Could a technological society develop without language?

[Swank]

Drawings might do some of it.......

Drawings: Like blueprints, molecule diagrams, force vectors, family trees, anatomy?

 

[Wayne Mack]

I doubt that a society could develop very technically without language. I suspect that the upper bound would be purely mechanical devices that can been seen and readily understood. Government would be a combination of social ostracization and might makes right--there is no ready method to share understanding of right and wrong. I could see commerce up to pure barter, i.e., direct exchange of goods. I don't see a way to have money as an intermediary for exchange.

 

[Swank]

All of these assumptions about how intelligence can only flourish in the same mental space as human beings.

Intelligence can certainly use analogic reasoning without a descriptive language - which means that equivalent exchange is certainly possible through something like money. But why do intelligent beings require exchange at all? What lifeform besides man engages in goods for goods barter as a necessity?

 

[Yozh]

Drawings: Like blueprints, molecule diagrams, force vectors, family trees, anatomy?

Such drawings require a shared understanding of their symbology. These formalized visual aids verge on linguistic, a person needs to be taught to read them properly.

 

[Swank]

Such drawings require a shared understanding of their symbology. These formalized visual aids verge on linguistic, a person needs to be taught to read them properly.

So where is the line between language and symbology?

What is interesting to me is that we can say the following aloud, but will get a different answer if we say or read it:
5 + 2 x 7 =

Clearly what we normally consider language is not identical to symbology that we also use. Otherwise the answer wouldn't be different by 30.


I think beings free of language could still share concrete symbology in the same way that they share real objects. If I show you a shiny black rock, it is a shiny black rock to both of us. If I show you that three slashes - /// - stands for three rocks, we now share the symbol for three. At no point did we need to 'discuss' this, talk about why we should learn the symbols or make a story out of the information. It is just the information without the window dressing.

And it might seem very hard to learn like that, but that's because we are people, defined almost entirely by our social connections established and enforced by language. Other beings could be unburdened by the need to relate through prattle and are able to pay attention to reality without the motivational yapping that we insist on.


Also consider the case of mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who independently derived a host of entirely original theorems. Was that an act of language? He made enormous strides without any human assistance at all. Is it so hard to imagine that aliens with similar powers couldn't flourish in relative solitude, yet still pass their discoveries on to the next researcher or generation by virtue of non-lingual artifacts?

 

[Montero]

But why do intelligent beings require exchange at all? What lifeform besides man engages in goods for goods barter as a necessity?

Well, the temple monkeys in Indonesia have nailed it - they are getting their food by stealing things from tourists - flip flops, sunglasses, hat, camera, phone and then trading them back for food. The older ones are keen bargainers, reject fruit and insist on something better. It isn't language but there is definitely communications, including cross shouts from people and from monkeys.
There was a film about cougar the other year, where they saw that while originally thought to be entirely solitary, cougar will actually share a kill with their neighbours - and they are more likely to do so if the neighbour has previously shared with them.

@Wayne Mack - you could achieve the mechanical devices, as you say, through the communication of winces, enthusiasm etc. Though of course that is known as body language.

@Swank Regarding drawings, I was more thinking of sketches, as in stick men cartoons for the initial hands on work by an individual or group working out how to do something starting from the materials to hand, or needing new materials. But of course that might then develop into a written language.

 

[Toby Frost]

Are we assuming that these creatures are self-aware and live like large mammals? I could imagine creatures like ants developing technology of some kind without language, but it would happen very slowly, probably involving a lot of repetition and hit-and-miss.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Are we assuming that these creatures are self-aware and live like large mammals? I could imagine creatures like ants developing technology of some kind without language, but it would happen very slowly, probably involving a lot of repetition and hit-and-miss.

No need to imagine! I see there are many examples of insects using tools for a variety of reasons and experiments suggest that there is a degree of plasticity in how the animal will choose tools. For example, by that I mean: it is known that ants will use materials to carry liquids into their nests, and they will choose the best possible material for the purpose. So if given artificial materials, that would never appear in nature, experiments seem to show that they would test it and if it passes muster use it.

Now it's generally it seems that this is at the most primitive level. They are picking up stuff that is at hand, they aren't really 'fashioning' tools for the purpose they want (Although looking at leaf-cutter ants, they are working vegetation into the correct size to transfer it to their farms.)

But I would also think that a lot of nesting insects are using material as a technology to build homes - Termites came to mind first, but I think it also applies to wasps, bees, ants and a whole bunch of other insects - these are complex structures built with materials at hand, that provide the insects with safe, well-drained and temperature controlled spaces. (That they can develop that seems obvious to me, namely natural selection- termites who, by their actions, find themselves constructing nests that are unsafe, easily water-logged and rapidly heating that can't cool, exterminate themselves.)

 

[Toby Frost]

Indeed! I suspect that each colony would act as a single "brain" in terms of developing tech, albeit a brain that was able to test and work in a lot of different ways at one time. It wouldn't even take a lot of conscious thought, as much of it would be the colony trying to do something in the most effective way possible, like water flowing via the easiest route.

However, I don't know how such a society would deal with the "purer" sorts of research. For instance, what about apparently theoretical research that leads to a new plastic a couple of jumps down the research line? Could creatures like that have the vision, for want of a better word, to try something really new, or would it always be a process of refining what they already had?

(Someone ought to write some books about giant fascist army ants trying to conquer the galaxy, now I think of it.)

 

[Venusian Broon]

However, I don't know how such a society would deal with the "purer" sorts of research. For instance, what about apparently theoretical research that leads to a new plastic a couple of jumps down the research line? Could creatures like that have the vision, for want of a better word, to try something really new, or would it always be a process of refining what they already had?

I think it would have to come down to the role of mutations in the colony; say genetic mutations in ants to change behaviours (or even their bodies) so that they can find new exploits that are beneficial for the whole? In this case there is no vision or progress, it's just that that each animal or swarm finds itself slightly better placed in the environment that they exist in, if a benefit works.

(Someone ought to write some books about giant fascist army ants trying to conquer the galaxy, now I think of it.)

Adrian Tchaikovsky has his intelligent spiders in Children of Time but they have to deal with ants, who are 'super' compared to our versions, but are still dumb and mechanistic as single creatures. So the spiders are individually smart and the hive for the eusocial ants is the 'augmented intelligence'. Still, in it he has the ants stumble on all sorts of technologies.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think it would have to come down to the role of mutations in the colony; say genetic mutations in ants to change behaviours (or even their bodies) so that they can find new exploits that are beneficial for the whole? In this case there is no vision or progress, it's just that that each animal or swarm finds itself slightly better placed in the environment that they exist in, if a benefit works.

So instead of a human consciously thinking "I'll research this chemical stuff" and ten years later being able to make reliable plastic, a mutation would produce an ant that had different, useful qualities?

I find this a bit hard to explain as I'm terrible at science. Put it this way: a hunter is useful in a society because he can quickly yield results: he hunts some food and everyone eats. But a scientist might take years to make a breakthrough by pursuing all sorts of not-very-obvious research, and the society has to feed him for that time. I don't know if our ant-type creatures would have the brains to understand that that sort of long-term research would have results. That said, growing crops takes time, and I gather that some ants have figured it out.

It sounds as if Adrian Tchaikovsky has some really good ideas, but I have jokes about ants having big bottoms, so there!

 

[Montero]

I find this a bit hard to explain as I'm terrible at science. Put it this way: a hunter is useful in a society because he can quickly yield results: he hunts some food and everyone eats. But a scientist might take years to make a breakthrough by pursuing all sorts of not-very-obvious research, and the society has to feed him for that time. I don't know if our ant-type creatures would have the brains to understand that that sort of long-term research would have results. That said, growing crops takes time, and I gather that some ants have figured it out.

Human senior managers, politicians and investors can frequently struggle with the concept - while being capable of demanding a new product at the drop of the hat and where it is going to come from, if not originally blue sky research, doesn't concern them in the slightest.

 

[Venusian Broon]

So instead of a human consciously thinking "I'll research this chemical stuff" and ten years later being able to make reliable plastic, a mutation would produce an ant that had different, useful qualities?

Yes, but the ant, nor it's 'hive-mind', wouldn't be knowingly goal driven to produce something for a purpose. It would by chance stumble across something that works and helps it. (Not that it would know it - if a new behaviour or 'tech' gives the colony/nest or animal a better chance of surviving and reproducing, such a trait will spread amongst the population via reproduction rather than be communicated!)

It may well be the case that there are some technologies that such a system could never get to - just too many steps in-between that are so improbable that even if given infinite time they just will never get to. (Sorry ants, there's only a billion years left on this planet...although if we do spread ourselves about and take them with us to make new ecosystems.... )

I find this a bit hard to explain as I'm terrible at science. Put it this way: a hunter is useful in a society because he can quickly yield results: he hunts some food and everyone eats. But a scientist might take years to make a breakthrough by pursuing all sorts of not-very-obvious research, and the society has to feed him for that time. I don't know if our ant-type creatures would have the brains to understand that that sort of long-term research would have results.

The other issue to think is that our smarty-pants intelligence makes us feel invincible, but our advances in technology may not necessarily increase the fitness of our survival on long-term timescales. We are rapidly approaching the point where I think we could extinct ourselves using thousands of years of 'long-term research'. On a universal scale, human intelligence might be an interesting but fleeting evolutionary dead-end!

And as such a potential Fermi Paradox solution.

That said, growing crops takes time, and I gather that some ants have figured it out.

Don't forget some have also figured out animal husbandry as well - having flocks of aphids and milking them!

 

[Harpo]

Braille, Semaphore, Morse Code, and of course the many variations of secret gestures and signs, such as tic tac

Without language there will always be language by another route.

And then there’s bird song, whale song, etc etc

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Not everyone has an inner voice in their head to bounce ideas off of. It can be quite useful for developing ideas. "Inner speech may be vital for self-regulation and executive functioning, like task-switching, memory and decision-making, or even for education."

We tend to take things for granted and think everyone thinks and senses stuff the same way. Inability to hear an inner voice is called anendophasia. I suppose the inner voice ranges from being able to answer questions, to maybe yes/maybe no, to non committal, echo chamber to nothing. Must be nice to self dictate a complete novel start to finish in one sitting.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I would say No.

If there were such a thing as a telepathic species would that be language?

 

[Swank]

The other thing not considered here is that we consider technological development as a social product because of the limitations of time, memory and dexterity of the human. Essentially, we have a few decades of useful working life, two hands and certain intellectual limitations. Imagine a creature with hundreds of limbs, massive brain power and centuries of productive career time. Such an entity would not need assistance and could conceive of an invention and take it to full development while still fully capable.

Why would that alien need to talk to anyone about what they are doing?

 

[Montero]

The other thing not considered here is that we consider technological development as a social product because of the limitations of time, memory and dexterity of the human. Essentially, we have a few decades of useful working life, two hands and certain intellectual limitations. Imagine a creature with hundreds of limbs, massive brain power and centuries of productive career time. Such an entity would not need assistance and could conceive of an invention and take it to full development while still fully capable.

Why would that alien need to talk to anyone about what they are doing?

That's an interesting thought to change the parameters of who is doing the thinking.
However, massive brain doesn't necessarily bring multiple viewpoints or varied experience.

 

[Swank]

That's an interesting thought to change the parameters of who is doing the thinking.
However, massive brain doesn't necessarily bring multiple viewpoints or varied experience.

Multiple viewpoints and experience can come from the analysis of someone else's work. You don't need to have conversations about snowblowers to take a snowblower apart and see how it works - and then improve upon it.

There is a very silly idea under the surface of this thread that information and cognition must be essentially verbal. Despite the long history of lone human beings making rather massive discoveries. A being unfettered by the belief that communication is essential to their endeavors benefits from all the other stuff the mind is capable of.

 

[Montero]

Multiple viewpoints and experience can come from the analysis of someone else's work. You don't need to have conversations about snowblowers to take a snowblower apart and see how it works - and then improve upon it.

Mmm, it can to an extent. You can deconstruct someone else's work and understand it. You can go "oh, saw a useful thing in Bloggs work I can use here", but it is not quite the same as having a person with a different mindset look at things, because you still have your habitual ways of thought. It also won't help if no-one else has done the work - there is nothing to analyse. Or if Bloggs went through ten designs, and one of his rejected designs is what you really need, not what actually got put out. But having another person standing there to say "well, what if you turn it the other way up" because they are not focused on your aims with the thing, they are looking at the object as totally new to them, they are still parsing all the bits and pieces, and it is fresh to them.
For example, I once worked for a little while in an engineering company. They'd been having all sorts of design problems with a new complicated joint that had a lot of dimension restrictions on it. Top engineers huddled over it for weeks. Along comes a lab tech, who'd not been working on that project, she stops for a few minutes to look and listen and then she says "look if you take that bit out and turn it around, won't it then all fit?" Yes it did. Being decent souls they added her to the names on the patent. She said she got the skill from living in a small house and trying pack all her kids' stuff out of the way.

There is a very silly idea under the surface of this thread that information and cognition must be essentially verbal. Despite the long history of lone human beings making rather massive discoveries. A being unfettered by the belief that communication is essential to their endeavors benefits from all the other stuff the mind is capable of.

Great discoveries by lone genius is a bit different from a technological society - there has to be the way to spread the idea as technological includes the spread of things, not something in isolation. It is turning blue sky research into something with a function. Some lone geniuses tend towards, "oh, solved that, bored now, move onto something new" not "wow what a benefit it will be the rest of my species". Now some do start out with the idea of wanting to get in on the ground floor of say lightbulbs, but by no means all. Also development is built with the materials and tools to hand, which someone had to crop/create, probably not the same someone as the lone genius, and there have been brilliant ideas recorded (in writing) centuries before the material technology existed for them to take shape. People get very excited by aircraft design, possibly because you can see the results, without realising the stunning materials developments to make it possible. The industrial revolution was a long time growing and standardisation was one of the things that allowed technology to boom - everyone agreeing the length, screw thread and head pattern of screws for example. Whoever you bought your screws from, they'd fit.
I've worked in laboratories, both physical chemistry and materials science, and your technical support is essential to your success. They are the people you go to and say "I'm stuck, I need a thingy that looks a bit like this, will stand up to a force of 20kg and temperatures of up to 200C". I hadn't the skill set to make the thingy I need, they haven't the skill set to run one of my experimental rigs. If the one lone human can only work with the stuff they can make, and have to stop every time they need to make something, their progress will be far slower, or non-existent when they completely fail to make the thingy. Different people have different knacks for things.