
Orangutans are the only great apes besides humans to ‘talk’ about the past - ccwilson10
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/orangutans-are-only-great-apes-besides-humans-talk-about-past
======
subroutine
_Puts on critic hat_

The article is making a claim that can be summarized as...

 _the cognitive capacity to share with conspecifics something learned more
than 120 seconds ago, is unique to humans and orangutans_

They also inform you that bees have this capacity. That should be enough to
make anyone skeptical. It seems like they identified a particular behavior
unique among apes to Orangutans - suppressing vocalization in response to
threat - ran an experiment to confirm their bias, and are spinning it as a
story about the ability to talk about the past (rather than simply that
Orangutans have evolved to deal with perceived threat by keeping quiet while
the threat is present, and then going bananas after it's gone).

Conveying info about _the past_ is something bees can do; yet it escapes
Chimps and Bonobos. Yeah, ok.

~~~
netcan
Social insects have a way of spoiling intelligence tests.

The mirror test is a good example. To recognize yourself in mirror, you need
to understand that you are a person. Not many animals recognize themselves:
apes, some ravens, elephants dolphins... all usual suspects known to be
intellegnt.

Give them a mirror and once they figure it out they spend the next hour making
faces and checking out their own ass. Mark their face and they'll try to clean
it in the mirror.

Then ants.

Ants seem to get mirrors too. So either ants are self conscious or the test is
no good.

~~~
AstralStorm
Getting how the mirror works is different from recognizing the object in the
mirror as the image of yourself.

The test has come trouble differentiating between the two.

E.g. the ant might perceive the mirrored marked ant as another ant which would
reasonably well fool this test.

~~~
sjeohp
They controlled for that using transparent glass with real ants on the other
side.

[https://www.udocz.com/read/are-ants-capable-of-self-
recognit...](https://www.udocz.com/read/are-ants-capable-of-self-recognition-
pdf)

------
se7entime
"orangutan" if i translate to my Native Languange (i'm Indonesian), orang =
human in general (could be man/woman), utan = forest, so i can say "orangutan"
mean "The Human that Live in Forest"

~~~
emerongi
> The name "orangutan" (also written orang-utan, orang utan, orangutang, and
> ourang-outang) is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang meaning
> "person" and hutan meaning "forest",[10] thus "person of the forest".[11]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan)

~~~
dmos62
That's a relievingly admirable way to look at these creatures. I find the
English "it" an exceptionally tiring feature. There are so many prejudices and
world views embded in our languages. We call ourselves hackers, but where's a
hackaday.io or hackathons for human language, the ubiquitous communication
medium?

~~~
atlantic
With 6500 languages to choose from, I'm sure there are more than a few
incorporating a world-view which aligns with yours. Rather than create
something entirely new, wouldn't it be more reasonable to delve into what is
already on offer?

~~~
dmos62
What is it about my post that summoned these mean, snickery comments? It's
upsetting, but I'll respond anyway.

The idea is to actively influence how we communicate, not merely analyse it.
Suppose I think Sanskrit had some good ideas. The question would be how to
bring that use.

And it's not about my world-view, whatever you might think it is. I suppose
you're implying that you don't have "world-view alignment" problems with the
language you use. Do you think you're just lucky that way? The idea I'm
putting forward is that the language in which you communicate (and think)
actually shaped your world-view.

~~~
atlantic
> The idea I'm putting forward is that the language in which you communicate
> (and think) actually shaped your world-view.

That's not a particularly original view. It's called the linguistic relativity
or Benjamin-Whorf hypothesis, and it has a very long history. But so what?
It's not even a problem. It's simply a feature of thought that it is
inherently interconnected with language.

What I don't understand at all is your proposed solution. While entire
communities have strived over millenia to create linguistic tools to suit
their particular needs, you propose to do the same, and better, by yourself,
in a few months or years, by "hacking" (whatever that means).

No offence, but it just sounds slightly juvenile.

------
toomanybeersies
Can we load them up with magic mushrooms and see if they become capable of
abstract thought? [1].

For those that don't want to click on my link, there's a (not very scientific)
hypothesis that human consciousness evolved from our ancestors eating magic
mushrooms.

[1] [https://www.inverse.com/article/34186-stoned-ape-
hypothesis](https://www.inverse.com/article/34186-stoned-ape-hypothesis)

~~~
marsrover
I really don’t understand why we don’t just do this.

------
taneq
I'm pretty sure orangutans have been able to do this for a while. Headline
should be "We just realised that Orangutans can also talk about the past."

~~~
buttscicles
But the headline doesn't claim it's a recent development...

~~~
taneq
I believe the headline may have changed since I posted.

------
coldcode
Soon only humans will talk about orangutans in the past.

~~~
jmngomes
For anyone wondering why/if orangutans are a threatened species:

\- Dramatic decline in Borneo's orangutan population:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/15/dramatic...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/15/dramatic-
decline-in-borneos-orangutan-population-as-150000-lost-in-16-years)

\- Palm oil producers are wiping out orangutans:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/10/palm-o...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/10/palm-
oil-orangutans-multinationals-promises-deforestation)

------
jobigoud
I've always been impressed by this picture of an Orangutan spear fishing:
[https://primatology.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/orangutan-
to...](https://primatology.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/orangutan-tool-use-
fishing.jpg)

------
teknopaul
[https://youtu.be/JdpspllWI2o](https://youtu.be/JdpspllWI2o)

UK ban on efforts to save Orangutans in return for an arms deal is perhaps
worth a mention here.

~~~
gdfasfklshg4
This advert was banned for the same reason as ALL political lobbying adverts
are banned from UK TV. Political lobbying is not allow on UK TV.

~~~
fredley
I think it's a great ad, and that it's an issue that will benefit from wider
awareness (although it's got that anyway in spades during this whole thing),
but I'm 100% with the decision to disallow this ad from being broadcast on TV.
It is a Greenpeace ad, and Greenpeace is a political organisation.

~~~
gdfasfklshg4
I agree with you 100%.

I also think that we should just ban palm oil in general. I'm not sure that it
has any applications worth the damage to rainforests.

~~~
toomanybeersies
An article came across my feeds today suggesting that banning palm oil might
have unintended side effects [1]

Basically, a reduction in consumption of palm oil would result in
manufacturers switching to soybean oil instead. A lot of soybean oil is grown
in South America and contributes to deforestation over there. Banning palm oil
simply shifts the environmental damage. Palm oil is also apparently one of the
least land intensive oils to grow. Instead of banning specific products, we
should work towards sustainable growing instead.

I haven't done any additional research on those claims, but it is food for
thought.

[1] [https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-boycott-could-
actually-...](https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-boycott-could-actually-
increase-deforestation-sustainable-products-are-the-solution-106733)

------
mothsonasloth
So in layman's terms the orangutan's thought process is like so; I just saw a
Tiger. The last time I saw one it was hanging around the area for X minutes.

I'll wait till then before I call out the safe noise.

I wonder what happens to orangutans that cry wolf?

~~~
allrightyeo
What I understood is the the warning sound wailed when the risk is far enough
not to notice the alarm.

about the "cry wolf" topic, a related topic is this one:
[http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141125-four-animals-that-
li...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141125-four-animals-that-lie-using-
sound)

------
aritmo
The article should have said "we just found that some orangutans can also talk
about the past. We are excited to look for other animals that can do the
same."

Whales should be able to do so. They have family links that transcend more
that fifty years.

~~~
peacetreefrog
Agree, it's minor but I find the headline annoying.

------
Flavius
Well, it's a good thing that we're whipping them out by destroying their
natural habitat. We don't need any competition. We need that sweet palm oil so
we can burn it as biodiesel and destroy the whole planet.

------
gnulinux
I don't know what about orangutans impresses me, but when I watch a video of
an orangutan, it never feels like I'm watching a video of "an animal". There
is something very "human" about orangutans, even more than chimps, bonobos or
gorillas.

------
nobrains
Could we let other apes and animals evolve over millions of years under our
supervision and eye?

If so, could a more advance species have done the same with us and is now
observing us from a distance?

~~~
ars
That's basically the premise of the Uplift series by David Brin.

~~~
clort
The premise of that series is that except for the original species, there had
always been intervention to uplift not just observation. Humans had been a bit
of a surprise because they had no apparent uplifters. IIRC the general
viewpoint was that self-evolution in this way was just not possible so there
must have been some kind of deception involved.

------
pvaldes
I don't buy it. Gorillas can talk about past experiences also at least

