Are we humans sometimes teaching culture to wild animals that they are then preserving, using, and passing along to their next generations?
Some years ago, I read of an observation by Jane Goodall, primatologist/ethologist, in a jungle, where she watched primates doing what, given her detailed description (including the primates pointing at the sky and at the ground), read to me like a rain dance modeled on what human cultures that do rain dances likely practiced. I think it plausible that the primates may have noticed the timing practiced by the dancing humans and drew a connection to anticipation of rain but without knowing the theological claims and maybe without knowing the meteorological predicates humans likely knew. I think the primates she reported on were wild.
While thatās the only case like that which comes to mind, there are certainly many cases Iāve heard or read of in which wild animals took humansā actions into account in shaping their own reactions, reactions that are not mimicry. Examples of the latter include large animals making themselves scarce the day hunting season starts.
But complex mimicry seems rarer, yet likely given the volume and complexity of human-nonhuman contacts. Iād expect that tool-making would catch on, among animals that already make tools but learn about more tools being possible by observing humans who make and use additional tools. I donāt know if raccoons make tools but they likely observe what humans do; I wonder if raccoons learn from human culture and pass it along to their offspring.
Is this common among animal species that have substantial human contact in the wild?
This is a very good question. It makes me think of the shared history between humans and canines. I have heard that wolfs would have watched humans hunting, perhaps standing off at a distance and by some means later interacting with humans in the hunting process - something which eventually led to their domestication. While the process may well have been led primarily by manās conditioning, one feels there is room to imagine wolfās own intergenerational learning in the process. Perhaps not so much by mimicry but certainly but the realisation of mutual benefit - which one might argue is even more complex in a way.
What I mean is, I canāt imagine wolfs, obviously quite vicious in nature, being easy picking to simply be stolen as pups from the pack (the risk of early man thinking āmaybe - just maybe if we steal this pup the risk of being attacked will be worth the pay-off of training it to help us huntā. I imagine the slowly developed relationship between man and wolf would have started with been humans killing various beasts, the wolfās noticing and following, the humans noticing the wolfās ate the bones etc they left over, some kind of discussion among the humans around the fact wolfs also hunted like them and some version of an āahaā moment in realising they could work together - early man figuring out ways to coax the wolfs with meat rewards and such to trust them and eventually work with them. Perhaps somewhere in there a human came across an abandoned or hurt pup and adopted it, bringing it up and later realising how awesome it was - that perhaps was an express path to the whole process. Indeed, I can imagine there would have been early āwolf menā and that the whole myth of the werewolf probably has some origin in such wolf men instinctively figuring out how to interact with the wolfās.
Whatever the exact process - in some way, shape or form - wild wolfs crossed a significant barrier at some point to become dogs - and eventually āmanās best friendā.
Obviously a similar process at some point happened with brumbies becoming domesticated horse - that process perhaps being more interesting in a way (humans have never actually riden on dogs). In a way, one could argue that manās most intimate friend through the ages has perhaps been the horse even more so than the dog?? Certainly itās a close call. Dogs were the hunter assistants and the guards and horses the transport. This is not to mention other domesticated animals as well.
Anyway, thereās my two cents on the topic.
I do have some other thoughts on the creation of culture in animals via generation to generation learning eventually turning into ritual behaviour - but thatās a different topic
In short, speaking from the realm of human-social sciences (HSS), in contrast with the realm of natural-physical sciences (NPS), the notion seems to be that we can āenculturateā or ādomesticateā (some) animals, and create a culture that includes and āacknowledgesā animals (cf. communication, relationship), but that animals cannot āenculturateā themselves, as ānatural, not culturalā beings. Iow, ācultureā to be understood the way people mean it in HSS (if thatās the proper home of the ācultural fieldsā) is not a mechanistic, natural, or automatic process without free will and agency.
Can animals pass on knowledge gained from humans and vice versa? Yes, no doubt. But calling animal āknowledgeā as ācultureā has more implications and consequences than just accepting that alone. Does that make sense the same to you both or is there further nuance in what you are suggesting?
15th c. definition of ācultureā: ācultivation through education, systematic improvement and refinement of the mindā - i.e. having to do with the minds, education and improvement of human beings, not animals. āAgri-cultureā, thus differs from the study of ācultureā, which is not land- and natural resources-oriented, or animals-oriented, but rather human-oriented.
The mimicry of human culture by animals, does not seem appropriate to speak of as a ācauseā or even a ācorrelationā with an āanimal cultureā, which would be rather a zoological appropriation of sociological or anthropological language. At least, thatās what I āhearā as someone in SSH, not NPS, when questions like yours in the OP are made. As the philosophical discussion of āoriginsā in the USA has tended to focus on biology more than culture, it also carries with it a zoological-lean in its orientation. Those whose attention is elsewhere on the spectrum are looking at technology, rather than biology or zoology.
The flattening or reduction of human beings to animals has been tried multiple times throughout history. Check out the ānature fakersā controversy with E. Thompson Seton for one example. Nature fakers controversy - Wikipedia
Incidentally, there is a way around this that avoids the conundrum of āwhat would early man [sic] think or doā? This would be a topic at the edges of speculation in some ways, simply because it involves not just āother mindsā that are human, but āother mindsā that are not human.
A question to understand context: what raises a desire to consider the notion of ācultureā among animals, that doesnāt seek or simply require at the same time to lower the meaning of āhuman beingsā to a zoological or sub-human level?
St. Francis of Assisi prayed for Godās creation and for creatures, not lowering human beings, but raising up animals. Was he wrong to do this, evangelical Protestants on this list? Did/does it look instead to you like lowering humans, instead of raising up animals? Itās not a post-Enlightenment Protestant Christian achievement, after all, though still seems worthy to be counted and assessed in this conversation.
This does not surprise me at all. I have long been suggesting that our pets have been acquiring some portion of our humanity from their exposure to us.
Of course there are substantial differences which greatly limit their ability to acquire it. And while many seem capable of understanding some portion of what we say, their ability to transmit this to others is much more lacking. We have good evidence of an evolutionary adaptation to the use of language in our species which obviously makes a difference. But many have speculated on the possibility of bridging that gap with our own tinkering. Though now I think about it, I would guess that this would be likely to reveal even more differences which we have yet to comprehend.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
5
You mean that so many people tend to see non human animals as machine-like?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
7
My take on Gregoryās take is that anthropomorphization lowers man to the animal, when one of the things it does when itās not just a metaphor, a just so story about people, is elevate animals to the human and dilutes the human for some I suppose. Most humans get to be more cognitive than all other animals, to what permutational, factorial degree I donāt know. Higher animals grieve. Elephants for example, that make the same arithmetic errors under stress that we do. And cheat. Crows play. Alone. Cows like to be cuddled. Dogs trade. I have watched a peregrine falcon in love with her man. We get to transcend and they donāt?
Dogs are masters of living in the moment. Now that Iām retired I only teach the bare minimum commands. I prefer it be two-way and interactional as far as possible. My heeler cross isnāt so much āat my commandā as he is desirous of living in a tandom relationship with me. (Either that or Iāve been assimilated by a heeler.)
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
9
Oooh, we assimilated each other 50,000 years ago to defeat our common enemy: Neanderthals.
Culture is simply shared knowledge transmitted from generation to generation. Chimps have a form of culture. A mother may teach a young chimp how to strip leaves off a branch to make a tool to fish for termites, but the learning process is painstakingly slow for the simple reason that chimps are emulating the final product, rather than imitating the process. Homo sapiens learn by imitating the process, which is a key difference.
In biological terms, an increase in the ratio of fronto-parietal vs. fronto-temporal connectivity from monkeys to apes to modern humans provides a neurological substrate for the shift from emulation to imitation.(1) āIt is imitation that is likely to underlie the possibility of cultural innovation that is so characteristic of modern humans.ā(2)
Weāre both flesh-and-blood and share the same common origin. Their transcendence is different than ours yet connected to ours. The creation is groaning in labor pains for the revelation of the sons and daughters of God. In some way our redemption is also their redemption, but donāt ask me to explain how. Iāve already speculated enough for one day.
Exactly. Try petting your dog while itās eating. The best youāll get is a glance that says, āDonāt bug me.ā Dogs donāt multi-task. They are āsingle-mindedā and lack the foresight to anticipate long-term consequences. All mammals have a prefrontal cortex, which is the center of decision-making and planning, but in most species it is a thin layer.
More recently than that, but @Christopher_Michaelās mention of wolf pups brings up an interesting story. Without looking up dates, itās more likely that some wolves began hanging around human camps to scavenge food. They proved useful in warning of intruders, and a symbiotic relationship was born. Wolves-then-dogs likely domesticated themselves to us, not vice versa. (Livestock, pack animals, and horses are another story.)
The interesting thing to me is the topic of domestication. Domesticated species generally have a more ājuvenileā appearance, which involves such things as a smaller face and droopy ears. The dog looks like a wolf pup. Infant chimps look more human than adults. And, of course, the thing that distinguishes the first human fossil skull at Jebel Irhoud, Morrocco, is that its face is small compared to Neanderthal. Homo sapiens apparently self-domesticated, like the dog.
All fascinating examples. Of course animals share our emotions. They canāt vocalize them, but even we have trouble putting our emotions into words. Children find it practically impossible. As a parent of toddlers, I canāt tell you how many times I admonished a kid in a meltdown, āUse your words!ā In another thread, I mentioned Haidt and his theory that morality developed from our emotional reactions (disgust, anger, contempt). Understanding the roots of our behavior doesnāt detract from our uniqueness nor diminish our commonality, in my opinion.
Where we differ is the notion that pair-bonding is equivalent to human love. Human communication is founded on our inbuilt need to share our psychological states with another. In other words, I tell my spouse about my day because I want her to share my experience. This is a relationship beyond what animals are capable of achieving. Itās also the type of relationship that Paul described in 1 Cor. 13:
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness (maturity in Greek) comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
The Christian concept of love is to know the other fully, as God knows us. That goal can only be met in Christ. For now, we see only a reflection ā¦
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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Aye, by at least 10,000 years, which still puts us in to the end of the Neanderthals.
I think alot of the explanation for the the human/canine partnership has to do with almost identical hunting strategies. While small game can be hunted by individuals, large, dangerous game requires a group effort for those predators that hunt those types of animalsāthink wooly mammothāand both wolves and humans hunted that type game in large, cooperative groups. Second, this hunting process was not quick or easy. As brutal as it sounds and as it is, the large game is tough and resilient and its predators are smaller, meaning no quick kills. The animals were attacked, wounded, chased and worn down over miles and even days of continuous effort. Unlike the big cats, which can also hunt in groups, canines and humans share long distance stamina. The human, in fact, is the best long distance runner and the canines are close behind. Wolf packs and human packs would have been hunting the same prey with the same strategy, making a partnership through domestication of wolf pups a natural outcome.
The bird tests where birds were taught that if they placed coins in a feeder it would give them food. We taught the birds that and other birds learned it watching it. ( though to be honest Iāve only always heard this snd have never investigated it )
But I feel like culture is the wrong word. I think they can learn from us and know the benefits of it.
For example if I leave my bedroom door open , my cats mostly wonāt try to enter. They just stare. If I prop it open with a cat tower, they both instantly run into my bedroom knowing I wonāt remove them. They can be back there. They can mostly be back there except when Iām eating because they always want to sit next to my food.
Animals can definitely feel things. I donāt know how far they can do. Iāve heard elephants will sometimes walk way out of their way and visit the spot where one died previously.
Nice find! Iāve always found story of the dog/human collaboration fascinating. Looks like that harsh environment put pressure on us and the friendlier wolves to collaborate. Iād always read that domestication probably happened numerous times and some time ago there was open speculation regarding which canids may have contributed to our modern four-footed soul mates. The fact that we and dogs have managed to meld so well probably led us to underestimate how challenging and unlikely domestication might really be.
One of the take-aways of reading Guns, Germs and Steel was that people in places other than eurasia werenāt just slow on the uptake in failing to domesticate the local fauna. Turns out only so many species are suited to it, and we eurasians won that jackpot. So dogs turn out to fit the pattern after all. There was wild canids werenāt all just too happy to take up residence near humans.
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