[HN Gopher] Review of Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Anima...
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Review of Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication
Author : tintinnabula
Score : 22 points
Date : 2024-02-10 06:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (literaryreview.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (literaryreview.co.uk)
| james_david wrote:
| Ed Yong's book An Immense World is an incredible exploration of
| one of the questions raised in this review, which is what animals
| talk about. He explains the incredible array of senses animals
| have and how those shape their worlds (Umwelten, in biology
| terms). If we want to understand how and why animals communicate,
| seeing the world from their point of view is essential, and Yong
| does a brilliant job of that. His book will pair well with this
| one.
| mcswell wrote:
| From the review: "But is any of this really language? Kershenbaum
| shrewdly sidesteps the question." Of _course_ he does, because it
| would ruin his thesis. He 'd rather use the word "talk" because
| it's vague enough that he can use it without being called out,
| yet sounds meaningful enough to the common person that it sounds
| like he's saying something, while at the same time pulling in all
| kinds of feelings about how nice or smart some animals are. (And
| yes, I've had pet birds, fish, cats and dogs, and at least the
| cats and dogs, and maybe the bird, sort of communicate. And they
| were--one of the cats still is--nice.)
|
| Peter Wohlleben does the same thing in his book "The Hidden Life
| of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate", using the word
| "communicate". Trees exude certain chemicals when injured or
| infested, and you can sort of kinda maybe call that communication
| --but of course you can't call it language.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Wasn't there a study a few years ago that had identified a
| rudimentary language in bats.
|
| It was just 3-4 words/concepts like:
|
| 'i don't like you'
|
| 'don't want to sleep next to you'
|
| 'like you'.
| dleeftink wrote:
| > just 3-4 words
|
| Isn't that quite profound? I'd wager these concepts will get
| you a long way in any language.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| pedantry: many non-human animals communicate, in that they
| create signals with understood meanings; what appears to be
| special about language is that using it, one can string the
| same symbols together in different orders, and the understood
| meaning changes.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Tomato / Potato
|
| We discovered animals using 'words'.
|
| NO, that isn't what we meant by language, because then humans
| wouldn't be special.
| underlipton wrote:
| That seems to be satisfied by the existence of "like/dislike"
| modifiers (and possibly directional/proximity modifiers, if
| the example given is accurate to the research).
| pcw7321 wrote:
| "What's it like to be a bat" posed the question; "the character
| of cats" (horses; or dogs) goes some way towards answering it.
| Does the reviewed work extend our knowledge? Do I really need to
| sign up to find out? Animal communication certainly is an
| interesting topic IMHO but yet another rehash of "animals see
| things differently" is, I suspect, just click bait. Tell me if
| it's a descent litt survey.
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