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

[Mike Frentz <mfrentz AT bbn.com>]

Karey,

Interesting.  BTW, Deacon describes Kanzi as "who more than any other nonhuman
has demonstrated the extent to which language comprehension abilities are
possible...will probably not progress beyond the symbolic sophistication
exhibited by a three-year-old human child (though he still has many more
years to prove me pessimistic)" (p. 254, written ~1997). Kanzi is interesting
because he was not the subject of teaching -- his foster mother was -- but
Kanzi hung around (on!) her the whole time she was being trained and wound
up becoming the unintended star pupil (presumably because of his immaturity).

An indexical relationship to words is not particularly significant -- Kanzi
has done rudimentary symbolic processing with a visual lexigram system for
years.  The voicing of them is interesting (it is also interesting that Kanzi
is at least 10 now). [Deacon also refers to "Hoover the talking harbor seal"
(p. 226) who only started talking around puberty -- with a seemingly similar
set of phrases and accent of the old Maine fisherman who adopted Hoover years
before when he was an orphaned pup.  Hoover was fond of saying such things
as "Hoova", "Hey you", "Get outa there", and "yadda yadda yadda" (maybe he
watched Seinfeld a bit too much ;-).  He lived in the Boston Aquarium for
years.  The only known talking seal  (I'm not making this up..)  Songbirds
are apparently similar in learning the dealect version of their species song
when they are nestlings, but only start singing when they approach puberty.]
 

The fact that the voicings of the words doesn't seem to correlate in any
way to the human voicing (as seemingly implied in the article) is also interesting.
But, as partially disclaimed in the article, probably not symbolically relevant.
 Language is symbolic or it isn't really language, I believe.  It's the fact
that the words form stable relationships to other words, independent of their
indexical origins (sense, not reference), that yields the triadic nature
that makes them fungible for general usage.


Mike



Karey L. Perkins wrote:

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.