see, this is rather pointless. yeah, she bashed the thing for a few seconds to get a peanut. but, what did you expect? the moonlight sonata? this is again a circular concern. i'm not aware of a culture that doesn't have music, but, if one did exist, i'm not convinced you'd get a different reaction from a human out of that culture.
and, probably roughly half the adult human population of the united states would react no differently....
"a keyboard. it makes sound. whatever. when do i get paid?"
the implied error is consequently within the universality of music. it seems to be universal across culture. but most humans couldn't care less.
yeah, i've seen enough to realize that the flowers are fake and the gorilla's articulation of sign language isn't. separating between the idea of "falsity" and "representation" may be a little abstract for her (although it might be something that could be taught), but she clearly understood that the picture of a flower was not actually a flower and felt the need to specify it. that is, she wasn't content with saying "that's a flower", she needed to find a way to express "that's a picture of a flower". that might not imply that she meets any technical definitions regarding the use of human language, but it does demonstrate that she understands what she's doing when she flops her fingers around. she is very clearly consciously doing so with the intent of expressing ideas that are her own.
i'm not sure it even makes sense to try and ask questions about grammar as they relate to sign language outside of the context of a spoken and written language, and i think it opens up a lot of questions regarding the circularity of it. i know there's different ideas about it, but i have a hard time separating grammar from written language. it seems to me that it's the writing that enforces the grammar, rather than the other way around. when you look at tribes that don't have written languages, the grammar may exist but is often rather basic - and they have thousands of years of linguistic evolution to get to the point, whereas koko only has her lifetime and a set of limited tools to express herself. i don't really have to hypothesize about taking europeans and putting them on a different planet without writing - you can look at how the language has broken down in areas of australia and north america, where the written component is not great. that is, you take the writing out and the grammar demonstrably starts to fracture. so, i just don't see how this experiment is able to produce any kind of meaningful conclusions on the question. to answer that question, you'd have to carry the experiment out over generations, teach them how to use written language and then construct something that gives the gorilla more ability to use grammar than signing.
but, i'm not falling for this idea that the gorilla is being conditioned. i've seen very little, of course - youtube videos. but the bit i've seen is just overwhelmingly in favour of an independent agent producing independent thought.
if the gorilla can understand over a thousand signs, it could conceivably understand just as many key combinations on a keyboard. that would eliminate a lot of ambiguity. perhaps using chinese style writing (or even something roughly comparable to hieroglyphs) may be a better way to start.
after all, humans didn't start with a complicated alphabet, either. we built it up over time. we started with pictorial representations that expressed ideas.
so, it's not really fair to grab a gorilla and expect it to grasp a modern roman alphabet with the complexity of a modern language right off the bat. i wouldn't even expect that a pre-neolithic member of our own species would be able to do that.
everything we know about plasticity and evolution nowadays suggests that whatever is inherent must have developed over the time we've been using language and grammar. so, if you want to do this and draw any meaningful results, you need to control for that by emulating the same kind of systems that early humans used, not the fully developed ones we use now.
i mean, we have no idea what ancient egyptians sounded like when they talked to each other. we can take some guesses. but there's not really any serious way to really understand how complex their grammar was, at the time.
chinese would be better for that reason, but it might be too complicated.
if tolkien can construct a new language, it can't be that hard to make one for some apes using a simple but "correct" grammar and then transliterate it with pictures constructed with combinations on an oversized keyboard.
and i'm suggesting this because i think the results will be shocking to certain people and put some questions to rest rather permanently.
deathtokoalas
again: when an elephant rubs your nose, it's expecting you to rub back. that's why it's standing there, within a foot of her nose, expecting reciprocation, and eventually walks off, confused and dejected.
why are humans so rude?
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deathtokoalas
it's not a dog...
basically, she "left the creature hanging". that trunk rub is a high five, or a hug. you gotta reciprocate or it's going to feel rejected...
nuspacestate
I agree, the girl should reciprocate but she is not familiar with elephant behavior.
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deathtokoalas
the apes that don't wear clothes have no trunks, either. i don't think it would find that confusing.
elephants learn almost everything from their parents and almost nothing from instinct - quite a bit like us. they wouldn't know an ape from a banana if they've never seen one before. that's not how the baby elephant is interpreting the human.
you've seen kids anthropomorphize animals. it's no doubt proboscidomorphizing her.
"humans are elephants, too!"
Ludwig van Beethoven (Truth Lives)
I must have misinterpreted this video incorrectly - but thanks for giving me the heads up on elephant behaviour. What I thought was the Baby Elephant was trying to work out why the woman didn't have a trunk.
paramornal
Where did you learn that "when an elephant rubs your nose, its expecting you to rub back"? I am a veterinarian and my fiance is an animal caregiver and we never learned anything like that.
deathtokoalas
well, it's an extrapolation. for example, you might see people hug their dogs. that's human behaviour, but sometimes we treat other species as though they're a member of ours, for the simple reason that it's how we think. now, humans are unusually smart animals - we can figure out how to communicate with some animals by mimicking their behaviour. elephants are also very smart, but this is a very young one.
when elephants rub their trunks against each other, it's a bonding thing. you'd expect family members or friends to do this. so, you'd expect an elephant to behave that way towards a human it wishes to bond with, because that's what an elephant would do - just as you might hug your dog. certainly, that's what the behaviour she's expressing is - a bonding rub.
it's kind of like when a chimp starts grooming you. that's not random behaviour, it's a bonding thing.\
humans hug, chimps groom, elephants rub - and dogs lick. same idea. the fact that we're different species doesn't change the behaviour.
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deathtokoalas
this isn't new behaviour, and i don't need a lecture. i may have coined the term, but there are many other observed instances of elephants treating humans as elephants. with elephants, especially - due to their extreme intelligence - it takes on a deeper dimension. i'm using examples with dogs and chimps to demonstrate behaviour they share with humans. in more generality, you can't interpret elephant behaviour the way you'd interpret dog behaviour - they're far too intelligent. they're not as smart as we are either, but you need to learn more in the direction of us than in the direction of our pets. with the trunk rubbing, this is a universal in elephant populations. humans may show a lot of variation in customs, but we also have some universals - and touching is one of them.
as another example of elephants treating humans as elephants, elephants have been known to bury sleeping humans under the misunderstanding that they're dead or dying. as astonishing as it sounds - and it is remarkable - elephants actually hold funerals for their dead friends and family members.
in fact, almost any mammal (excluding certain predators that interpret us as a natural prey source, which are mostly cats: lions and tigers) and a lot of more advanced non-mammals (this has been demonstrated in owls) will interpret us through their own filters and allow us to integrate into their social networks when they are existing. even when they're not existing, animals that co-habitate with us will work us into their own social understandings. i grew up with two or three dogs in the house at any given time, and i was entirely aware that i was as much a part of their pack as they were a part of the family - that we lived in a den as much as we lived in a house. the dog that protects their owner is demonstrating pack behaviour with the underlying understanding of the human as their dog kin. and, you've surely been licked by a dog that's trying to show affection and not really aware that we humans think it's a little gross. we do the same thing when we stand up for animals we interact with socially.
we have the ability to separate between species we consider "friends", but a moment's reflection will realize that this is an advanced cognitive ability. that the elephant sees an elephant in the human is not a sign of extreme intelligence, but a demonstration of their lack of full awareness. as great as elephant cognition may be in relative terms, it is a substantial abstraction to understand that different animals have different cultures and adjust behaviour to cater to each one. elephants understand elephant culture; due to our ability to understand that, we have the responsibility to adjust and respond accordingly.
daveyboi28
totally cool thanks for teaching me something new :D
Jessica Cejnar
How should she have responded?
daveyboi28
well all i know is i wouldnt have been ignoring as she did! the cutest thing on this earth happens and she just ignores it? i woulda been stroking his/ her trunk :D
i believe that the grooming is a gesture of friendship and the head honcho gorilla stormed off when it wasn't reciprocated. so, if you're ever in uganda, and some gorillas start grooming you, you really ought to groom back. it's rude not to, and might hurt their feelings. it's kind of like not accepting a local meal with the local customs..
the thing about gorillas is that they're smart enough to understand they're being caged. you've seen at least one action movie, right? what happens when the aliens put an action hero in a cage, and the action hero gets the chance to escape? doesn't even need to be aliens, either, does it? could just be bad guys. and, it's carnage.
you consequently need to interpret the violent behaviour, when it happens, as a function of their captivity. you'd act no differently, yourself. it doesn't matter if the aliens or the bad guys "treat you well". you're still going to eat their faces if you get a way out.
but, it's different if you're integrated into the family. maybe there's a level of stockholm syndrome, but it's a different scenario than being locked in an enclosure.
what's going to define the nature of the beast is going to primarily be whether or not they interpret you as food. you're nuts to try and befriend a tiger. but gorillas are never going to interpret you that way.
of the other intelligent species? elephants aren't going to eat you, either.
cetaceans are sketchier.
it's probably too late for koko, but can't this kind of research be done in groups in the future? i mean, imagine being abducted by an advanced alien species, locked in a room and forced to communicate in code with them. no matter how well the aliens treat you, you're going to get lonely. you're going to feel various pressures to do the kinds of things that your dna demands that you do. and, you're a human, not a gorilla. chances are you're going to cope with it better because you have more advanced reasoning skills.
further, wouldn't the research even be superior if it was carried out in groups? if you tried to study a human under those circumstances, you'd no doubt be studying some kind of manic depressive psychopath, as the result of the conditions.
nearly every segment i've seen from this ape is trying to communicate immense grief. she's fucking miserable....
you know, i thought that fox looked unusually big...
obligatory "influential on the track of the week" post.
i'd graduated to bigger epics by this point, and this was a track that knocked me over. there's a lot to get lost in, here, and i did. you can hear some structural similarities.
obligatory "influential on the track of the week" post.
the drum machine - and the guitar work, as well. kids nowadays are going to hear the mars volta in it, but in/casino/out hadn't even been released yet. i could cite santana, but i'd be lying. it was i mother earth....
the live version of this on earth, sky, and everything in between is also killer.
(relevant tracks: teenage jesus, to spin inside dull aberrations, various tracks in the guitar solo playlist)
deathtokoalas
obligatory "influential on the track of the week" post.
i'm pulling out the record symbolically - it was a culmination of enossification as applied to bowie, u2, his solo work and elsewhere that was on my mind when i was making the end section. but, it was equally a result of the keyboard patch, which has this kind of pitch-based echo that gets just a bit dissonant with polyphony. what i remember thinking was "this sounds like eno", rather than "i want this to sound like eno".
(relevant tracks: teenage jesus, book it!, missed connection, all symphonies, others)
don't bring up u2, even eno couldn't make u2 sound good, i doubt nigel goodrich could make u2 sound good
deathtokoalas
i'd argue that eno's best work was probably with u2, but it's secondary to the point - u2 was how i, personally, interacted with eno first and what generated interest in looking through his other work. i probably would have eventually found him through either bowie or fripp, but that isn't how it happened...
for example, i have very fond memories of sitting in a dark room very late at night around the age of 12 or 13 when i was supposed to be sleeping and just getting absolutely lost in the swirling synths of zooropa through a pair of sennheisers.
his (pop) work with bowie and talking heads and others tended to sound very clinical - like he was just pulling something out of his ass to cash a pay check. i'm not sure why he seemed to gel so well with u2, but it's the most organic and bluntly real pop work that he did outside of his own releases.
beneath the remains
he helped them a little bit with those synths but still just the name u2 is disgusting, he couldn't cover up bonos voice or those shitty guitars
you were only 12 but you should try to strike any and all u2 from your memory
deathtokoalas
again: the edge is a very interesting, underrated guitarist and bono did have quite a few interesting things to say before his record company sold him to apple.
"beneath the remains" is a name that suggests that you're currently probably not much older than 12, and don't really know what u2 was before the year 2000. i'd suggest you check out some of the records u2 released before pop. you probably want to avoid rattle and hum. otherwise, most of it is quite interesting political rock music, with thought-provoking themes and excellent production.
beneath the remains
i am 38, beneath the remains is a record from the 80s
never did like sepultra. "beneath the remains" sounds like the name of a current emo band.
if you take the thrash/metal out, i'd argue you mostly have a list of notable records, although it's in a rather contentious ordering.
it doesn't change the importance of relevance of u2's early work. i'm sorry you don't hear it, but i'll note that you don't have much of the other things that serious u2 fans would rank highly (joy division, rem) in there, either, so it's perhaps outside of your sphere of interest.
i will say that it's a little confusing that you can be a big radiohead fan and not get u2, though, considering that radiohead has essentially based their entire career on stealing ideas from u2.
beneath the remains
u2 looks up to radiohead just like paul mccartney does and elton john does and every other popular band and the thought that radiohead based their career on u2 is retarded, they haven't sounded anything like u2 since 1996
so funny, u2 would be scared to play a show with radiohead
deathtokoalas
hrmmn. so, you mean that it's just a coincidence that they followed their stadium rock breakthrough (bends/fire) with a sombre pop record dominated by synthesizers (joshua/okc) and a "groundbreaking" techno-rock record with mocking political themes (kid/achtung) connected to a side two of outtakes (amnesiac/zooropa)?
the major difference between u2 and radiohead is that u2 deserves the critical acclaim for being innovative and radiohead doesn't.
beneath the remains
that is funny, radiohead is 100 times more critically acclaimed yet it is not enough, they are the most remixed band ever, 1000s of musicians from every genre look at them as gods, fkn rappers sample them and they sample anything and everything yorke does on his own, they are the most studied band
paul mccartney has been trying to get yorke in teh studio for almost a decade, radiohead is god on earth
deathtokoalas
it is, indeed, rather unfortunate that music journalists of a certain age are so ignorant as to not realize that radiohead has largely operated on borrowed ideas throughout their career and assign them credit for innovation, rather than accuse them of plagiarism. even creep was plagiarized from an old hollies song...
history tends to right itself in these cases, but sometimes you have to give it a generation or two to get it right.
in the end, u2 will be remembered as some idealistic kids that put up a hell of a fight, but lost their way in the end - and released a string of paradigm-shifting albums in the process. as far as the rock era is concerned (and let's go ahead and say it - that is roughly 1963-1999), there are two bands of singular importance - the beatles and u2.
radiohead will be remembered as cynical ripoff artists that squeezed every dime out of the industry that they could in a consciously engineered path for world domination, and ultimately created little of any real lasting artistic value that hadn't already been done.
Matthew D
Beatles, yes. U2? Really?
deathtokoalas
i don't know your age. if you're under a certain cut-off point, you've never experienced a time when u2 were actually a really unique, forward thinking experimental rock act. and i get the backlash. but if you're over a certain cut-off point, you realize that the decline has actually been painful to watch, and really sort of depressing.
if john lennon had lived as long as bono, would he have gotten to the same point of self-parody and hypocrisy?
the music press often likes to pretend the influence is from joy division, and sometimes from the cure, but the reality is that the entire indie rock culture from about 1997 is absolutely reliant on u2. everybody sounds like u2. their influence and importance on the culture we live in is immeasurable.
the only band of almost comparable importance to u2 this side of punk rock is sonic youth.
put another way, think this through: if bono had died in the 90s, he'd most likely be remembered the way lennon is.
nadia mccall
When people say ripoff they really should give some examples since so much music is derivative often without the artists fully realizing this themselves. All art rips off to an extent. Also in what way was U2 "experimental?" I do love some U2 songs but not sure how they were, just curious. I remember hearing they started out as a religious band (reminds me of Creed, UGH) but went more mainstream for whatever reason. I actually do like some U2 stuff a lot and hadn't realized how great Eno was til recently. Finally, NO while good come on, Radiohead is not "godlike" and this is just insulting to the greatest artists ever, like Mozart, and really music is the god while then you have the truly great like Mozart. Radiohead? good but come on....I'm sure Yorke himself would find that annoying.
deathtokoalas
the string of records from unforgettable fire to pop utilized a number of unusual production approaches. it's not experimental in a music composition sense, but nothing really sounded like unforgettable fire before it and it dramatically changed the way that pop music is produced. every time you hear a rising synth part in a pop song, that's u2 - or eno via u2. the production remained cutting edge through this period.
i don't think u2 were ever a religious band, and i don't think bono is really a person of faith. his vocals are often about questioning faith, but they're never about accepting it. it's more in the tradition of somebody that has lost faith. it's more nine inch nails than creed.
what's happened is that bono said a few vague things and the christian community has jumped all over it, in order to co-opt it. they accidentally on purpose misinterpreted it, and they yelled loud enough that it stuck. christians like to claim everybody as their own. they see it as a convincing argument - "this icon is a christian, so you should be a christian, too".
but, bono's religious convictions are on the order of:
i would break bread and wine, if there was a church i could receive in
it's full of sarcasm, skepticism and doubt.
the actual dominant theme explored in the music is a criticism of hypercapitalism, and it's actually incredibly relevant when parked right at the end of history like it was.
