dog that âtricksâ its master into getting out of the comfy chair by going to the door as if it needs to go out. But as Dennett points out, such behavior does not make the dog a mindreader. He has just learned that his master does that (gets up) whenever he does this (goes to the door). In his Philosophical Investigations , Ludwig Wittgenstein simply takes it for granted that dogs are not capable of intentional deception:
           Why canât a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest? Could one teach a dog to simulate pain? Perhaps it is possible to teach him to howl on particular occasions as if he were in pain, even when he is not. But the surroundings which are necessary for this behaviour to be real simulation are missing. ( p. 90 )
Functional deception of the sort that birds and dogs engage in is not limited to non-linguistic creatures. Just as real apes systematically benefit from other apes being misled by fake alarm calls, the orangutans on the Planet of the Apes systematically benefit from âpropagating grotesque errors among simian youthâ ( p. 75 ). Since they have traditionally held a very privileged position in ape society, these orangutans benefit from maintaining the status quo. Although the orangutans on the Planet of the Apes are capable of intentional deception, they may not be guilty of it here. Like many ideologues on our own planet, they may believe everything that they say.
Weâll Begin with the Wisconsin Multiphasic
Although they initially looked like pretty good evidence, the fake alarm calls do not prove that real apes can read minds. But apes might, nevertheless, be mindreaders. To find out, weâll need to perform some further tests.
In addition to the Wisconsin Multiphasic test conducted on Cornelius and Zira by Dr. Dixon in Escape from the Planet of the Apes , primatologists have devised many other ways to test the cognitive capacities of primates. Most notably, Brian Hare, Josep Call, and Michael Tomasello have performed some experiments that suggest that apes are indeed mindreaders.
In an experiment described in the journal Animal Behaviour , a dominant chimpanzee and a subordinate chimpanzee were placed in cages on opposite sides of a room that contained two pieces of food. But one of the two pieces of food was placed next to an opaque barrier so that, while the subordinate chimp could see it, the dominant chimp could not. The chimpanzees were then released from their cages, with the subordinate chimp given a slight head start. Now, dominant chimpanzees tend to punish subordinate chimpanzees who challenge them for food. So, unsurprisingly, the subordinate chimp preferred to go after the piece of food that was hidden from the dominant chimp. But we should only expect this sort of behavior if the subordinate chimp knew that the dominant chimp did not know that there was food behind the barrier. Thus, this behavior suggests that chimpanzees can attribute beliefs to other chimpanzees.
As with the fake alarm calls, the results of this experiment could possibly be explained without assuming that the subordinate chimp is a mindreader. The chimpanzee might have learned that itâs safe to go after food whenever there is something solid between the food and any dominant chimpanzees in the area. However, this is just one of several experiments that have yielded essentially the same results. For instance, if apes have a choice between openly reaching for a piece of food and reaching for it though an opaque tunnel that hides their action, they consistently choose the covert option. In addition, many of these experiments presented the apes with situations, such as transparent barriers and experimenters with buckets on their heads, that neither they nor their ancestors would have experienced in the wild.
According to Occamâs Razor, we should prefer the simplest possible explanation of these results. The hypothesis that these apes have
           Why canât a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest? Could one teach a dog to simulate pain? Perhaps it is possible to teach him to howl on particular occasions as if he were in pain, even when he is not. But the surroundings which are necessary for this behaviour to be real simulation are missing. ( p. 90 )
Functional deception of the sort that birds and dogs engage in is not limited to non-linguistic creatures. Just as real apes systematically benefit from other apes being misled by fake alarm calls, the orangutans on the Planet of the Apes systematically benefit from âpropagating grotesque errors among simian youthâ ( p. 75 ). Since they have traditionally held a very privileged position in ape society, these orangutans benefit from maintaining the status quo. Although the orangutans on the Planet of the Apes are capable of intentional deception, they may not be guilty of it here. Like many ideologues on our own planet, they may believe everything that they say.
Weâll Begin with the Wisconsin Multiphasic
Although they initially looked like pretty good evidence, the fake alarm calls do not prove that real apes can read minds. But apes might, nevertheless, be mindreaders. To find out, weâll need to perform some further tests.
In addition to the Wisconsin Multiphasic test conducted on Cornelius and Zira by Dr. Dixon in Escape from the Planet of the Apes , primatologists have devised many other ways to test the cognitive capacities of primates. Most notably, Brian Hare, Josep Call, and Michael Tomasello have performed some experiments that suggest that apes are indeed mindreaders.
In an experiment described in the journal Animal Behaviour , a dominant chimpanzee and a subordinate chimpanzee were placed in cages on opposite sides of a room that contained two pieces of food. But one of the two pieces of food was placed next to an opaque barrier so that, while the subordinate chimp could see it, the dominant chimp could not. The chimpanzees were then released from their cages, with the subordinate chimp given a slight head start. Now, dominant chimpanzees tend to punish subordinate chimpanzees who challenge them for food. So, unsurprisingly, the subordinate chimp preferred to go after the piece of food that was hidden from the dominant chimp. But we should only expect this sort of behavior if the subordinate chimp knew that the dominant chimp did not know that there was food behind the barrier. Thus, this behavior suggests that chimpanzees can attribute beliefs to other chimpanzees.
As with the fake alarm calls, the results of this experiment could possibly be explained without assuming that the subordinate chimp is a mindreader. The chimpanzee might have learned that itâs safe to go after food whenever there is something solid between the food and any dominant chimpanzees in the area. However, this is just one of several experiments that have yielded essentially the same results. For instance, if apes have a choice between openly reaching for a piece of food and reaching for it though an opaque tunnel that hides their action, they consistently choose the covert option. In addition, many of these experiments presented the apes with situations, such as transparent barriers and experimenters with buckets on their heads, that neither they nor their ancestors would have experienced in the wild.
According to Occamâs Razor, we should prefer the simplest possible explanation of these results. The hypothesis that these apes have
Similar Books
