Koko the Gorilla, especially of interest to Sharla and Pacfan

[Sharla]

So you'e saying Koko is a lesbian! I see what you mean by more human than we might think. I think most people with pets will agree that they all have their own personalities. Where else does that come from if not their minds? How can a dog have a personality but not emotions or thought?! I don't think it can!

[BoxingGorilla]

I love it!

[CutMeMick]

Silverback,
What can you tell us about Koko from those videos?
Are you guys related?

[BoxingGorilla]

Silverback,
What can you tell us about Koko from those videos?
Are you guys related?

LOL I can tell you that watching her brought tears to my eyes lol

I love gorillas.

[CutMeMick]

Silverback,
What can you tell us about Koko from those videos?
Are you guys related?

LOL I can tell you that watching her brought tears to my eyes lol

I love gorillas.

I'm trying to think here...

I remember years ago there was a house out here around where I live in near by city that was home to a Gorilla but the city wanted the Gorilla out wonder if this is the same Gorilla. I remember driving past the home and the home had signs of sorts saying things like "Help us keep _________ " (name of animal)

I'm willing to bet it is the same gorilla.

[BoxingGorilla]

So you'e saying Koko is a lesbian! I see what you mean by more human than we might think. I think most people with pets will agree that they all have their own personalities. Where else does that come from if not their minds? How can a dog have a personality but not emotions or thought?! I don't think it can!

I think they have personalities and thought but not emotions. At least not to the degree that you and I have them. I take Cymbalta though so what the hell do I know?

I always ask my girlfriend if she thinks Mister (my dog) knows how much I love him. I rub his belly and get down in the floor and lay with him but part of me doesn't feel like he fully understands what love is.

I've had strep throat the last couple weeks (medicine starting to kick in now) and I was wondering if dogs can catch it or what they can catch from humans. It depressed me to think that my dog could be sick and have no way to tell me how bad it hurt or that he needed medicine.

When they are sick they just lay an sleep.

[Sharla]

Of course animals understand love! Haven't we all read stories about dogs who die trying to save their owners?!?! Isn't that love - that's not self preservation for sure!

What do you think the look on Koko's face was as she was getting spun around on the chair was - emotion - she was having the time of her life!

Why do you think dogs are so damn excited to see you whenever you get home?

Some animals mate for life - what's that if not love?

What about gorillas that have been known to protect kids that fall into their enclosures?

Animals appreciate more simple pleasures than us. I don't think that means that they are less capable of love - if anything it means they're MORE capable. They worry less and waste less emotional energy on crap like money!

[Kev]

Of course animals understand love! Haven't we all read stories about dogs who die trying to save their owners?!?! Isn't that love - that's not self preservation for sure!

What do you think the look on Koko's face was as she was getting spun around on the chair was - emotion - she was having the time of her life!

Why do you think dogs are so damn excited to see you whenever you get home?

Some animals mate for life - what's that if not love?

What about gorillas that have been known to protect kids that fall into their enclosures?

Animals appreciate more simple pleasures than us. I don't think that means that they are less capable of love - if anything it means they're MORE capable. They worry less and waste less emotional energy on crap like money!

Yeah I think you might be right. I guess animals experiences much more pure emotions than we do. I mean if a dog is happy that's probably all it feels, happiness. Unlike ourselves who can feel happy in the moment but also at the same time we self conscious about displaying our happiness, guilty because we feel happy, or have a range of other thoughts and emotions running through our heads at the same time like future anxiety or past regrets etc.

I don't know if you watched that long second video right through yet but what impressed me most was how Koko actually invented her own words and vocabulary to describe things she had not been given a name for.

In the video it explains how she saw a ring, an object that she had not had identified to her before and described it by mixing two words known to her finger and bracelet and putting them together to call it a finger bracelet.

Now I don't want to get carried away as I guess there's always the possibility of human's however objective to anthropomorphise animals and exaggerate their ability to think but if she really did manage that then that is pretty amazing!

I wonder if she is able to seperate herself from others and has a genuine I and You understanding and if she is capable of realising that her own experience is different from others?

When I studied psychology we learned that many autistic people cannot seperate their own experience from that of others. For example if an autistic child placed an object inside a box they would assume that other people who wern't in the room would still know where the object was because of their own experience of having placed it.

What would be most intriguing of all is whether Koko or any other animal can demonstrate self awareness and the fact that they exist rather than not exist. If Koko is capable of understanding that she is a created being and showed signs of questioning where she came from that would be absolutely mind blowing.

I'm definitely going to research more into this, as I think it's fascinating.

[Sharla]

Well I think the way animals are often territorial is a sign of having a concept of the you and I thing surely?

Also pets that get jealous of other pets and new family members. Bring a new dog or a baby into a house which already has a dog or cat and see how much they HATE their owners apying attention to the new party. Parrots have been known to get so stressed out about it they start pulling their own feathers out!

I don't understand why people think animals are so limited mentally and emotionally. Where's the evidence that they're NOT emotional creatures?

[Kev]

Well I think the way animals are often territorial is a sign of having a concept of the you and I thing surely?

Also pets that get jealous of other pets and new family members. Bring a new dog or a baby into a house which already has a dog or cat and see how much they HATE their owners apying attention to the new party. Parrots have been known to get so stressed out about it they start pulling their own feathers out!

I don't understand why people think animals are so limited mentally and emotionally. Where's the evidence that they're NOT emotional creatures?

Having emotions or engaging in instinctive territorial behaviour isn't what anybody finds hard to accept. All of these things can be explained at a biological level, i.e release of chemicals, hormones etc.

But showing evidence of conceptualised thought processes is something that only humans are supposed to do.

For example pat a dog and tell him he's good, he will wag his tail and feel happy. His emotional circuitry is wired to associate your friendly tonality and positive kino (touch) as meaning you are pleased and receptive towards him and his brain releases chemicals which make him feel happiness. There is nothing that hints at conceptual thought and it can all be explained using a simple biochemical model.

Demonstrating an ability to understand and manipulate language however, especially in being able to invent new words and link words together is remarkable, as this is something that a simple biochemical model cannot explain.

It's a bridge over which only humans are supposed to have crossed. I'm incredibly interested to find out more about this.

I don't think territorial behaviour is evidence of a you and I understanding as even bees and ants are incredibly territorial and clearly have no understanding whatsoever, it's just simple chemical circuits, totall mechanical.

But a gorilla able to look at a ring on a persons finger and without ever having been shown one before be able to combine from her own knowledge base two words that when combined could explain the object is just completely incredible.

I'm still a little skeptical of it to be honest, wondering if her handlers are unitentionally exaggerating or distorting the true facts. Maybe someone taught her it was a 'finger bracelet' or at least aided her 'understanding' in some way or maybe it was fortuitious combination of words that Koko arrived at via unitential suggestion from her handlers.

Either way it is fascninating and certainly makes me wonder how unique 'human' concsiousness really is.

Oh and before you get excited and think I'm about to abandon my creation model and hop on the evolutionary bandwagon with you, I don't see as this has any impact on either theory.

It could be seen as evidence of common ancestry or it could be interpretated as evidence for a common designer.

So my own faith in intelligent design is not impacted in any way by these admittedly extraordinary claims.

[Sharla]

I would never expect you to get on the evolutionary bandwagon Bilbo - that's why I don't bother replying to any of those threads anymore.

I think this is a completely different thing.

Monkeys in Japan knew how to steal money from tourists and use it in the vending machines. They learnt how to do this. Whether they think in words or not doesn't change the fact that they think.

I think in words more than anything else. I find it hard to visualize things sometimes. I think this is a lack of ability rather than the persence of one.

A friend of mine lives in the country and she deliberately doesn't just sit her young daughter in front of the TV. She was telling me and my flatmate about how her daughter plays and pretends to mother everything - she is demonstrating a very advanced imagination for her age.

That is based on the knowledge of my flatmate who works advising schools and child care centres on how to care for children with different needs. She comes home every night with different stories about children who are challenged by certain illnesses, disabilities or home life difficulties. I believe her when she says that my friends daughter has an unusually well developed imagination.

I think the way she's being brought up to not just sit in front of a screen is developing her mentally in a way we really all should have developed. Sure having a verbal language has given us a great many advantages but we would be much better at thinking in pictures and emotionally using imagery if we didn't have that.

Animals don't need to think in words to be thinking! That's like saying when you fantasize about something and you imagine it you're not actually thinking!

I think there's a difference between being territorial and jealous too. If the dog at my mum's house is jealous of the cat she doesn't just growl at the cat to tell her to PO - she gets up on my lap and sits on me and looks for my attention. If she was just territorial she'd be fine just with getting rid of the cat - she could be there without being affectionate and still 'win'.

Plus we've all seen the thought process when you tell a dog to come to you or sit down or something and it really doesn't want to. It looks at you all guilty and then just kinds ignores you but he/she is already cringing because he/she knows that they'll be in trouble but - no - no i just HAVE to chase those ducks!!!!!! They understand - cheeky buggers are just like disobedient children - anticipating that they'll be in trouble but weighing it up - getting too excited by their other option and just no - I HAVE to chase those ducks - but I'm hiding behind you the SECOND they turn on me!

[X]

Of course animals are intelligent, how could they not be?

Natural selection rewards survival and reproduction - animals are not brainless automata. Studies show primates with a wide ability to grasp English, parrots with thousands of words of spoken vocabulary, and octopus that react to puzzles and intelligence tests.

Now, bearing in mind that they are therefore communicating to us in OUR language better than any human has managed to communicate in theirs!

People that think anything else (animal or human) is subhuman and has no dignity, soul or rights are a great part of the reason the world is in the mess that it is !!

[Kev]

Of course animals are intelligent, how could they not be?

Natural selection rewards survival and reproduction - animals are not brainless automata. Studies show primates with a wide ability to grasp English, parrots with thousands of words of spoken vocabulary, and octopus that react to puzzles and intelligence tests.

Now, bearing in mind that they are therefore communicating to us in OUR language better than any human has managed to communicate in theirs!

People that think anything else (animal or human) is subhuman and has no dignity, soul or rights are a great part of the reason the world is in the mess that it is !!

Well I certainly think all animals are subhuman and I'm guessing so does everybody else in actuality!

If you've ever eaten meat or worn leather clothing or use anything that comes from animal products then by definition you'd have to accept that animals are subhuman. I believe a human life is worth more than an animal life and so does the world at large else we wouldn't kill animals to eat them or use them whatever way we do if we truly valued their lives as much as our own.

This may sound silly but if animals were truly seen as being equal to humans we'd have dogs on hospital waiting lists and sheep ahead of us in the queue at the dentist! Sounds nuts but that IS what happens in places where animals are truly seen as equal to humans, picture those remote temples overun with rats as they are believed to be sacred or obscure tribes who share their houses with cattle as the cattle are seen as equal to them!

Now that doesn't mean we should be cruel to animals, absolutely not but I don't think an animal life equates to a human life. Human life is I believe sacred.

As to the question of animal intelligence I've been thinking of this a lot recently.

My own world view I guess is biblical and in that model man is given dominion over all the animals, which I feel is an accurate reflection of how this world works.

It is true that animals can build unique relationships with humans, but interestingly they do not build them with each other. Don't get me wrong many creatures live interdependent lives and coexist to amazing degrees but at a higher level they don't form relationships with each other like a higher level animal can form with a human.

Gorillas in the wild don't bond with zebras, your family dog will rarely bond with your family cat or even another dog. They don't crave physical touch from each other like they do with a human.

I feel that animals are kind of like AI characters in an advanced computer game generally behaving like automata until they interact with real human characters.

A parrot can learn to imitate human language for example but I've never heard of parrots in the wild copying monkeys or roaring like lions.

Gorillas can learn sign language from humans and elephants can learn to paint but I've never seen a gorilla sit down and chat to an elephant in the wild. It doesn't happen.

Why not?

I believe because man kind truly has dominion over the animals and that animals are designed to be sunserviant to humans. Again I'm absolutely against animal cruelty, but I believe that God gave man stewardship over the earth and the animal kingdom, to take care of it wisely and with respect.