
What a Border Collie Taught a Linguist About Language - mcone
https://www.wired.com/story/what-a-border-collie-taught-a-linguist-about-language/
======
tjr
I feel that my life would be missing something important without a border
collie. Other dogs I have had kind of existed alongside me; my border collie
seems to integrate herself into everything I do.

Highly recommend Donald McCaig's book, _Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men_ :
[https://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Dogs-Dangerous-Men-
Searching/...](https://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Dogs-Dangerous-Men-
Searching/dp/1599210592/)

~~~
OJFord
Can you give any examples, to help (non-Collie) dog owners get past 'My dog is
integrated in everything I do; there's no way yours is more so than mine!'?

~~~
conductr
I agree with the sentiment. BC's are awesome dogs.

I think it's because they are so damn smart. It's the closest thing to having
a human, except all the benefits of having a dog. My dog was insanely in-tune
with my body language. I don't think I trained him very well but we naturally
communicated very well. I could nod my head from across the dog park and he
knew it was time to go home, stuff like that. If we were walking, I could
glance my eyes in a certain direction and he knew to cross the street. (I
usually didn't have him on a leash).

He made judgement calls. I would watch him do stuff he knew was wrong, and I
refuse to believe it was an impulse. It was calculated. You could see it was
conflicted but he seriously thought it through and concluded; eating raw
chicken > ramifications. I could look in his eyes and _know_ what he was
thinking.... Maybe that was all in my head but I don't think so.

That said, the key is having a very smart dog. It can exist outside of the BC
breed but with BC's you have a high success rate of having an intelligent dog.
We've had Labs too. Some similar to the BC, others good loving dogs but just
dogs. We have a Yorkie now, she's an idiot.

~~~
drakonka
I felt like this with my Australian Cattle Dog/Australian Kelpie mix. It's
like she could read my mind. I think that herding breeds tend to be especially
intelligent and in-tune dogs - they would have to be, to work with their owner
and often other dogs to manoeuvre sometimes very large herds of bigger animals
in just the right way.

~~~
conductr
It's very much like mind reading. Or like a language you have with the dog. My
theory on herding dog intelligence is because they are reliant on their vision
and their brains need to be better at processing all that vision requires
equates to smarter dogs. My BC was so reliant on his sight, I have several
memories of him not being able to find a treat or something because he didn't
see where it landed or it went under something. He knew he saw me throw it, so
he'd get kind of frantic an look all over the place. Eventually, he would
realize he had a nose and could smell around for it.

------
computator
> _Rico could infer the name of a third, unfamiliar object when presented with
> it alongside two of his toys. Chaser could learn names by exclusion and
> remember them, just like Rico._

Neil Degrasse Tyson demonstrates the above with the actual dog Chaser:

[https://youtu.be/_6479QAJuz8?t=66](https://youtu.be/_6479QAJuz8?t=66)

I almost always prefer the written explanation rather than watching a video,
but this is one case where it's worth seeing.

------
mabub24
Really interesting article.

In regards to: "Cooperation leading to the development of language is one of
the leading hypotheses for what makes human beings unique among the animals."

The core difference between humans and animals is that humans can reason; we
possess cogitative powers. Philosophers of mind and language, like PMS Hacker,
have written extensively on this topic. Humans can ask "why?", can plan, can
hope, can wish, can dream, all through language. Language is an ability and
allows us to reason, give reasons, and have reasons. Dogs and animals can't
ask "why?" "Why?" is beyond their limit of expression because they do not
possess language. They can be confused, but confusion is not asking "why?"
because "why?" is a demand for reasons. Confusion is simply not knowing what
is going on, while reasoning is thinking in future and past tenses, it allows
us to plan and introspect.

I think the equation of whistling with full language is interesting, but it
potentially reads cogitative powers in dogs when it might simply be the humans
reading themselves into the dogs.

The point around cooperation is fascinating in this regard, in which case, the
cooperation might be that humans reason for the dog. In other words, the dogs
provide the brawn and the handlers supply the brains. We domesticated dogs
because they worked for us.

~~~
interfixus
> _The core difference between humans and animals is that humans can reason_

So there's a body of research suggesting beyond reasonable doubt that no
animal - except us - is capable of reason? Do you have a link?

~~~
mabub24
Do you have evidence that animals can reason? Have you seen an animal give or
express a reason for planning to do something in 3 days or 4?

Animals may end indecision, but ending a state of indecision is not the same
as choosing something for _this_ or _that_ reason. The limits of thought are
the behavioral expression of thought. With the absence of language, it is
nonsense to apply rational thought to animals. That's even in the article
itself when they discuss how animals displaying complex behaviours can fall a
part when presented new problems. That doesn't mean they don't think. Far from
it. It means they do not have the same cogitative powers that we have.

Analytic philosophy has touched on these ideas at length starting with Ludwig
Wittgenstein. Two good books on the subject are PMS Hacker's series, which,
coincidentally, often use dogs as an example:

1\. Human Nature: The Categorical Framework 2\. The Intellectual Powers: A
study of human nature

(I should add that PMS Hacker's series heavily interacts with cognitive
neuroscience.)

~~~
interfixus
You seem to be severely confusing absence of evidence with evidence of
absence.

Do you have anything in particular in mind with the somewhat arbitrary
sounding "3 days ord 4"? Otherwise my answer is a definite yes. I have seen
cats, dogs, pigs, ferrets, rodents, and corvids perform well thought out,
planned, and by all appearencies deliberate and conscious strategies.

~~~
mabub24
It was a rhetorical question to make a point. You seem to be severely
confusing the difference between cogitative and cognitive powers. Animals
aren't stupid, but all animals are not humans. We are different in quite
particular ways that animals simply are not or so far from us that it is
nonsense to imply that gap means we are similar.

The "arbitrariness" of "3 or 4 days" is to emphasize that language is the
means we have of expressing our cogitative powers. We have language, an
ability to express our reasoning. Animals don't. We are introspective,
ruminative, hopeful, and fearful, we can be those things because we have the
language and the cogitative and conceptual depth to express them. Animals
think, and animals are intelligent. They can plan. But that is no reason to
assign any amount of the depth of our cogitative powers to animals. Because
they can't express that cogitative depth because they lack language.

~~~
jdmichal
You seem to be arbitrarily limiting "language" to a specifically-human
definition. Animals can certainly express thoughts and emotions, and there's
no reason to suggest that they have any limit on the levels of emotions they
feel. If you want to see hope, just wait for an animal to start hoping that
you'll feed them in the very near future... And they'll likely communicate the
idea very clearly as well. Language so far has only been a barrier in _human
understanding and acknowledgement_ of these capabilities in animals.

As much as this is an appeal to authority, I'll refer back to the Cambridge
Declaration on Consciousness [0]:

"The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical
structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective
states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional
behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates
corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human
animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in
non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with
experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding
and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also
generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are
concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young
humanand non-human animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind
functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting
behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision
making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate
radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus)."

[0]
[http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...](http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf)

EDIT: I'd like to point out that human language _does_ , as far as we know,
have some very unique features which have not been entirely duplicated by any
animal. However, that very fact is also what makes it extremely limiting and
self-serving as a "barrier of entry".

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

~~~
mabub24
You have to be careful about describing an animal's emotions, even more-so
with assigning language to animals. You brought up leaving a dog without food.
It very well might hope you come with food. But the sensation it is feeling is
hunger. From its behavior, you understand it is hungry: it whines, runs
around, looks for where the food normally comes from (you/owner). But the dog
is not saying "I hope I can get food." It's not saying, "If I have one hope in
the world, above all other hopes, I hope my food would come." Because it can't
say that. That's _our_ language, us, assigning concepts to the dog.

I'll put a similar quote, for my argument, from the philosopher PMS Hacker who
has written extensively on this topic:

"Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human
beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their
death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to
understand our lives and the place of death in life....

The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression
of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the
linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of
temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future. One
can remember not only where – as exhibited in an animal’s seeking or homing
behaviour – but also when. Non-human animals may prepare for the future – bury
food for later consumption, build dams or dig burrows, but only man can plan
for the future.

If a creature has mastered a language with logical connectives and
quantifiers, then and only then is it possible for it to conceive of general
truths, to think both of how things are and how they are not, to think both of
what exists and of what does not exist, to think conditional thoughts, and
with the aid of tensed verbs and modal expressions, counterfactual thoughts."

 _This is from Human Nature: The Categorical Framework, pg.238, published
2007. I had to pull the book out to get the quote right lol._

~~~
jdmichal
"Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human
beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their
death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to
understand our lives and the place of death in life...."

Disagree. There's plenty of documentation of dogs understanding dangerous
situations and assisting humans in exiting them. If they only had "fear", this
would not be possible. They obviously have enough agency overcome such basic
instinct.

"The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression
of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the
linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of
temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future."

Also disagree. Genie [0] was raised without language. When discovered, she
could not use language to describe her experiences. Later, after learning
language, she could _retroactively_ describe these situations. That means that
her experience was _not_ limited by not having known language. This also
includes emotive elements of the experiences.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recall...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recalling_past_events)

------
lazyant
whistled language
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero)

------
ardit33
The smartest dog I had was a Border Collie/Breton Espanol mix. Very curious,
very smart at learning new things. I miss her.

They need a yard/open space as they are very lively dogs, and we have a large
backyard. They are not meant to be apartment dog.

