Chris Doss
>
> > CB: Chimps don't have kinship. They do not trace
> > living relationships based
> > on descent from dead ancestors.
>
> Chris: That's not the same thing as kinship.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Yes it is.
>
Define "kinship,"
^^^^ CB: Kinship is the organization of relationships between living people based on their relationships to dead ancestors.
^^^^
and why it is important for the question of whether chimps have culture or not.
^^^^ CB: Kinship is central to culture. Chimps don't have kinship.
^^^^^
Do chimps recognize their relatives and establish bonds with them different than with other chimps?
^^^^^ CB: Chimps don't have relatives, because they don't have kinship.
^^^^
Obviously since they don't have language their social world is limited to living memory (caveat -- see below), but that's not the same thing. I don't see what this has to do with culture anyway.
^^^^^ CB: Well, sit back and listen then.
^^^^^^
And though they didn't come up with it on their own, they can be taught sign language and thus are at least capable of using symbols (didn't Koko, OK she wasn't a chimp but a gorilla, teach it to her children?). They will point and draw for fun if given the opportunity.
^^^^^ CB: Sorry, that just doesn't amount to culture.
^^^^^
Jerry will probably correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC dolphins do use symbols in their communication system. They reproduce the sonar "images" of the things they are "talking" about, e.g., "shark" is represented by the sonar image of a shark. Caveat -- this is something I read years ago and barely remember, so I could be full of shit.
^^^^^ CB: Yea, you could be ( just kidding).
A key concept to get is that the purest definition of symbolling is representation of something by something that it is _not_. A picture representation is not a symbol to the extent that it imitates what it represents. The purest symbol is as in a word. The sound sequence "d-o-g" does not imitate what it represents at all. "boom" is not a symbol to the extent that it imitates what it represents. My point is that the imaging capacity you refer to is not the symbolic aspect of the dolphins' conduct.