| "It's about as likely that an ape will prove to have a language ability
as that there is an island somewhere with a species of flightless birds
waiting for human beings to teach them to fly." - Noam Chomsky |
For many years it has been believed that the only reason why chimpanzees
do not have a language ability is because they lack the ability to produce
speech. After all, if the ability to learn language is innate in humans,
wouldn't some possibly less evolved language acquisition device also be
pre-programmed in the biologically closest animals to humans? Notable experiments
involving primates Washoe, Koko and Nim Chimpsky have shown that chimps
can learn to communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) and learn over
150 signs. Another chimp, Sarah was taught a visual language using plastic
chips to represent nouns, adjectives, and verbs. However, these studies
haven't shown that chimps can acquire a syntactical structure or have a
sense of sequence. For this reason, linguists such as Noam Chomsky believe
the chimpanzee's limited grammatical abilities are inadequate for natural
language.
In The Soul Of Martha, A Beast by Terrel Miedaner, a chimpanzee
named Martha has the ability to speak in English with humans. The chimp
is participating in a court room demonstration to determine if her human
like intelligence gives her the right to human like treatment. At the end
of the demonstration, her master gives her a poisonous candy from which
she dies while crying "why..why". Martha exhibits similar language abilities
as chimps taught ASL, a small lexicon, repetitive single word utterances
and limited syntax. However, Martha also shows spontaneous utterances initiated
by her and not just in response to her teacher. Furthermore, Martha shows
understanding of meaning and purpose when she asks "why" and self awareness
as she realizes she is dying. Martha has an intelligence below that of
normal human infants.
Likewise to The Soul Of Martha, A Beast, The Soul of the Mark III Beast
is centered around the question should creatures exhibiting human like
intelligence be treated the same as one would treat any other human infant
or adult. The Mark III Beast is a robot which displays appropriate behaviours
when in a state of contentment recharging at an electrical outlet or when
in a state of alarm being destroyed by a hammer. Whether Martha or Mark
III have a soul or not isn't a question of their spiritual essence but
of how they are perceived and treated by human prejudice. Anything below
a certain deciding characteristic is property. In both cases the deciding
factor is species. Martha had shown to have an intelligence similar to
a child at the two word stage of development, but if Martha were replaced
by a human child and that human child were subject to experimentation and
then put to death when outliving her usefulness it would be a horrific
infanticide.
Researchers need chimps to experiment on and likewise, robots as tools
and workers should be property to be created and turned off when required.
However, behaviours as exhibited by the Mark III are not necessary for
property. They are necessary when trying to simulate or recreate life.
It all depends on how they are to be used and treated and that would depend
on the individual or what the society allows. In the story, Dirksten cannot
will herself to kill the robot because of the way she perceives its behaviours
just as she couldn't kill a mouse. Hunt on the other hand, has no problem
destroying the robot as he had done before just as he would have no problem
killing mice or chimps after having done that a few times too.
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