Also
apes have never asked one question
WE ARE APES. We ask questions all the time.
Comment on We wouldn't listen, anyway.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The argument that apes have never asked a question “is a classic example of overstatement,” said Heidi Lyn, a professor at the University of South Alabama’s Comparative Cognition and Communication Lab at the Department of Psychology and Marine Science.
“There is plenty of evidence of apes asking questions, although the structure may not look exactly like humans asking questions,” Lyn explained.
Typhoon@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Infinite@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Ook, ook-ook?
FinalRemix@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yes, sir. The reference desk is right over there. But you’d know that, being the Librarian, right?
Infinite@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Ook.
MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
What did you call me?!??
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Yeah, the moment I read that, I thought it sounded like bullshit. I doubt there’s a database of every sign language interaction with apes that proves that no ape has ever asked a question.
tyler@programming.dev 1 day ago
I’m pretty confident most scientists studying animals have stated that apes have never asked a question. It’s pretty clear on record that only two ever have, both African Grey parrots.
the_q@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
This right here. Humans assume so much based on their experiences and interpretations. It’s infuriating the assumptions we make. “That turtle just eats, sleeps and shits! It’s clearly not intelligent! It’s never read The Hunger Games!” goes back to working to afford a place to eat, sleep and shit while also subjugating others, inciting wars, destroying the planet and reading The Hunger Games
tyler@programming.dev 1 day ago
And yet the scientists that did those studies stated that the animals never asked a question. Those are all other researchers claiming after the fact that questions were asked.
treadful@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Obviously not in the spirit of the question. No curiosity, no attempt to learn about what’s going on around them. The article has no examples of real questions, so to me I’d say the meme rings true.
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Yeah, when my cat meows, it is “asking” for snacks. But it’s not inquiring about snacks, or curious about where the snacks comes from or why dogs like snacks so much.
Granted, many humans don’t ask such questions either, but that’s because intellectual acuity is on a spectrum whose overlap with non-human animals, at least in the realm of being an incurious dunderhead, is overwhelming.
Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 3 minutes ago
That one sign language gorilla asked about sleep pictures.
fascicle@leminal.space 1 day ago
How do you know your cat isnt curious, is it survival bias. All the curious cats died
ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Cats don’t need to ask questions about the world because they are scientists and will figure it out for themselves if they don’t get shown the answers. They know where the snacks come from, at least in regards to their own world, that’s why they come running when they hear the package.
They knock stuff over to see what happens. They meow for treats to see what happens. They sit on your face to wake you up to see what happens. They get into things just to see what’s in them.
And when the result is something they want, they try it again to see if the result is consistent. Reproducible.
That’s why the best way to get a cat to stop doing something they do to you is to ignore them. They meow to wake you up for food? They do that because it’s been working. Stop responding, and the behavior will also stop.
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
What you are doing is anthropomorphizing an animal’s behavior and ascribing intent behind the action without having any substantial basis for that claim.
Cats are intelligent, yes, but what you have described is completely devoid of any understanding of animal behavior or psychology.
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
It’s not that cats can’t ask questions. It’s that they can’t ask abstract questions. That’s quite different.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 day ago
My cat has asked where my wife is. She has a very specific meow for each of us that she uses when she’s looking for us. One day while my wife was at work, cat meowed for my wife. Told the cat she’d be home on a couple hours. Cat curled up by the window, satisfied. Next time it happened, I teased her and tried to play with her. She kept wandering around the house looking for my wife until I told her she was at work. Smart little bastard.
krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Your cat’s breath smells like cat food.
Schmoo@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
I think there are several separate cognitive abilities needed to ask questions. Curiosity (which is very common), complex communication (much less common), and advanced theory of mind (exists on a spectrum, you need not only awareness of your own mental state, or metacognition, but awareness that others have a mental state that is distinct from your own. Humans actually develop this ability surprisingly late in childhood, but every parent will know exactly when it happens). Though there are other species with similar traits, it might well be the case that humans are the only living species in possession of all of them simultaneously.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 21 hours ago
Pay closer attention, they are communicating all the time. We had a cat family of five, and we’re down to the last one, a 17 yo. She has an extremely wide vocabulary, and absolutely asks for water, food, snacks, cuddles, etc.
They all knew each others’ names, and ours. I have definitely seen them watch something unusual, and turn to us for an explanation.
When the Daddy cat, Jake, died, his son and best friend Charlie walked around calling for him for weeks. He would still do it now and then until the end of his life. He was clearly asking where Jake was, and calling him.
They are asking questions and communicating all day long, if you only pay attention to them.
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Yeah that’s just a quirk of the English language in that “ask” means both inquiring, trying to learn information from a response, and request, a communication to another that the “asker” wants something.
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 day ago
That’s crazy. You think monkeys aren’t curious about the world around them?
They just don’t look to humans for answers, they look to humans for treats
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Well, curiosity comes in different stripes. Investigating your environment is one thing. Asking second-order questions is quite another.
“Can I have food?” vs “What is food?” or “Why am I hungry?”
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 day ago
“Why are we here?”
“One of life’s great mysteries isn’t it? Why are we here? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence? Or is there really a God, watching everything. You know, with a plan for us and stuff. I don’t know man, but it keeps me up at night.”
“What? I mean why are we here, in this box canyon in the middle of nowhere?”
Tonava@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
To be fair a lot of people don’t ask the latter questions either
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 day ago
They already understand the second order questions though. Why would they ask the humans?
They know what’s outside their enclosures, they know they’re there because the humans want them there, they know strange humans like to see and interact with them through the glass. They just don’t care, so long as they have their tribe around with things to do and they get tasty food
Animals understand existence better than humans do. They understand life and death better than we to. Our higher intelligence makes second order questions complicated because we put ourselves through mental gymnastics
We should be asking apes about the meaning of life, not the other way around
treadful@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I have no idea if they’re curious about the world around them. But that’s also not the question at hand.
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 day ago
It is the question at hand. It’s a question about the mental process of animals
The question isn’t are they curious - we know they are. The question is why they don’t ask humans questions when you teach them how to speak
The answer is - it’s because you’re not speaking gorilla, the gorilla is learning a foreign language, which it learned by being motivated by food.
Animal languages have a different grammar to human languages. When they ask questions, they often do it by making statements to be agreed with or corrected. They might even disagree, and assert the statement again in reply
You have to meet animals halfway… Well, really like 10% of the way since they’re the ones learning to speak to us in our languages
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
By that standard, my dog is as smart as a gorilla
krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Hi, it’s me, your dog, woof woof.
I have transcended the limits of my species and have learned to type utter doggerel into the glowing rectangle woof woof