opticial illusion

This drawing was made by Maurits Cornelis Escher. In first instance this painting just looks like an ordinary painting. However when you analyse this painting you see that the water is flowing upwards which is impossible. The water cycle that you saw first does not make any sense any more.

Do animals have language?

In our theory of knowledge book there was a discussion between Dolly and Guy. The discussion topic was do animals have language. Dolly said that animals communicate between noises, scents and body movements. She believed that language and communication is the same thing. Because according the encyclopaedia Britannica the definition of communication is” the exchange of meanings between individual through a common system of symbols”. However Guy did not believed with her, he believes that Homo sapiens are the only animal with a language. He thinks that there is a distinction between language and communication and language. In his eyes language is a subset of communication. As an example Dolly gave the Vervate monkeys which have different alarm sign for different predators. However Guy was not convinced by this argument, because his opinion was that the monkeys were only reacting, but they did not understand the alarm signs. Second of all dolly said that chimpanzees that share 99% of our genes should have language, however for Guy the remaining 1% made the difference. However Dolly stayed at the chimpanzees and gave an example. She stated and experiment were chimpanzees were learned the American language. During the experiment the chimpanzees showed there creativity with the signs. This event showed that they understand them. However Guy said that this experiment was not reliable, because the trainers were so emotionally involved that they were not objective any more. Dolly gave another example, however Guy was not convinced and said that animals do not have a language because the do not have syntaxes.

Personally I do believe that animals have a language. We interpret their language as an annoying sound, because we are not able to understand it. Our own language we can understand and therefore we acknowledge the sounds as a language. I do believe that their language is limited compared to our language. Animals just eat, bread and sleep. Our society is more complex. You can compare that with the Sapir-Whorf theory.

Sapir-whorf theory

According to the sapir-whorf theory, language determines what we think. And we can only think what our language allows us to think. personally I agree with this theory. As a person that speaks two languages, therefore I think that i can use my own experience as an example. When I speak dutch, I am much directer. For example in a group of dutch people i will say if someone response was stupid, however i would not do that in an english conversation. Second of all when the language of a discussion is dutch, then i will easily participate in that discussion. however when the language is english I will first think before i participate. Another difference is that in english i am much more patient, and i am willing to lissen to other people. While this aspect of a conversation is not my strongest aspect when i speak dutch.