>But being able to produce an infinite set of linguistic expressions which express the same idea is atomically indicative of a higher order of linguistic creativity than anything any other species is capable of. I'd say that qualifies as intelligence.
The key ingredient in this kind of activity is using existing terms in new ways through analogy. It's not just introducing new linguistic expressions. That non bulgero sammi solon be intelligence, because new words don't mean anything unless there's an understanding already backing them.
>But they do not have grammar. That's huge.
Do they need it? Do we need it? How much of it do we need? Have you made proper consideration for non-verbal grammars (like possibly in bees?)
People like to talk about human intelligence like you could drop a baby in the jungle and it'd develop nuclear physics and ride out on a hovercraft. Just consider how frequently people claim quantum physics is unintuitive (as though classical physics didn't take many millennia to understand!) If you strip away our current environment and culture, you are left with a creature who has a slight advantage over apes -- and if you run that advantage for 200,000 years, the difference between humans and apes will magnify into vast differences in behavior, even if the underlying machinery doesn't change.
>Feral humans lack language because [...]
There were first humans who had language. There were early humans who had not yet started to use grammar and had proper socialization. Would you consider them significantly more intelligent than apes? Why or why not?
The key ingredient in this kind of activity is using existing terms in new ways through analogy. It's not just introducing new linguistic expressions. That non bulgero sammi solon be intelligence, because new words don't mean anything unless there's an understanding already backing them.
>But they do not have grammar. That's huge.
Do they need it? Do we need it? How much of it do we need? Have you made proper consideration for non-verbal grammars (like possibly in bees?)
People like to talk about human intelligence like you could drop a baby in the jungle and it'd develop nuclear physics and ride out on a hovercraft. Just consider how frequently people claim quantum physics is unintuitive (as though classical physics didn't take many millennia to understand!) If you strip away our current environment and culture, you are left with a creature who has a slight advantage over apes -- and if you run that advantage for 200,000 years, the difference between humans and apes will magnify into vast differences in behavior, even if the underlying machinery doesn't change.
>Feral humans lack language because [...]
There were first humans who had language. There were early humans who had not yet started to use grammar and had proper socialization. Would you consider them significantly more intelligent than apes? Why or why not?