Human consciousness.

[tiedye]

I was implying when we first developed language.

[yoko*]

Originally Posted by tiedye

What if we developed more complex means of communication in order to free ourselves from isolation due to a desire to connect with one another? To transfer thoughts through more definite means?

What complex means of communication are you proposing exactly? That's like saying "What if we created a solution to solve problem X?"

Duh, ok. What solution?

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by tiedye

I was implying when we first developed language.

I doubt it could have happened at that point as we only had simplistic forms of communication - our tongues. The technology had not advanced to the point that we could use more complex communications, until cavemen started drawing pictures on walls to represent the sounds. Then different cultures developed different languages to describe different settings, eventually those languages amalgamated and formed new languages, then those languages refined and segregated themselves, and then they converged and kept going back and forth as the different cultures connected and immersed with each other.

I don't think we could get much more complex at that point because the technology to facilitate complex communications just plain didn't exist.

Then Marconi came along and discovered a way to send information nearly instantaneously over vast amounts of spaces. Then Bell developed that technology and was able to transmit voice signals. Eventually then DARPA started using those types of signals to transmit large amounts of binary data, and then that proceeded to evolve as digital information types became more and more accessible and compressed, as well as bandwidths increasing so larger file formats could be quickly transmitted.

So basically, language evolves just like everything else in the world. And now it's gotten to an interesting point... How many times have you seen someone respond to an argument with a video? Or a song? Or some link to a blog or newspaper article? Language in its classical form is taking a backseat now and we're communicating using pieces of media. We're exchanging full-throttled ideas and memes instead of simply words, which were for the longest time the only way we had of conveying such means.

Fucked up world, huh? And we're not done yet. Imagine how complex communication will get in 20 years time, when we have generations of people who grew up with google present their entire lives.

However, there's no way this complexity could have existed from point one, simply because there were limited tools - mouths, drums, etc - with which we could use to communicate. Now we have telephone wires, coaxial cable, Fiber-optics, microprocessors, video cards, all these other tools that increase our abilities to communicate with more complex thoughts and ideas.

[tiedye]

Dave, I was referring to language as the more complex means of communication in comparison to waving a stick in the air and making guttural grunting noises.

Still though.. I appreciate your post and points made.

[tiedye]

Originally Posted by yoko*

What complex means of communication are you proposing exactly? That's like saying "What if we created a solution to solve problem X?"

Duh, ok. What solution?

Isn't it possible that we initially started out isolated since we had no way to communicate abstract thought to one another? That's the defining point of being sentient, is it not? The ability to comprehend abstract thought.

So we develop a more complex form of communication (language) to transfer our thoughts, ideas, and less basic emotions to our fellow humans, thus we bridge the gap between us and relieve us of our alienation.

[ebbomega]

Yes, I understand that. What I'm saying is that it couldn't have happened simply because sticks and delivering deep grunts was all that had evolved by that point.

Language evolves, it doesn't just happen.

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by tiedye

Isn't it possible that we initially started out isolated since we had no way to communicate abstract thought to one another? That's the defining point of being sentient, is it not? The ability to comprehend abstract thought.

If it's just the ability to comprehend it I'd argue that dogs and cats are sentient. The only thing that really differs us from animals is our communication abilities. We can communicate those abstract thoughts. Cats and dogs may be able to understand it (hence why we can train them to recognize commands) but they cannot communicate them, so we generally assume that they don't understand it.

Then again, I'm still of the theory that we really aren't different from any animal, except that we're the most dominant, and that all human justifications for what makes us more than just animals is all rooted in delusions of grandeur.

[tiedye]

It's not so much about the language as it is about the necessary alienation. I'm just thinking it might be backwards... that we are not withdrawing from one another and the world around us but more so strengthening the connection.

I'm just throwing ideas out here and don't even really expect to come out with my own opinion on something like this right now.

[tiedye]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

If it's just the ability to comprehend it I'd argue that dogs and cats are sentient. The only thing that really differs us from animals is our communication abilities. We can communicate those abstract thoughts. Cats and dogs may be able to understand it (hence why we can train them to recognize commands) but they cannot communicate them, so we generally assume that they don't understand it.

You're right.. that is rather presumptuous of me to assume that animals do not understand abstract thought. They do have the capacity to learn, therefor it's unreasonable to say that they do not have the capacity to understand. I recant that statement.

Then again, I'm still of the theory that we really aren't different from any animal, except that we're the most dominant, and that all human justifications for what makes us more than just animals is all rooted in delusions of grandeur.

Again, you're right haha. We aren't any different from animals. We've just developed ego and think that we're something above other living beings.