
An octopus is the closest thing to an alien here on earth - sgustard
https://qz.com/1045782/an-octopus-is-the-closest-thing-to-an-alien-here-on-earth/
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roceasta
My guess is that animals are indeed conscious. However, without language they
aren't capable of doing what human beings (embedded in culture) uniquely do:
creating explanations for things.

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Koshkin
It is a good guess - because they _are_ conscious (each species in their own
way, of course). But many animals - if not all - do have a language! They are
even capable of lying to one another - the art that, incidentally, humans have
brought to perfection (and it is indeed in creating explanations where this
art finds it biggest use).

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roceasta
>But many animals - if not all - do have a language!

They do signal to each other. They even use symbolic representation (e.g. in
the case of dancing bees). But they don't _explain_ things to one another. If
they did then I expect we'd find chimps working in translation agencies.

