Animal language (Animals)

by dhw, Monday, January 12, 2015, 17:18 (3602 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Dhw: For those of us who believe that we are descended from earlier organisms, this can hardly be surprising. Communication is essential to survival, but clearly it is also used for matters which humans in their arrogance assume are exclusive to themselves, including love, parental guidance, education, and in the case of the gibbons, even a fair division of the domestic chores! Our language and our range of thought have clearly evolved far beyond theirs, but they have enough for their needs. This is not anthropomorphizing animals. We ARE animals. They got there before us, and we have merely developed what they passed on to us.-TONY: As someone that grew up on a farm, this is all quite obvious. Well, all of it accept that last bit. Information is the cornerstone of existence. Information without communication is meaningless. All living things communicate, and they all do so in manners FAR more complex and complicated than speech. My question is, what does this have to do with common descent?-It was a sly dig at David, who believes in common descent, but - as you can see from his comment below - sort of...um...doesn't. -DAVID: You want us to believe our brain and its enormous intellectual capacities are a 'mere development'. Yes, we have animal bodies, but NOT animal brains. Animal communication by sounds or other signals are a tiny beginning for what we have ended up with. So?-Before responding to both of you, let me quote Tony's admirable sentiments, which echo my own:-TONY: ALL living things communicate, all the way down to the single cell. Many animals show affection, loyalty, even love. If you've ever seen one animal pine to death over the loss of a loved one their can be no doubt over the extent of their emotional range. [...] None of that really emphasizes common descent to me as much as the fact that it is only getting wide spread attention after being announced by scientists emphasizes human arrogance.
Perhaps that is what happens when people get too far removed from nature; they start to believe that other life forms are not as valid, precious, or complex as our own.-I think our language and range of thought and technology have far exceeded those of our fellow animals, and in that sense I'd qualify the term “complex”, but the crucial point for me is that they set the patterns which we have developed. I see no evidence that our brains are not animal brains and are different in “kind”. We share all the instincts, emotions and needs that underlie the languages of our fellow animals, and the fact that we have extended their scope does not make us any more “special” than they are.-Donning my theist hat, I can accept your point, Tony, that this has nothing to do with common descent. If your God made all the species separately, he would still have used the same patterns. Different process, same result: as I see it, humans are a development, not a new invention.