For humans, persistent culture is very much non-trivial.
We spend at least five and sometimes more than twenty years learning how we're supposed to be human and being taught what previous humans have done so that we - literally - don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Human cumulative memory reaches back thousands of years. Animal memory never lasts more than a generation.
To a certain extent, these are discrete steps, not a continuous gradation, so there is a sense in which 'Animals 2.0' is an appropriate metaphor. A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
Humans don't have a venomous bite. Does that make spiders and snakes Animals 2.0?
You have to have the ability to transmit behaviour between individuals. It shouldn't be surprising that animals can do this but every time it's proved by research for a particular species it makes big headlines. Maybe a lot of what passes for "instinct" is actually cultural transmission. The experience of releasing animals bred in captivity out in the wild should provide a data point.
But there is a stage beyond "transmitted behaviour" and that is "transmitted information". There's no reason to believe that some animals can't have a "concept" of the world, but can they transmit it to others in their group? That would be in the same 'Animals 2.' (maybe 'Culture 2.' is better) class as oral-transmission human cultures.
And then we get to the production of material artifacts to supplement memory - is that 'Culture 3.*' ? A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
There's no reason to believe that some animals can't have a "concept" of the world, but can they transmit it to others in their group?
i believe they can, but it's anecdotal. when i took my horse to a pro stables for 3 months during training, he was a totally good natured animal, more pet than worker.
he learned to work while there, for sure, but he also learned something else, a spirit of disrespect for humans he had never exhibited before, a flare of rebellion, a vein of crankiness.
i felt it was worth it, so i tried to compensate, but it distressed me, and i eventually brought him back home a month before the trainer thought appropriate, because i was fed up with the personality disintegration.
after a month of a lot of personal attention, grooming and treats, he regained his original mellow friendliness, as i had hoped, (and had faith in, because his early childhood, his first 2 years were as close to idyllic as could be, and that's why i chose him, not just because the breed has a rep for toughness, resilience, intelligence and long, healthy lives.)
so the early conditioning is always the bedrock, and has the most power, but animals can encourage each other to change their attitudes, at least it sure seemed that way, though i'm aware you could probably never prove it 'scientifically'! ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
Define "persistent culture".
Some webs are more interesting and bigger than others.
Animals don't have persistent culture, and they particularly don't have or externalised symbolic communication tools which can maintain information for generations.
If true, you need to present "objective" evidence refuting several decades of research by biologists, at least, into mammal psychology --which I understand to be any type of socialability, or interaction within one species group, so classified as "family". Primatologists actively pursue politcal agenda describing what is "natural" altruism, what is "natural" competition.
Jury's still out on cold-blooded species, excepting insects for some reasons that I'm not prepared to reiterate.
If "culture" (physical artifacts) and "externalised symbolic communication tools" (i.e. language performance) are either not evident or incomprehensible to human researchers, how will humans justify and validate genetic fatalism "which can maintain information for generations"? That is, material or axiomatic determinants of individual (unique) and collective (social) of life, not death, or survival if you will.
"Information" is a generic title of "instinct," itself a stream of data subject to physical law as we understand them. Presently the human scope of possible expressions include behavioral (psychological) and pathological (viral, bacterial, unknown degenerative agent) outcomes, you know, at any given point in an individual life cycle.
I don't see how many people are given by experts rationales beyond faith to act according to a morally positive end. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
