#hunger4words

[sleepyspoonie]

Guys we need to cancel the coronavirus we're making the talking dog sad

[tpolisher]

I am fascinated by this dog!!

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A post shared by I Am Bunny (@what_about_bunny) on Jun 5, 2020 at 7:39am PDT

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: We Made It All Up

This morning, I went grocery shopping. I was all out of bread; even when I’m not packing lunches, sandwiches are my go-to midday meal.

Aldi had pretty much everything you could want today, as long as you were looking for food and not toilet paper. It also had signs taped on the walls and on the floor near the registers, advising people to stand six feet apart. These blue signs had little figures on them, like you’d see on a restroom sign, with a helpful “6ft” arrow between them.

But what did six feet mean, really?

I am five foot eight, give or take a fraction of an inch. It’s not quite six feet, but it’s close, and I soon caught myself thinking about the space around me in terms of whether I could lie down on the ground between me and the man who’d parked his cart in front of the deli meat. A Sophie is now a unit of measurement for social distancing. Though a more useful unit would be an Elie – my brother, who is actually over six feet tall.

When I was little, I read a picture book which explained that we call this unit of measurement a “foot” because in the old days, whoever was king at the time would decree that his foot length was the kingdom’s official unit of length measurement. So, whenever there was a new king, the “foot” was redefined. Everyone just had to be flexible and go along with it.

What I found interesting about this story as a child was the revelation that there was nothing inherent about the “foot” unit itself. We might as well have drawn a line on the ground and said “stop” at an arbitrary point – and we probably did, in the end, now that we aren’t measuring our leaders’ feet as a construction standard. We could have decided to divide the foot into any number of inches, as well. But we chose twelve, and we all agreed, and continue to agree, to use it, though other countries support the equally arbitrary meter.

I think we forget sometimes that we invented the foot, and the inch, and pretty much everything else we use to understand the world and interact in it.

In college I learned that it costs two cents to create a penny, which is worth one cent of purchasing power. I realized then that, like the foot and the inch, there is nothing inherent about money at all. We made it up.

We’ve all agreed that this little silver coin means this amount of money, and this other little silver coin means a different amount of money. And we’ve all agreed that this specific product is worth this amount of money, and we agree that that “worth” can change from time to time.

And now – because of convenience, because of how much we buy, because physical coins transmit disease – we are more likely to use a number on a computer as money, instead of anything actually physical. Money exists more as an idea, a concept, than as a thing. Money is a form of playing make-believe which is socially sanctioned – required, even – for adults to participate in. When I hear people on the news talking about the economy, how we need to make sacrifices for the economy, how if we don’t get people working and buying and spending again like we always have (even though we currently are unable to) then the economy will collapse, it confuses me.

Has everyone forgotten that we made up the economy? Why are we talking about it like an inherent, immutable, unchangeable force of nature?

A few months back, I overheard one of my coworkers at the Disney parks having a bit of an existential crisis. She had seen a small child running up to his mother after the boat ride, shouting, “That was beautiful!” And it had occurred to her that the child didn’t really know what “beautiful” was. He was just saying what he had overheard the adults around him say. He was just making noises.

Where, she wondered, did meaning come from? Did words truly mean anything? Did anything truly mean anything or was it all made up?

She’s right – words are just noises. We have all agreed that this sound means this thing. And in different parts of the world, people looked at the same things and came up with different sounds to agree upon. There is nothing inherent about language, and it occurred to me for the hundredth time, that this is all made up.

But it still matters.

When we talk about things that were “made up,” there’s a connotation that the thing doesn’t matter. Things that are real, true, concrete, inherent matter. You can draw people into theatres by calling a film “based on a true story,” even if the only part of it that’s remotely “true” is the main character’s name. (As if all stories, all fiction, is not somehow based on reality.)

There’s a dog which uses a soundboard to communicate with her owner. You can find videos on Instagram on the account hunger4words. This dog has been taught since puppyhood that this sound, on this button, means this thing.

One of the buttons on the dog’s board is for “beach.” It’s clearly one of her favorite buttons to press – what dog doesn’t like the beach? One day, the button broke, and the owners took it off the board. Later they posted a video of the dog sniffing at the spot where the “beach” button used to be. Then the dog moved across the board, pressing the buttons for “water” and “outside.”

Sometimes people comment on these videos referring to this as miraculous, ascribing a level of human cognition to the dog. Others call bullshit and say that the dog has no idea what words are, and this is just mimicry or coincidence.

I don’t claim to know how self-aware this animal is, whether or not she understands the concept of a word. But she is obviously communicating. Where other dogs would bark to get what they want, this dog has been taught that she gets what she wants when she presses a specific button, making a specific sound.

This dog and her owner have agreed that this sound – “beach” – means this thing – “let’s go outside to that place with the water.” Another dog and her owner might agree that this specific bark means “let’s go outside.” It’s the same thing. It’s all made up, and it matters.

There’s nothing inherent about words or language. What is inherent is the basic drive to communicate, to create symbolic meaning so that we can understand each other and work together as a society. The fact that we make all this up matters! The fact that we put these symbols and systems to use matters!

And maybe if we recognize that we did make all this up – money and words and the way we measure the world – then maybe we can free ourselves up to re-make it up, to change things in ways that help more people improve their lives, rather than feeling enslaved to the way things have “always” been.

[sheppardaddicts]

If you are not following Stella on IG, you really should. She is a talking dog and she is amazing, as are her handlers. . . Posted @withrepost • @hunger4words Hello again, everyone! After taking a little break from sharing videos to get some important work done, we are happily back and excited to share more Stella stories 😃 • In this video, I had just come home from work and assumed Stella would want to go outside right away. So, I asked if she wanted to go for a walk, or go to the beach, or go to the park. • But Stella had a better idea. She replied, “Bed want,” then gestured for me to scratch her back, laid down in her bed, and enjoyed a few minutes of belly rubs and scratches 🐶❤️ Sometimes we all just need a little pampering! • #hunger4words https://www.instagram.com/p/B6QlDtxn6xw/?igshid=drp99iyj8den

[jackisnimbleandquick]

We all have Advent calendars this year, including Jack. Every night before we open them, we read a devotional and sing a song. Jack has figured out this routine and gets VERY EAGER for his treat during the song, as pictured here.

Last night we mixed up the order and sang before we read. The whole time we were reading, Jack was alternating between barking at us and pressing his EAT button. He really wanted us to skip to the end, already!!

[jackisnimbleandquick]

TFW mom gives you a haircut right when it’s getting cold and then makes you wear a sweater to keep warm 🙄

[hopeplacetx]

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When your Mom is a #therapist and wants you to #talk about it. . . . #fluentpet #hungerforwords #hunger4words #pomeranian #aat (at Rendon, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/CWKLoXHFGFl/?utm_medium=tumblr

[croaksac]

I know all the cool animal behavior people on tumblr hate the talking dog buttons but i just don't! i think it's cool that you could train a dog to press a button and expect a certain outcome. Like a dog can obviously tell you she wants a walk by bringing you her leash or whatever, why not by pressing a button that says "walk?" I know they're not "using language" and I don't believe they're "constructing complex sentences," but they can still "communicate what they want" if they're trained to know what to expect from each button.

It's like that horse study where they were trained to communicate whether they wanted to wear a blanket or not by touching a symbol. A dog can obviously be trained to expect treats from pressing a button, that is basic positive reinforcement training. But if she learns to expect the yellow one gives me treats + walkies, and the green one gives me treats + tug-of-war, then the dog will press the one she feels more like doing at the time, and that's a mode of communication! Like I just can't see how it's as harmful a pop sci concept as something like dominance theory, it's just a bit of fun to me