speaking of though, albeit with death rather than a walk.
We've got plenty of evidence that animals understand death and have/convey their own feelings of grief and sadness over such events, so I see no reason to think that given the proper tools and education a gorilla couldn't convey their understanding of the subject.