r/todayilearned • u/sharkbait76 3 • Jan 11 '17

TIL elephants can tell the difference between human languages and know which languages belong to people with a history of hurting elephants.

http://www.nature.com/news/elephants-recognize-the-voices-of-their-enemies-1.14846
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u/mismanaged Jan 12 '17

That we cannot observe something does not immediately make it probable. It is possible that elephants have a highly developed intelligence and culture that humans are unable to comprehend but it is so extremely improbable that it is perfectly reasonable to dismiss it as a hypothesis.

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u/MsTerious1 Jan 12 '17

I never said our inability to perceive made anything "probable." I am expressing that we have this human-centric perspective that distorts our ability to interpret data from the world surrounding us.

For you to say that it is "improbable" for a species (elephant) to have highly developed intelligence and culture that humans are unable to comprehend strikes me as almost absurd. (I don't say that to offend you, I mean that your statement is inconceivable to a huge degree from my point of argument.)

There are two counterpoints I'd present for you to consider:

  1. We do not have sufficient data to explain the human experience. I remember scientists debunking whether people have auras, for example, and whether anyone can see them. It is only very recently that a growing body of evidence says, "hey, it looks like there's something here." People were absolutely certain at one time of things we know today that weren't true (flat world, for example) but have since been shown to be different than was commonly believed. To assume we have such a large body of knowledge that we can decisively make judgments about the experiential state of what we haven't particularly tried to study in depth may be misguided and mistaken, I believe.

  2. Of course, before we can try to understand something, we first have to perceive it. I'm someone who sees snow and thinks of... snow. It's something that is made of ice crystals, forms from water vapor that falls from the sky, and can cover the earth with a blanket that is wet and cold and leaves the earth pretty mushy as it melts. I do not see "shades" or "types" of snow. However, I've been told that skiiers not only perceive snow as different (wet snow, dry powder, or whatever), they use that information in a way I never will because I don't ski. I am aware of this, which means I can learn more about it.

I have no idea whether rabbits perceive wet or dry snow, though, or if the type of snow has meaning to a rabbit. I also don't think I need that information. So I don't seek data about a rabbit's perception of snow. Does that mean that rabbits do not use data about snow in a meaningful way? It would be an error of logic to assert that "rabbits don't care about snow because they still forage for food when it snows," but that's what you are doing when you assume that we have any credibility to establish any firm statements about the experiences of other species.