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Whale song, elephant vocalisations and dolphin noises can all be analysed, looking for syntactic patterns and data density. They don't have the patterns, complexity or data density that are (apparently) needed for language. All human languages do.
I'm really inclined to disagree with that myself, although not on a strong evidential basis. But I heard orcas in the Tysfjord hunting herring by hydrophone, and I have to say, theres an immense amount of communication, and that only in the range that my ear can discern from the hydrophone. Theres a constant, really constant barrage of clicks and squeals... the nearest comparison I have in my experince to what it sounded like was the hubbub you get in a crowded party.
I would point out that we have very very little information at all about cetacean behaviour. We can hear the whale songs from far away but if theres any short range comms within a whale pod we will likely not hear it unless we are directly observing that pod. What we really need to do is attach mic's to a whole whale pod and work on analysing like a years collected recordings, or maybe longer.
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I'd just like to address the overall structure of this conversation at the moment briefly. First, we need a clear defihnition of what Custard is looking for in the term 'abstract' so we can talk about it constructively. I'm not interested in some external definition, only what Custard would be willing to accept. Second, I think we need to recognise that at this point most of what we have is a collection of anecdotes, and even more problematic, we have no clear subject to study. We even have little idea what we are hearing when we hear it.
What we can do weith these anecdotes is establish whether or not htere is a PROBABILITY of self awareness and language in animals, even if this quality may not be as pronounced as ours.
For example, I feel this point is a strong argument to the probability of self-awareness and a conscious capacity to communicate meaningfully:
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Deception implies that one has attributed a mind to another (one which can be deceived). Deception by means of information concealment is described by Goodall (1986). On one occasion, a 9-year-old chimp, Figan, gave a loud food calls when he was given bunch of bananas. Consequently, the whole group heard the cries and converged on his site, leaving few bananas for him. The next time Figan was given a bunch of bananas, he remained silent (though Goodall reports hearing faint choking sounds in throat) and ate bananas undisturbed. Woodruff and Premack (1979) provides the best example of active deception. In one experiment, a common chimpanzee is shown where in two containers the experimenter has hidden some food. Following this, either a cooperative trainer (who when showed the food by the chimpanzee always shares it) or an uncooperative trainer (who when shown the location of the food, always eats it himself enters the area. The chimpanzee always provides correct information as to the location of the hidden food to the cooperative trainer, however, he acts differently with the uncooperative trainer. First, the chimpanzee withholds information: turns his back and sits motionless so as not to cue trainer to where the food was hidden. Later, after many more trials, some of the chimpanzees will attempt to deceive the trainer and gesture or point to the wrong container. In the wild, chimpanzees often act deceptively to hide their fear-smiles from dominant apes, either by turning away, or pressing their lips together or by covering their mouth with a hand.
From:
http://home.onemain.com/~dk1008206/html/cexam.htmLinguistic Behavior in Nonhuman Species: A Paradigm for Testing Mental Continuity
Elephants can and do remember individual humans as individuals. African elephants have been seen apparently returning to the scene of the death of one of their herd members and manipulating the skeletal remains. Dolphins have exhibited the ability to understand rudiemntary syntax, as discussed in that linked article, although you will see there are also criticisms of this work.
But dolphins in the wild for example are known to develop pod-specific 'dialects' of the broader set of dolphin signals. Incomers from another pod will struggle to communicate without first learning that local dialect. Now it seems to me that if dolphins show dialect, and naming, and can parse syntax, and can even express an explicit preference for the Miami Vice soundtrack by Jan Hammer, as observed in a Hawaiian dolphinarium, then we are looking at an animal that appears to communicate deliberately and intelligibly.
From my prespective, the fact that dogs (that is, even animals as dumb as dogs) can and do recognise their own names and learn some other communicative tricks like ringing the bell to be let out, we in fact have been communicating with many animals at a rudimentary level for centuries. I expect the bigger brained animals to be similar, only more so.
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