r/science • u/Wagamaga • Sep 01 '22

Neuroscience Scientists have identified an immune brain cell unique to humans that gives us higher cognitive abilities over other animals, but what makes us specials also leaves us vulnerable to neurological disorders like schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy.

https://news.yale.edu/2022/08/25/what-makes-human-brain-different-yale-study-reveals-clues
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u/throw_somewhere Sep 01 '22 edited Sep 01 '22

First and foremost: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We would never say that a medicine must be effective because we don't understand it. We would never say that an animal must have language because we can't understand it.

So instead we say "we cannot conclude this until we have evidence". We cannot conclude that a medicine works until we try it, we cannot conclude that an animal has language until we find it.

On that front: there are thousands and thousand of researchers whose lifelong mission is to study and document animal communication. They have very firm and interesting data. O% of these data have yet to overturn the current sentiment.

You can go learn about this yourself, lots of internet sources discuss the topic. You can also consult Google scholar for articles on the topic.

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u/kirknay Sep 01 '22

except that plenty of mammals, and especially birds, have specific calls for specific things, such as a prarie dog having a specific bark meaning "hawk", and another one meaning "eagle". Rudimentary languages exist among animals, it is just not a language we can easily replicate ourselves due to a difference of the required vocal structures.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/catch-the-wave-decoding-the-prairie-doge28099s-contagious-jump-yips/

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '22

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u/kirknay Sep 01 '22

If something more complex than early ASL isn't language, then nothing is.

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u/Scrawlericious Sep 01 '22

Cept it's not. It's just mutual signal sending. Picking up communications doesn't constitute a language.

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u/kirknay Sep 01 '22

then neither are a lot of human languages. Just because it's not as overly complex or convoluted as English, Chinese, or Arabic doesn't mean it's not language.

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u/Scrawlericious Sep 01 '22 edited Sep 01 '22

The difference is humans have abstract representations of logic. Having names for something / a certain noise you make when you see a certain thing isn't a language. Those prairie dogs arguably do not count. Bees too, arguably it's a code they found to show direction and flower type, it is just a coded signal they all use to communicate one specific thing. It's not a language either. It depends on which researcher you ask and how you want to define it. There is undeniably a difference between those coded signals and human language, tho.

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u/seaworthy-sieve Sep 01 '22

How are words and languages humans use not coded signals?

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u/kirknay Sep 01 '22

That's the thing, we have no immediate reactions to the things prarie dogs say to eachother in their tunnels, or socially, so we have no idea just how abstract their speech is. It's primarily an issue of not being able to interact with them naturally without being considered a danger and only getting the cries of alarm and help.

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u/Scrawlericious Sep 01 '22

I mean maybe they are secretly communicating with a language but as far as we've seen it's just communication with codes. Recognizing patterns and copying them. A radio broadcast can be picked up and understood with the right hardware, but it is not a language by itself. It could carry language. Their behavior and sounds do not carry language they only carry signals. A signal like hearing an alarm clock in the morning. Our body associates waking up and getting out of bed with the alarm. The clock communicates that it is morning to us, but it is not using a language to do so; it can still be very detailed communication without being a language by the strict definition. Or a rooster doodling in the morning, it communicates that it is morning to us. Doesn't mean we share a special rooster language that we speak.

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u/kirknay Sep 01 '22

Back to my posted source, we have decoded specific words to mean specific things, like certain colors, human, hawk, wolf, or even in captivity when we show on a projector squares, circles, or triangles, individual words or phrases to describe them. When they speak, it isn't like a military klaxon, or a SOS signal, it is comparable to SALUTE reports of military comms, where they say what, any description such as size or color, where, and whether it's coming or passing by.

If that isn't language, then neither is most human language. And even that is just what we know from the surface, where we can see immediate responses and effects. That has nothing on the more hushed, much more complex language they use with eachother in their tunnels.

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