This is a reminder that
the critical aspect of human intelligence is the capacity to transmit
data. All other aspects I find well
represented among animals. In fact as
well represented as in most of humanity.
I even include cognition in that list.
Yet their problem is information sharing. This is generally rudimentary.
So we have many
excellent cases of clever animals and even useful use of sound. We do not have anything subtle. In fact, animal intelligence needs to be
studied through the lens of information sharing for a best measure.
Just what do dolphins
and crows share? Better yet what do our
children share?
Language - The Dawn of
Thought
To
the casual observer the most noticeable difference between human beings and the
great apes is not our larger brains, but the uses to which we put them. Unlike
chimpanzees or gorillas -- and unlike any other creature on Earth -- human
beings wear clothes, grow food, paint pictures, sing songs, dig wells, mine
coal, read books, go to school, get married, remember anniversaries, earn
money, go to discotheques, hoard gold, hold elections, employ lawyers, belong
to unions, take vacations, follow fashion, join fan-clubs, collect stamps, give
parties, fly planes, build highways, spray insecticides, stockpile nuclear
weapons, and worship God.
Such
differences stem from human beings’ ability to think, to reason, to be aware of
ourselves, to make choices, and to purposefully modify the world around us.
Each of these abilities depends in turn upon our exceptional capacity for
language. Having brains several times larger than we need for our bodily
functions gave us the added capacity necessary for the extremely complex neural
processing involved in verbal communication.
Before
this potential could be turned into speech, however, we needed a voice. Being
able to make sounds is not by itself enough -- most animals do that very well.
Nor is the possession of a larynx, or “voice-box,” sufficient; the great apes
have well-developed larynxes. What makes the human larynx different are some
important changes that it undergoes early in life.
At
birth the human larynx, like that of the apes, is high in the throat, and in
its first year a child’s speech is restricted, and the sounds it makes are very
reminiscent of those made by young chimpanzees. But during the second year
the larynx descends to a lower position, carrying the base of the tongue with
it. This change allows the tongue much greater freedom, and the child can begin
to articulate a wide range of complex sounds. Speech becomes possible.
From
an evolutionary perspective, speech represents a major step forward in
information processing, as significant as the emergence of DNA, the evolution
of sex, or the development of nervous systems. We can share our experiences,
and hence our learnings with each other. Whereas a dog or cat learns primarily
from its own experience of life, human beings learn not only from their own
experience, but also from the experiences of others -- from those around us and
from those who have gone before. Unlike other creatures we do not have to build
up our knowledge of the world from scratch; we can pool our experience and
build up a collective body of knowledge about the world.
Accelerated Learning
Estimating
the rate of growth in our collective knowledge is a difficult task. One
inspired attempt has been that of the French economist Georges Anderla for the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He takes the known
scientific facts of the year AD1 to represent one unit of collective human
knowledge. Assuming that our collective learning began with language, it had
taken approximately fifty thousand years for humanity to accrue that first unit
According
to Anderla’s estimates, humanity had doubled its knowledge by a.d.1500. By 1750
total knowledge had doubled again; and by 1900 it had become 8 units. The next
doubling took only fifty years, and the one after that only ten years, so that
by 1960 humanity had gathered 32 units of knowledge. It then doubled again in
the next seven years, and again in the following six years, taking us to 128
units in 1973, the year of Anderla’s study.
There
is no indication that this acceleration has slowed since then. It has almost
certainly continued to increase ever-more rapidly. Today, with the advent of
the information revolution, human knowledge is estimated to be doubling once
every eighteen months.
Whether
or not one agrees with the details of Anderla’s figures, the trend they reflect
is very clear. As soon as our species gained the ability to pool its
individual learnings our development moved ahead at an unprecedented rate.
Never in the entire history of evolution on Earth had change been so fast.
A Thirst for Knowledge
The
advent of speech not only facilitated our communication with each other, it
also gave us the ability to think in words, form concepts, and entertain ideas.
We could begin to think about our experiences, and understand them. As we did,
we discovered order in the world around. Not only did we see the stars, we saw
that there were patterns in their movement. We could begin to draw conclusions
and make predictions. Science had been born.
We
became a species with a thirst for knowledge, a hunger to understand. Why does
night fall? Where does rain come from? What makes the wind blow? Why do rivers
flow? Why do plants grow?
Awakening
to Time
Our
capacity to think about our experience made us aware of time in a new way. We
could think about events from the past, deliberate upon them, and learn from
them. And we could think about future possibilities, and at where we might be
headed. We could speculate about events that had not yet happened, judge
whether or not they would be beneficial, consider alternatives and their
consequences, and consciously decide upon our actions -- and hence our futures.
A new freedom of choice had been born.
We
also became aware that our own time had a beginning and an end. We were faced
with the inevitability of our death. We wanted to know whether or not we
continued after our bodies met their end. Is there an afterlife? Or is this all
there is?
Self-Reflective
Consciousness
Being
able to step back and reflect upon our experience gave humanity another
distinctive ability. We became conscious of our own consciousness.
Consciousness
itself was not new. Any creature that experiences the world around is conscious.
A dog, for example, is aware of the world around. It seems to feel pain,
recognize people and places, and at night seems to dream, perhaps chasing some
imaginary cat. There is every reason to believe that what applies to dogs
applies to other mammals -- cats, horses, dolphins, rats -- and probably to all
vertebrates -- birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish -- and perhaps to all
creatures with a well-developed nervous system. But human beings are, as far as
we know (we have not yet broken the communication barrier with dolphins and
whales) the only creatures who are conscious that they are conscious. We can
observe our thoughts and reflect upon our inner processes. We know that we
know. We have a sense of self.
This
has opened us up to what may be the most profound questions of all. “Who am I?”
“What is consciousness?”
3 comments:
I continue to be amazed when people with over inflated opinions of their own intellect string together words of which they do not know the meaning because ... they are either poorly defined, or there is no meaning.
Here is just one example:
We can observe our thoughts and reflect upon our inner processes. We know that we know. We have a sense of self.
First, and most obvious we do not know what we know, if for no other reason than that so often what we "know" can be shown to be wrong. And that "sense of self"? What exactly is that? How does one measure it? Has someone invented a self-O-meter and not told me about it? If we have this sense of self, than how come so many people are trying to "find themselves"? Or how many times have you thought that one of your friends does not have an accurate picture of themselves? How about seeing yourself as others see you.
If we have that sense of self, when does it come into existence? How do you know? The nearest that we have to that is the mirror test, which many primates pass.
So, this article is a lot of words, and little substance, and to the extent that any of the sentences actually have meaning, there are probably as many that are wrong as are right.
more on self awareness:
http://www.ted.com/talks/the_interspecies_internet_an_idea_in_progress.html?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2013-07-10
This is gorgeous!
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