Now, for summary six this was a bit easier. The power
of language. Where as in week six I concentrated on the cognitive development
(regarding language, as the topic was cognitive development) this week,
we look at language itself as a tool of communication (more aptly: Communication
and Auditory Abilities). I found an article on the web called “The Neurological
and Environmental Basis for Differing Intelligences: A Comparison of Primate
and Cetacean Mentality” by Kenneth Marable (the original site of this document
is unavailable at present, so I will post it’s local site: [http://coop1.uns.tju.edu/~psych330/week8/whal-int.html#sect7]).
Again as this is a rather lengthy article I will concentrate on the subsection
7 as mentioned above.
The whole point for this Marable’s article is to
compare and contrast the cetaceans (whales, dolphins) to humans in their
evolutionary development. The subsection on communication is one of a comparison
between the human evolution of language and cetacean evolution of language.
He states that while our primary sense is sight and primary form of communication
is auditory, the cetaceans have it such that their primary sense and primary
form of communication is both auditory. Marable continues to stress the
cetacean’s primary sense as being so important that their “ears” can decipher
the sonar sent out precise enough to produce a crisp clear “image” of what’s
ahead of them. They can also send out these “images” by reproducing the
sound received, to others of their kind. In effect, Marable states: “equivalent
of this in humans would be the ability to create instantaneous holographic
pictures to convey images to other people.” Shocking, isn’t it?
Marable then continues to state that such images
being transferred and the ease of representation of such images, over time,
will inherently lead to a development of a language where a pairing of
a particular sound to its stylized object (template, in our terms) can
be interpreted into a sort of symbolical form of communication. WOW! <8-)
Then Marable states that sonar is used to view the
internal workings other animals. In this way they can measure the other
animals, emotional or mental health. He throws in a factoid that the cetaceans
have more neurons “on the job” for performing the task of deciphering their
sensitive hearing! Cetaceans are able to hear much higher than humans (hence,
convey a larger amount of data than even our primary sense -eyes-
are able to interpolate).
This subsection of the article, was quite informative
and I will continue further investigation on this subject. My primary question
is what went so wrong, or conversely, so right, with us humans that we
evolved the way that we did. To say that we are the only animals able to
think in an abstract manner and that we are the only cognitive animals
(some people say, in this Universe) is quite ethnocentric. Marable, said
it correctly when he stated that many animals posses this ability, however,
to a lesser degree than humans. I often wonder what it is like to be another
animal and not have to worry about much other than where to get food each
day. Would I trade this life for that of an animal? Probably not, I would
not want to be an automaton. I relish in the fact that I am able to ponder
such things and would not trade it up for all the riches of the world.