I'm reminded of some interesting considerations that I've come across about language. It's easily known that I'm very much a student of languages, their use, and their formulation. I find it easy to grasp new ideas relations and words, and modes of communication than it appears almost all are.
I observe my cat Millie fairly often while she "plays" with water. See, I have a tub, and she gets into it, and I turn on the water, and she will attack the water. The thing is, that by her actions, I can see her intent is not to PLAY with the water, but more so to understand the water. She tries to bite it, and paw at it, she is genuinely interested in what water actually is, and what it does, and how it reacts. She won't jump in a bath, or get into the shower with me, so her interest in water is not simply, "she likes water", but definitively that she is studying water, and performing rudimentary experiements on it. Of course, those experiements show much of her instinct and nature rather than more rational though, such as "Can I catch water? Can I bite water? What happens when I attempt to do so?" and "What is wet, and how does it relate to water?"
Being that she has no linguistic capabilities she cannot simply ask what it is, or have it explained to her, and everything that she learns she cannot pass on. At some point humans must have been the same way, where a "scientist" simply poked at something, like water, trying to understand it, what it is, why it is, and how it is. Slowly as we began being able to communicate, ideas were able to pass crudely through much the same way as a pidgin "Water, wet, wet water, me water wet touch", homonids had nothing better to communicate with.
Slowly, hominids' minds adapted and began picking up grammatical features and homonids could then begin to express themselves more widely to others, eventually reaching a critical mass where enough hominids could use a consistent grammar (vocabulary was made consistent from the pigin usage above, a number of animals, especially Dolphins have been shown to grasp at least this little bit of language, especially some great apes) that they were able to communicate more fully. At this, explosive growth of language and communication happened. I would likely say that this change could be as drastic as a few generations, if not simply only one.
After this spontaneous break through of language, people were now able to access and store information from and to other people. Suddenly, I don't need to know X, if enough other people already know X, so that I can contact them easily enough. This specialization of knowledge has continued constantly until this day where no one person anymore could have the same impact that Newton single-handedly had upon Astronomy, Physics, Calculus, and Alchemy (Chemistry). Thinking about it, soon our descendents will at some point (if specialization is allowed to continue) be aware of the same things that Newton can to discover on his own at such an early age that we today would be amazed.
This social network created by language is thus expounding the knowledge available to each individual. More and more we don't need to discover to know, but we can be told to know, and soon simply use without knowledge. This evolution of knowledge is no more evident than with computers, where today we have alive people who had to discover to learn what they know, those that learned what they know from those discoverers, and those that don't know at all, but rather simply use. In the span of simply two or three generations.
In many ways it's like a pyramid scheme. The sooner you get in, the more you "know", because everything built upon what you discovered wouldn't be possible without what you did, thus creating mighty giants at the top of the hill peering down their pyramid, master of their domain. Few other fields exist today in such a primitive state, having had their initial investors lost in the ages even as far back as he who discovered and experimented with fire.
We like to think of the discoverer of fire, or to name him Prometheus, despite that certainly not being his name at the time, because fire is such a fundamental tool and so vitaly to everything we do. But think... who in the myths discovered water? If you want to dive back even deeper into the age of knowledge to the very foundations of protoscience, who was the Millie of humans? What human was the first to wonder about water, and study it, see how it reacts to things, understand that it can be carried, and contained, and not simply taken from the source. Certainly he was before the person who invented pots or other carrying devices, because we needed to understand water fundamentally and then the spark of an idea comes to him, a leaf! I can pour water into a leaf, or other object and carry it. Then someone invents to bowl, and behold, they have a tool which can actually transport water.
We think of water as such a fundamental thing that we all simply know about it, but it is simply aged wisdom so old that we need not even make Myths about who brought mankind water. Fire is an incredibly new technology compared to water. I myself am witnessing the discovery and study of water by a species unable to communicate, and even unable to pass the mirror test.
Should she actually be able to communicate ideas, then she might express an amazingly curious mind, wanting to understand and learn, but only lacks the social ability to pass that knowledge further, or share in the synergistic (sorry for the Buzzword) properties of the society to probe water fully, and understand what it is.
Some day, millenia from now when cats are capable of communication, will they even know the extrodiary exploits of Millie studying water? Will they have even forgotten that such a study of water were even necessary? Our response to Millie's research would be "duh, water is wet, stupid cat." but realize that many of us say now "Duh, 2+2=4", but that simply idea had to be expressed and discovered by someone. There are things so fundamentally basic that we don't even realize that at some point, our ancestors didn't understand it implicitly, because their knowledge extended no further than their own mind, they could not collaborate, or work together to relate things, and create ideas, and notions.
What makes humans unique is our use of communication for this purpose. We are slowly learning that some animals can pass the mirror test, some can learn to communicate in a pidgin, relating needs and wants, but only humans use language to learn to collaborate to work together and overcome problems. But this is simply an allowance afforded us by language, we are simply that lucky to have language, because it is what makes our intelligence and accomplishments possible.
To which thinking about it, the first creature to express an idea to another creature would be the fundamental root of society, and knowledge and wisdom. An animal may be incapable of passing the mirror test, but if it is able to understand the presense of others, then that right there shows an intelligence, which to me is surprising.
Of course, I'm still going to eat meat. Even if they are intelligent, their meat is useful for my life, and I am an animal much like any other. If they can begin to relate to me that they as a species do not deserve to be eaten, then I will do so, but notice, that will require them to have developed a protolanguistic pidgin and thus a capability of rudimentary communication with me. Of course, actually, I'd probably say that any animal capable of pidgin speech is worth keeping at this time, especially if it's spontaneous (Dolphin), but it should still count if it's instructed (Great Apes).
