Hysterical recollection of data about gorillas "talking" in some way to children, others

Advent of selfhood. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Itai Roffman. Journal of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences, https://meddocsonline.org/journal-of-veterinary-medicine-and-animal-sciences/advent-of-selfhood.pdf

Hysterical recollection of data:

1  Do gorillas per chance want to know something about we humans? Could they possibly hope to communicate something to us, just by their presence and demeanor? Observe the video on u-tube of a young adult gorilla communicating with human children, who are using the photos on their cell phones to communicate with the gorilla (https://youtu.be/vr8eMrnLLJo). This is clearly two-way communication between the gorilla and the children. There is no food reward for either species and no one trained the children to interpret the gorilla’s gesture and no one trained the gorilla to gesture to the children.

Zoo’s sometimes do not approve of this kind of behavior amongst gorillas in their collection, because it causes them to appear “too human” and they tend to discourage it. But there are many u-tube videos of gorillas looking at the photos on the iPhones and iPads of guests. They especially appreciate seeing  videos of other gorillas [1]. It is wrong for two closely related species to desire to communicate? It may be that the gorillas interested in photographs.


2  The oral histories of many indigenous groups in Congo and in Mali, speak of time in the past when apes and humans communicated linguistically on a regular basis and even shared words in overlapping languages [2]. Maybe [3] the children in this video, who don’t yet know that it is politically incorrect to do anything with apes that is not part of their “natural behavior,” are starting to break down the human/ape barrier. They may be [3] harkening back to an earlier time when communication between us and them was part of the “natural behavior” of both species. Of course it would be possible for zoos to set up an electronic means for apes and visitors to begin to learn how to talk to and another and for gorillas to communicate by video with gorillas in other zoos and even in the wild.


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[1]  Why is this so special? A killer whale watches other cetaceans in TV: https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/10/a-killer-whale-watches-other-cetaceans.html

[2] Great source! She proceeds to comparing the indigenous groups to children.

[3]  Maybe, maybe, maybe, lots of possibilities, multiverses, etc. Amazing.