Do Primates have culture?

Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

it's my feeling that anthropology is a Frankenstein monster of sorts. A department I'm familiar with has archaeologists (prehistorians), primatologists, physical anthropologists, political anthropologists, psychological anthropologists, social anthropologists (with traditional interests in things like kinship organizations and kinship terminological systems), an anthropological linguist, a geneticist, a cultural anthropologist (folklorist), etc. These people all call themselves practicioners of the same discipline: anthropology,

This is wholism it is the core value of anthropology and it strength . A far an anthropology is concerned, anything humans do or is related to humans is of significance for understanding what we are and why we are distinct. It can sometimes be noisy and chaotic but these people do talk and are deeply interested in each others particular subdiscipline for ultimately the finds of one has implication for the others. You proposal would isolate these subdisciplines and defeat the very purpose of anthropology.

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Thomas wrote:

It's that our ethical beliefs themselves are challenged by the existence of semi-humans

Koko is not semi human, she is a fully competent adult gorilla, and the comparison is an insult to Koko as it implies that she is some how less than complete, she is not. In mental capabilities chimps and gorillas have the capabilities of a 4 year old human but that is of no concern to chimps of gorillas It is of interest to us if we wish to understand what it is that makes us distinct. What Koko and other primates that have been subject to similar studies suggest is that the mental capacities we exhibit exist along a spectrum of which we are at the extreme end. But as a results we (humans) study other primates to learn about us, but other primates do not study us, or ask that question. They are incapable of such concern or conceiving such a study and the question is why.

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Acquiunk wrote:

Koko is not semi human, she is a fully competent adult gorilla, and the comparison is an insult to Koko as it implies that she is some how less than complete, she is not.

Acquinunk -- In the beginning of this thread, we have learned that the same word -- "culture" -- can have very different meanings in different contexts, and that its meaning is much more specific in an antropological context than in an everyday context. Now we seem to be running into the same problem.

I am fully aware that in anthropological terms, I've been extremely sloppy with my language when I called Koko a semi-human. But in my own everyday language, and in my own primitive everyday morality, the only important difference between humans and non-humans is that I can have the latter for lunch whenever I feel like it, but not the former. In this frame of reference, Koko qualifies as a semi-human.

So in practical terms, what I was trying to say is this: after reading Sozobe's account, I can no longer tell whether, as a matter of ethics, it would be okay for me to kill and eat Koko. If anything, I'm inclined to say it wouldn't. In any case, the loss of a clear criterion of telling, even in principle, irritates me. I ought to be able to decide, but I'm not. My ethics are challenged by the existence of Koko on a very fundamental level.

Is this a basis on which we can agree?

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We can't eat humans?

<drops fork>

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Thomas wrote:

, the only important difference between humans and non-humans is that I can have the latter for lunch whenever I feel like it, but not the former.

Actually you can't but that gets us into the quagmire of the anthropology of food and let's not go there.

The idea that there are semi human creatures has a long sad, not to say horrific, tradition in western culture and particularly in anthropology. It was fashionable at one time to arrange human groups along a spectrum of development, dress the resulting typology up in "scientific" garb and define some people as less than complete and closer to such species as chimpanzees and gorillas than ourselves (and it was always ourselves that established the bench mark). Koko and her abilities are reflective in a general way of the abilities of primates (of which we are one) but it does not make her a pale version of ourselves. It makes her a complete gorilla. So I do not think your ethics should be challenged by the existence of Koka any more that the fact that you (and I) share a certain number of genes with the trees and grass that are outside our windows should keep us from cutting our lawn or heating our houses with a fire place. Koko shares a certain range of capabilities that are similar to our own. That allows us to empathize with her but we also empathize with our pets, and in some cultures cats and dogs are considered perfectly acceptable as dinner... which brings us back to the afore mentioned quagmire.

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And in some (very few) cases, people -- albeit people deemed somehow unlike yourself, except in cases of cannibalism as part of a funerary rite -- are perfectly acceptbale nosh, as well.

What strikes me as sad about Koko is that we have perhaps made her something less of a gorilla, though this perception certainly involves a degree of anthropomorphizing and probably also draws on the notion of original sin (or loss of innocence, if you prefer). The ability of animals to be neurotic always strikes a chord with me (perhaps because I am neurotic). This may be why I dislike chickens: they're so cock-sure, if you will, in their behavior...

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patiodog wrote:

What strikes me as sad about Koko is that we have perhaps made her something less of a gorilla, though this perception certainly involves a degree of anthropomorphizing and probably also draws on the notion of original sin (or loss of innocence, if you prefer).

It might be interesting to observe how the gorillas themselves would decide if they had a choice. You take a herd of 20 chimpanzees and teach half of them to sign. Will the ten signing chimpanzees want to teach sign language to their ten non-signing peers? Will the peers choose to learn it? Or will they prefer the gorilla way of life and keep grunting?

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It would be. I'd also be curious to see (in a dispassionate kind of way) what sort of social roles the signers would be able to adopt in their peer group. (Not something I'd actually want to see done, though, I don't think.)

Have there been any instances of signing nonhuman primates communicating with each other?

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Thomas wrote:

You take a herd of 20 chimpanzees and teach half of them to sign. Will the ten signing chimpanzees want to teach sign language to their ten non-signing peers? Will the peers choose to learn it? Or will they prefer the gorilla way of life and keep grunting?

First a group of chimpanzees is called troop or sometimes band, although they are quite conscientious about avoiding heards of elephants, water buffalo and the like for obvious reasons.

I think Thomas, your experiment has been tried, and it has been found that parents will teach children but adults will not teach other adults. This is thought to provide insight into prehuman (sapiens) learned traditions. They were passed generation to generation by direct observation and teaching as there is no evidence of displacement. That is teaching about something in the absence of its presence.

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An interesting idea, Thomas, and it reminds me so something i read many years ago. On the northern island of Hokkaido in Japan, a group of scientists decided to feed a troop of macaques ("monkeys," if you will) so as to keep them in place to be observed. They would leave piles of yams and piles of unhulled rice on the beach by the ocean. One young female began taking her yams down to the sea to wash them before eating them-which would incidentally "season" the yams with salt water. Other macaques-unmated adults and independent juveniles of the same age or younger-imitated her behavior, but not those who were mated, and therefore of a higher status within the troop. She then began to take the rice which had been trampled into the sand (the mated pairs took the rice before lower status macaques, to feed themselves and their dependent juveniles), which was a considerable amount, and carrying it to a tide pool. She would immerse her full hands into the pool, and then carefully remove them. The sand and grit would be washed away and settle, while the unhulled rice would float; and again, it would be "seasoned" by the salt water. Again, the macaques of equivalent or lower status imitated her; the higher ranking, mated members of the troop not only did not imitate her, but, rather than just ignore her, they would turn their backs so as not to see. The innovation seemed to disturb them.

I would suggest in your troop of chimpanzees, that if those who signed were the ones with dominant status, eventually all or nearly all of the troop members would sign. Were they not dominant, i would suggest that teaching sign language would only take place between the signing chimpanzees and their offspring. Perhaps, the signing chimpanzees would eventually succeed to dominant status, and all of the troop might eventually sign to one another.

There are also some interesting implications in this about the origin of "conservative" and "liberal" attitudes among humans.

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CHCI Information and FAQ

Quote:

(from the CWU Chimpanzee Research Lab:
In a double-blind condition, the chimpanzees can comprehend and produce novel prepositional phrases, understand vocal English words, translate words into their ASL glosses and even transmit their signing skills to the next generation without human intervention. Their play behavior has demonstrated that they use the same types of imaginary play as humans. It has also been demonstrated that they carry on chimpanzee-to-chimpanzee conversation and sign to themselves when alone. Conversational research shows the chimpanzees initiate and maintain conversations in ways that are like humans. The chimpanzees can repair a conversation if there is misunderstanding. They will also sign to themselves when alone and we have even observed them to sign in their sleep.

They primarily use their signs to talk about the things that are characteristic of a human family. The young male chimpanzees sign a great deal about playing games such as tickle and chase. Washoe, a typical mother, spends time disciplining, reassuring and conveying other motherly concerns.

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CHCI Information and FAQ

Quote:

(from the CWU Chimpanzee Research Lab:
In a double-blind condition, the chimpanzees can comprehend and produce novel prepositional phrases, understand vocal English words, translate words into their ASL glosses and even transmit their signing skills to the next generation without human intervention. Their play behavior has demonstrated that they use the same types of imaginary play as humans. It has also been demonstrated that they carry on chimpanzee-to-chimpanzee conversation and sign to themselves when alone. Conversational research shows the chimpanzees initiate and maintain conversations in ways that are like humans. The chimpanzees can repair a conversation if there is misunderstanding. They will also sign to themselves when alone and we have even observed them to sign in their sleep.

They primarily use their signs to talk about the things that are characteristic of a human family. The young male chimpanzees sign a great deal about playing games such as tickle and chase. Washoe, a typical mother, spends time disciplining, reassuring and conveying other motherly concerns.

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Sign when asleep? So they can tell us what they are dreaming about!

I do not feel the pressure to differentiate humans.

We are clearly a different species from other primates.

After that, in relation to us and other animals, it is a matter of shades and gradations of difference/similarity.

So - if we are wanting to delineate and make boxes - or merely explore - is a profoundly intellectually disabled human more or less like us than is Koko or Washoe? Who should have greater rights?

We privilege ourselves (more or less universally, now - but, as others have pointed out, this has historically been no given) because we ARE ourselves - not, I think - because there is, in reality, some absolute chasm drawn between us and the animals.

This is illustrated by a fairly general decision to NOT consider humans who are functioning at a far "lower" level than Koko or Washoe as possible lunches, for instance.

I am not sure why some want to find such a clear distinction - in capacities - between us and other beasts?

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There is something that very clearly separates humans from other primates: two fused chromosomes.

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That, and control of the car keys . . .

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Sure - Iam not saying they are the same - we are, as I said, clearly different species. (Not sure the car key thing isn't contingent, though!)

What I am saying is I do not understand the drive to separate us out from the aminals - as I said, I think there is a continuum.

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At the risk of opening an unpleasant can of worms, i would say the desire to make a special distinction between the human animal and all other animals has a theistic orgin. As in Hey-Zeus' daddy givin' Adam and Eve dominion over all the fishes, the birds of the air and everything that creepeth on the earth. Kind of hard to maintain one's superior position to animals if one is obliged to think of oneself as an animal.

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So - assuming we invented the gods - WHY do some cultures want to do that so much?

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Avoidance of personal responsibility for the consequences of one's selfish and ill-considered actions, as well as to immunize the psyche against the ovewhelming realization that one is a meaningless mote in a vast cosmos "unware" of one's existence. If one hasn't the resources within to bear up under "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," it helps to have Big Daddy in the sky telling one not to worry, there's a plan, and you're included . . .

That's my story, an' i'm stickin' to it . . .

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So we can eat 'em without worrying about it.

I do think Thomas' point is a big part of it. Now we go to the supermarket and buy a square red thing and eat it. (Most of us.) In times past, we carefully stalked a wily beast and perhaps looked it straight in the eye before killing it, or grabbed a domesticated animal we'd seen grow from a baby and see its panic. I think a lot of religion is specifically to address the queasiness these actions can engender in the thinking person. I'm thinking of Native American rites to thank the animal for giving up its life, in addition to the Adam/Eve stuff.

So, animals are different. Because they are different, we can kill them, and not worry too much about that desperate and apparently intelligent look in our prey's eyes. It's just reflexes.

(Yes, I'm a carnivore myself.)

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Do Primates have culture?

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