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[DreamThorn]

I've never seen the [CAN_CIV] tag do anything though.  Kobolds have [CAN_CIV], but they don't form civilizations as far as I have seen.

About the definition of civilization:

I think it's not so much a question of what is civilized and what not, but rather, how civilized they are.

The same goes for intelligence/sapience and sentience.  They're not on/off kinds of things.

I think even the line between living and dead is not quite clear-cut.  Long ago I read about a list of criteria that something needs to satisfy to be counted as alive, but then I thought: what if only half the criteria are satisfied?  Is it then half-alive, or what?

[Lord Shonus]

Kobolds do form civs. That's where the thieves come from.

[Gidoran]

I've never seen the [CAN_CIV] tag do anything though.  Kobolds have [CAN_CIV], but they don't form civilizations as far as I have seen.

About the definition of civilization:

I think it's not so much a question of what is civilized and what not, but rather, how civilized they are.

The same goes for intelligence/sapience and sentience.  They're not on/off kinds of things.

I think even the line between living and dead is not quite clear-cut.  Long ago I read about a list of criteria that something needs to satisfy to be counted as alive, but then I thought: what if only half the criteria are satisfied?  Is it then half-alive, or what?

On [CAN_CIV] and Kobolds, I think what the tag actually does is it lets them have a civilization entity in history. That's why you see all of those Bladablablis civilization entities hanging around in caves, the tag lets them form those. It's not a real 'Civilization' in terms of like, trading, and proper sieges, but it's still a civilization as far as the game recognizes it.

[Neonivek]

In order for something to be a language is has several requirements that I cannot remember (I think Syntax is one of them, though a language system without syntax is called something else). Though mind you Language is not the begin and end all of communication. Technically the ability to Psychically communicate thoughts and feelings isn't a language either.

what if only half the criteria are satisfied?  Is it then half-alive, or what?

If something doesn't fulfill all the requirements of life then it is Non-living.

[dreiche2]

Guys, really, I mean I don't mind off topic so much in general, but this constant quarrelling about things totally irrelevant to DF goes a little bit too far. Yes I also participated in the special relativity discussion (with one post), but at least we moved into a dedicated thread at some point.

And the semantics of first the word civilization, then language, and now, I see it coming, life, really don't matter. This whole discussion should be about the CAN_CIV tag and what it means in the game, if anything. Unless you want to have a ten pages discussion with the only possible relevance being a potential need to rename the tag  .

[Neonivek]

Well [Can_CIV] As far as far as the game is concerned as far as I am concerned means that the creature is capable of forming civilisations. Which in the game is a type of entity that includes nomadic groups, tribes, hamlets, towns, cities, and kingdoms.

Though personally I'd think "Can Civ" would be something that would be eliminated far down the road and be extrapolated so that communal intelligent beings will form civs and MAYBE rarely even solitary intelligent creatures (possibly with other's help).

[atomfullerene]

G-flex has the right of it, if I can remember from the class I took on the subject.  As for language, I believe it differs from communication in that communication has a number of units (displays, noises, whatever) with a set meaning, while language lets you string together a bunch of units to produce arbitrary meaning.  This is what humans do, stringing together syllables to make words, and those to make sentences.  It's much more versatile than what ants have (which is basically a series of meanings like "come here" "fight" and "run").  Now ant-men would have some sort of scent based actual language, which would smell interesting....

Anyway, that about does it for adding anthropology to our list of off-topic science discussions, along with ecology, physics, and comparative biology.  Soooo....who's got something controversial to say about geology?

[smjjames]

Did we go through the evolution stuff already? Not wanting to touch off a firestorm though as its such a volatile topic given the right conditions.

[tfaal]

Now ant-men would have some sort of scent based actual language, which would smell interesting....

That would have strange implications for adventurer mode. Would you just assume the adventurer can "speak" pheromones, as the do with current languages, or would you have conversations like this:

<Josef Adventurelad>: You look like a mighty warrior indeed!
<Antman #241>: *begins to smell of peppermint*

Altogether, I don't think a smelanguage would be practical, since words have short duration, and smells don't. Cycling between *peppermint* *pumpkinbread* and *formic acid* could take minutes, and the only other way to mix concepts is to blend the smells. I don't think that would be practical either, because simultaneous smells have no order to convey their information with. It would work for simple concepts, but how the hell do you say "I was a mason for twelve years of my life" in pheromones?

[Melfice]

Now ant-men would have some sort of scent based actual language, which would smell interesting....

<Josef Adventurelad>: You look like a mighty warrior indeed!
<Antman #241>: *begins to smell of peppermint*

Altogether, I don't think a smelanguage would be practical, since words have short duration, and smells don't. Cycling between *peppermint* *pumpkinbread* and *formic acid* could take minutes, and the only other way to mix concepts is to blend the smells. I don't think that would be practical either, because simultaneous smells have no order to convey their information with. It would work for simple concepts, but how the hell do you say "I was a mason for twelve years of my life" in pheromones?

I think he meant pheromones with the scent-based language.
It would make more sense but in the end, it'd be just as limited.

[dreiche2]

A gesture based language might make more sense for insect-men, seeing as bees can communicate with dances.

[atomfullerene]

Hmm, that is an interesting question.  Without an ability to order your symbols in some way, language would be difficult.  What if they dabbed out the scent on the ground in series?  Actual ants leave trails, it could be an extension of that.  Still kind of ungainly though. Maybe gestures for specifics and scents for emotional overtones?

[Kilo24]

They absolutely do have language. It's a language based more around scents and body rather than words and noises, but it is most certainly a language.

It's not a complex language in the sense that any linguist would care about. Hell, it's arguable they don't even confer information in a way the ant understands; it's all pretty basic physiological reaction. It's "communication" in the same sense as someone "communicating" with you by injecting you with psychoactive drugs.

At any rate, I obviously wasn't talking about simple "individuals can cause other individuals to respond to stimuli in some form or another" "communication". I was referring to complex, abstract language. Ants instinctively leaving behind scent trails that other ants instinctively follow is not the same thing.

Every form of communication can be measured in terms of its physiological influence on the listener.  Somewhere, somehow, that information has to be processed.  I don't doubt that other creatures have much more complicated processing methods than ants, but the basic underlying physiology works by the same principle.  The big question is how much experience can change those reactions (that is, how much the ant can learn.) 
It's definitely true that their language is not very abstract (though language is inherently abstract), but, as long as they don't have the time to waste in speaking about abstract concepts in pursuit for survival, there's no reason why abstract concepts would be part of the language.

and they do more than growing plants, they cut plants and take them to their nest, then they grow fungus!

That's still less complex than agriculture, not to mention that it's also entirely instinctive, whereas civilization is a cultural thing.

and about complext thought, i never read anywhere that it was a requirement to be civilized

Even some apes and other animals have aspects of culture. Ants have none, because it's kind of hard to transmit ideas to others when you can't actually think of or communicate them.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2176157/
There's evidence of ants being able to learn, which implies that they're able to think.   Pheromone cues I'm slightly more leery of, but recognizing landmarks I'd call evidence of thought. 
Evidence like this opens up the possibility of further surprises in insect cognition.  Flat-out claiming that everything is instinctual because they're insects is a dangerous assumption.

[Warlord255]

I'm still in favor of the "anthill as organism" theory, personally.

Let's get back on topic; do you think smells will ever play a part in adventure mode?

[Footkerchief]

Let's get back on topic; do you think smells will ever play a part in adventure mode?

Definitely!

# PowerGoal104, WHERE IS THE OBJECT?!, (Future): You restrain the goblin with a knife, telling it to find the object. The goblin refuses and you cut it. It bleeds out all over its armor and your knife. The goblin decides to comply, sniffing out the object from a distance.

Miasma and smoke are implemented as the flows you see in dwarf mode, so you could have an interface to smell them if you are right on top of them in adventure mode.  If you can't see, this could convey some information without having to add anything more CPU intensive.