Monkey See, Monkey Do? (Blog #8)

The KoKo documentary was a fascinating piece of film. Watching a person,, namely Penny Patterson, communicate with an animal so effectively was very interesting. Intelligent creatures have always and will always intrigue human beings. Perhaps, as Patterson suggested, we just want to find our equal. She added that we always look to space for some intelligent, alien life, but our intelligent counterparts might be right here on earth. Michael Crichton’s Congo addresses this question, the question of animal rights and humanity’s relationship with nature in general.

Crichton was inspired by Koko the gorilla and her ability to communicate, so he made a gorilla, named Amy, the central character in the book. In the book, Crichton regales readers with a history of primate training and their contact with the West. In one such passage, he tells us, that Samuel Pepys, famous for his detailed description of English life in the 17th century, described a chimpanzee he saw in London. He says that the animal was “so much like a man in most things that…I do believe that it already understands much English and I am of the mind it might be taught to speak or make signs” (44). He quotes another anonymous 17th century source suggesting, “Apes and Baboons…can speak but will not for fear they should be imployed [sic], and set to work” (44).

Crichton’s book remains vague on the issue of animal rights and primate personhood. The character of Amy, however, becomes one of the most human and reliable. It creates the same conundrum that we currently have. The primates appear to have personality, intelligence and even a sense of humor, but it is impossible to be certain of their “personhood”. In much the same way, Amy shows the same traits, but she cannot, and her trainer cannot prove that she has “personhood”. The chimp “theory of mind” articles identify the same problem. We can never have complete certainty; especially with trained primates since the sample is tainted. It might simply be a function of anthropomorphizing the subject—another key feature of human nature. We understand creatures and even technologies according to our own understandings of reality. It is difficult, perhaps impossible for a human being to conceive of something that has no thoughts. Therefore we attribute motives and feelings to things that clearly have none—such as an automobile. It is not so easy to decide, however that a dog or a chimpanzee has no feelings or thoughts and, so, we reach a stalemate.

These questions are fascinating and represent some of the deepest questions in philosophy. In the film, Patterson suggested that our search for other intelligent beings is rooted in our desire to understand ourselves. The creation of artificial intelligence might be grouped in the same search. Why on earth would we want a computer psychiatry program? And yet, they exist. Dr. Sbaitso, quite an old program, allowed users to ask the computer psychiatrist questions and the A.I. would offer answers. Unfortunately, a preliminary use of the program would reveal that the answers were actually quite repetitive. Nonetheless, it reveals the human desire to talk to another entity, for lack of a better term.

It is doubtful we will ever know if Koko, robot dogs or A.I. psychiatrists have personhood, but, perhaps, by examining our interest in such things we can uncover a little more about human nature


Iris