Human-animal communication

[Deleted member 3018]

That is the same chimp. and it might even be the same video. Yeah, I have seen even more links to it today. It definetly is newsworthy.

the best thing is that on one big news podcast the hosts got into a discussion about what this means. There was a bit of a disagreement but at least they were asking. The Daily Show had this clip on their show, too. Although Trevor mostly cracked jokes bout Chimps using Tinder.

I remember one biologist said the most of the differences between chimps and humans was social. Can we cross off that too now? They use social media.

I don't want to sound like some smug scientis who thinks that "because we humans can do math we are superrior". I don't think like that, I value living beings for what they are. Animals learn what they have to learn in order to survive in their natural habitat.
But....We can't know if the chimp is uploading pictures. Anyway, he is clearly enjoying watching them. Imitation requires social skills... Enculturated, or non-human apes, kept in captivity, can learn skill sets for coping with human social and material culture.

"The difference in tools used by chimpanzees in different locations is significant as it demonstrates the extended impact of social learning and how it can shape populations through their social norms over multiple generations. This gives us some insight into how our cultures may have begun millions of years ago."

I tried to look more into this, but I didn't have time to read the articles. But I will some day, this is so interesting.

I also love these books:
The Song of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism by Dawn Prince-Hughes
In the Shadow of Man by Jane Van Lawick-Goodall
Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees by Roger Fouts.

All the books are about non-human apes, in different habitats. In Next of Kin, the baby chimp is being held in captivity and is tried to be forced to live kinda like a human, which is bad, of course, but it happened. The book is also about the communication with chimpanzees through sign language, I just noticed that haven't finished Next of Kin yet...
In The Shadow of Man, the chimps are free. Jane observes the chimps first from a distance, and afterwards they accept her presence, as she takes pictures and writes down notes... She witnesses chimpanzees having their own culture and primitive nature religion.
The Song of the Gorilla is about the connection between an autistic woman (Dawn) and Gorillas in a Zoo, like quite often autistic people can create a very deep connection to non-human animals, even if the autistic have shown very slow development of social skills otherwise. The book is also about Dawn's journey of becoming an professor of anthropology and an animal rights activist, talking specifically for the rights of Gorillas, and achieving all this while being autistic (so being autistic has limitations, but also benefits, like good attention span). The book also talks about the cruelty we humans inflict on each other, but also upon non-human apes.

Here are the articles I tried to read:

Both chimpanzees and humans spontaneously imitate each other's actions

Lund University. Decades of research has shown that apes, in spite of their proverbial aping abilities, are rather poor imitators, especially when compared to human children. The imitative superiority of children has been attributed to a higher social motivation to engage others in communication...

www.lunduniversity.lu.se

What’s Special about Human Imitation? A Comparison with Enculturated Apes - PMC

What, if anything, is special about human imitation? An evaluation of enculturated apes’ imitation skills, a “best case scenario” of non-human apes’ imitation performance, reveals important similarities and differences between this special ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The imitative behaviour of children and chimpanzees: A window on th...

Imagine traveling to England for no other reason than to take ‘high tea’. How will the tea be presented? What food will be served as accompaniment? What will the pot and cups look like? Now imagine...

journals.openedition.org

https://janegoodall.ca/our-stories/chimpanzees-and-culture/

 

[Lou]

 

[Deleted member 3018]

What causes humans to be ignorant?

Okay... I have no longer any doubts about chimpanzees being able to upload pictures.
I just finished reading the article that was about how Zoo visitors and chimpanzees spontaneosly imitated each others, and and it said that "intentional imitation in ape evolution might have evolved for communicative and affiliative purposes, besides the more widely acknowledged learning function of imitation." But chimpanzees don't only imitate, they can be very self-taught, like the baby chimpanzee, Washoe, who was rased in captivity... She learned wide range of singlanguage, and if the word that was commonly used didn't match what Washoe thought it should be, she insisted on using the word that better described the place or thing. Like fridge was to her: OPEN FOOD DRINK. She was more interested of the function, I suppose?

 

[Lou]

And lets not just talk about chimps.

 

[FredVegrox]

People in culture believe myths as facts, though they say they don't and believe those all to be facts. And so people tell each other such certain animals don't feel like we can feel, like it is a fact and they can believe it to excuse what they do, though there is no basis at all for that, and they do indeed feel very much, in fact, though they don't understand why people are doing what they do to them.

Such animals all communicate in ways to each other, so they can learn when a human is caring for them and at length show that they communicate in ways with them.

 

[Deleted member 3018]

And lets not just talk about chimps.

Thanks! ?

 

[Deleted member 3018]

@Lou
Speaking of birds... I watch Mr. Max almost every day, while eating dinner. He can say atleast the words Hi and Good Boy... And when Max is angry or frustrated, he mimics the voice of a fax macine, but pretty much all of his fans agree that he is actually not mimicing a fax, he is infact summoning Satan.
Max and his guardian have a very strong bond. They play togher alot every day, some of the play time is recorded for the fans. His guardian says that he doesn't have much life outside taking care of Max, because it's a huge responsibility... And I can relate with the cat that lives with me. I'm always in a hurry to get to home so that I can take care of her.
Max's guardian gets him new toys every month, so that Max doesn't get bored.
Here is Max playing tambourine:

Here is Max going crazy:

Here is Max Summoning Satan:

Here is Max being confused:

Here is FAQ if you got interested:

 

[Deleted member 3018]

People in culture believe myths as facts, though they say they don't and believe those all to be facts. And so people tell each other such certain animals don't feel like we can feel, like it is a fact and they can believe it to excuse what they do, though there is no basis at all for that, and they do indeed feel very much, in fact, though they don't understand why people are doing what they do to them.

Such animals all communicate in ways to each other, so they can learn when a human is caring for them and at length show that they communicate in ways with them.

What.... I didn't notice your post, until now. I'm sorry.

Yes. You are right... Like for example, with horses: the bits, chains and whips, are old fashioned.
All the training methods that are based in fear and pain, should be burried in history. Back then, people believed that non-human animals are non-intelligent machines, that don't think and feel, and modern day science has proven that to be infact false claim.
There are much good ways to communicate, and none of those ways include pain and fear.

 

[Deleted member 3018]

Yes, Earthling Ed, I do think about this every day.
I do think that pets should have as much freedom as possible. In the city it can be difficult, because you can't just let your pets run around freely and get hit by a car.

Sometimes I think that I'm really nothing else to the cat, than a prison guard.
What kind of an friendship is that? When one of the participants haven't given much of a choice?
If I didn't take care of her, she would die, so there isn't a good option available. I can only try my best, and that isn't nearly enough.