Altered states

I was listening to a squirrel today and it seems that there is something different about them. I grew up on a farm and there were animals everywhere in the woods and a person develops a sense of what they will do and how they will act. The squirrel was sitting in a tree and there was a very obvious and structured pattern in the noises it made. Squirrels have some remarkable skills of space and invention. The pattern of the squirrel's noise reminded me of a packet in TCP. It seemed to have an address field and a message content. I heard no response packet and it almost sounded like it was a series of broadcast packets. It could be that I was not up high enough to hear the response. There was a two tone structure to the call and it had an unmistakable number of clicks in the preamble and a variable message body with a pause between sections. This was definitely not random and each sequence was unique.

I see that slashdot has an article on language and it is stated elsewhere that there is a reasonable possibility that there is a natural language that exists within the human mind.

I saw a squirrel and it's mate early in spring when they were recovering from hibernation and I could swear that the female sat on the limb near their nest and screamed at the male until it returned to watch the young while she went to feed. I assume that they can communicate in some fashion as prairie dogs do have some language they use for danger. It was just so obvious that it looked like a husband and wife arguing about dinner and who would take care of the kids. He climbed back up the tree and she took his place on the ground while he watched over her. I think he was there to watch for birds and I find it fascinating that they can develop such an understanding without any formal structure.

I have listened to dolphins and watched them as they play around the boat. These creatures are far from stupid.

I watched an ant raid in the area around my place the other day and I happened to get there right when it started. I am confused how they managed to know where they were going and what triggered the effect. I suspect that they had met and conquered another ant colony under ground and that they knew where they were going before they started. They flowed like a river directly to a site and then minutes later receded with the larva of the other colony. I am not sure what they do with the captured ants but I would suspect that they become food.

I don't know how they determined the vector and range to target unless they use a method similar to bees.

I would like to understand more about language itself, and I suppose that it might help with programming or understanding the human mind in context.