The truck example is weird, cause it isn't trying to communicate. The person who made it may be trying to communicate something, but the truck would be a use of language, not using a language itself.
Couldn't you argue that instinct doesn't "intend" anything - it's just adaptive, because evolution selected for it?
Having a temper is useful, but it wasn't designed in by any conscious entity, it's just that people who get angry tend to do better than people who don't.
> Couldn't you argue that instinct doesn't "intend" anything - it's just adaptive, because evolution selected for it?
You can argue that if you want. I'll argue the opposite: If a dog growls at me when I reach for his steak - but doesn't bite - I take that as him intending to inform me that he doesn't want me to take his steak.
It may be instinct, it may be adaptive, but it sure as hell was intended to get a message across to me.
Communication is about sending and receiving messages. A car tire cannot send or receive - it cannot communicate.
It's not adaptive for anger to be communication though. For instance, a small dog may not be willing to fight to the death against a much larger creature. But the visceral response of anger comes automatically, and the reason it's useful is because it doesn't convey information, but conceals it. You snarl so that people think you might be combative, but you are quite definitely not communicating that you are combative. A world where a growl really was communication would be a world where anyone who didn't growl could be abused.
Linguist here - in the field of biology, the word communication is also used to describe signals that are being sent out by organisms, and received as information by others, regardless of the intent of the 'sender'. This has confused me a few times as well.
The truck example is weird, cause it isn't trying to communicate. The person who made it may be trying to communicate something, but the truck would be a use of language, not using a language itself.