Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["Karey L. Perkins" <karey AT charter.net>]

Here' s another interesting development on animal language research (below) -- however, the last two paragraphs of the article provide a disclaimer for what comes before.  BTW, this also illustrates the idea Wade mentioned earlier that, ""researchers" are largely asking themselves the questions and answering the questions for themselves."

 

As someone said earlier -- I think for this conversation to be most effective, we need to define our terms:  consciousness vs. awareness, sign vs. symbol, symbolic communication vs. any other kind of communication, etc. etc.  Even what is meant by "soul."  Percy even uses these terms differently from other linguists and even Pierce (is my understanding), and even Percy uses these terms differently in his own writing at some points, if I remember reading correctly.  And also, whether or not these things are mutually exclusive -- Why does lack of symbolization have to equal lack of consciousness?  Why did Percy think that?  That's the crux of the matter right there, I think.  Does it have to with what happens in the organism, the third part of the triad?  What does happen?  Percy doesn't say.

 

I'm wondering if his argument is circular as well.   I.E.:  the logic might be provable to those already holding to Percy's basic premise, but if you don't start out believing man is a being with a soul, (or other assumptions Percy begins with), the argument just won't work.

 

I haven't made any decisions yet, just asking questions right now.

 

Karey

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: ken denney

To: karey AT charter.net

Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 9:09 PM

Subject: talking chimp astounds scientists

>From The Guardian in UK:

University chimp amazes scientists with own 'words'
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 02/01/2003)

A chimpanzee has challenged the widely held view that animals do not have
language by making up its own words from scratch.

Kanzi, an adult bonobo or pygmy chimpanzee kept at Georgia State University,
Atlanta, has come up with four distinct sounds for the things closest to his
heart - banana, juice, grapes and yes.

Although the choice of words may be a little predictable, it is the first
report of an ape making sounds that seem to have the same meaning across
different situations.

The findings have astonished ape experts, who believe Kanzi has come the
closest yet to mastering a simple form of speech.

Kanzi has grown up among people and is skilled at communicating with
symbols. It understands some spoken English and can respond to simple
phrases such as "do you want a banana?", New Scientist reports today.

But its language trainers, Jared Taglialatela and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh,
discovered that he also made distinct noises during their "conversations".
The team studied 100 hours of video tapes of Kanzi. They were most
interested in situations where the chimp's meaning was obvious, such as when
it was pointing to the symbol for grapes or eating a banana. The researchers
found four noises used by Kanzi in different contexts.

Dr Taglialatela said: "We haven't taught him this. He's doing it all on his
own."

Kanzi's "word" for yes stayed the same across a whole range of emotions,
suggesting that the noises were not simply the result of differences in the
chimp's emotional state.

Kanzi is the latest in a line of primates to challenge the conventional view
that animals have no language. Language used to be defined as symbolic
communication until another chimpanzee, Washoe, learned to communicate in
American Sign Language. Since then, the definition has been refined to put
more emphasis on syntax and less on symbols.

The researchers are now trying to discover whether Kanzi is imitating human
speech. But they will not consider the chimp to be communicating using the
sounds until other chimps respond to the noises.