You need abstractions to think and plan at all with limited compute, not just to speak. I would guess that plenty animals which are incapable of speaking also mentally rely on abstractions. For instance, when foraging for apples, I suspect an animal probably has a mental category for apples, and treats them as the same kind of thing rather than completely unrelated configurations of atoms.
I agree. Limited resources drives the need to have abstractions. Communication probably simply provides another drive to abstract at even higher levels.
I would imagine for many animals evolution would have pre-programmed abstractions like “object” or “fruits” so they come pre-parsed.
You need abstractions to think and plan at all with limited compute, not just to speak. I would guess that plenty animals which are incapable of speaking also mentally rely on abstractions. For instance, when foraging for apples, I suspect an animal probably has a mental category for apples, and treats them as the same kind of thing rather than completely unrelated configurations of atoms.
I agree. Limited resources drives the need to have abstractions. Communication probably simply provides another drive to abstract at even higher levels.
I would imagine for many animals evolution would have pre-programmed abstractions like “object” or “fruits” so they come pre-parsed.