[abound]

Similarly, I'm reading "Supernormal Stimuli" now, and there's a whole section on infants raised by various animals (chimps, wolves, chickens, leopards, etc, etc). When they are found and brought back to human societies, basically none of them develop full language and integrate fully.

There's also the grim history of language deprivation experiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deprivation_experimen...

It really does seem like language is a key part of how we develop our human intelligence.

[kibwen]

That humans who have grown out of their optimal brain plasticity and hence never acquire the capacity for ordinary human language are not somehow "conscious" is not supported. Rather, it means that, by its very definition, we do not have the means to communicate with them in order to even ask the sorts of questions necessary to determine such a thing. The premise is unfalsifiable.

[gf000]

Well, we can surely communicate without language. I certainly communicate via body language with other humans, my dog, etc.

[palmotea]

> Similarly, I'm reading "Supernormal Stimuli" now, and there's a whole section on infants raised by various animals (chimps, wolves, chickens, leopards, etc, etc). When they are found and brought back to human societies, basically none of them develop full language and integrate fully.

Infants raised by chickens? Chickens!? That doesn't sound real.

[abound]

Reading it again, the book is referencing this case: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/11/fiji.jennyfors...

[palmotea]

So not "raised by chickens," but rather abused and isolated in the presence of chickens. That's more plausible.