RE: wonderings
12-20-2016, 07:42 PM
I think I can imagine an intelligent species existing without language
Humans are a social species which evolved living in small bands of let's say 12-100 people (I just made up those numbers because I was too lazy to actually look up anything). Individual humans in the wild are probably not very good at surviving. So we need to communicate with our fellow humans and we have very complex languages that let us get our thoughts from our own heads to other humans' heads. But don't you sometimes have a thought that you can't quite put a word on? Can't you hold a concept without having a name for it? Now imagine if tigers, very solitary species, got really intelligent. I guess what I mean by intelligence is stuff like making tools, trying to manipulate the environment around you, deciding what to do next instead of running on instinct. I don't think you need language for these activities.
Humans are a social species which evolved living in small bands of let's say 12-100 people (I just made up those numbers because I was too lazy to actually look up anything). Individual humans in the wild are probably not very good at surviving. So we need to communicate with our fellow humans and we have very complex languages that let us get our thoughts from our own heads to other humans' heads. But don't you sometimes have a thought that you can't quite put a word on? Can't you hold a concept without having a name for it? Now imagine if tigers, very solitary species, got really intelligent. I guess what I mean by intelligence is stuff like making tools, trying to manipulate the environment around you, deciding what to do next instead of running on instinct. I don't think you need language for these activities.