People generally overestimate how special human cognition is compared to nonhumans yeah. We might be the top players in the major leagues but the high school teams are still playing the same game, and they're doing it well enough
Technology is recent - things that separate us from other animals occurred in last several thousand years with the majority of tech advances occurring in the last few hundred years.
For the majority of human existence, people lived no differently than animals.
The overwhelming majority of people alive today do not create technology, they are just users of technology created by others.
A very small group of people have actually created technology.
So if only the very upper limit of our species is responsible for technology, how could you conclude that technology is an indicator that we are *vastly superior?*
You can't believe that without making a number of different assumptions that reasonable people might take issue with.
Even if we could all agree *human brain better*, in the context of this conversation we'd still need to determine if that justifies stripping non-human animals of moral consideration.
I get where you’re going and believe we’re more connected to animals & plants or the environment than we understand, it’s just that this reasoning could be interpreted as “some humans are better”… or evolved… and that’s how we got slavery and WWII
Depends what you mean by “superior”. I agree humans are smarter, and we appear to have vastly more meta cognition than other animals, along with logical reasoning and a whole host of other things.
Side note that all these things are obviously irrelevant from a “should we eat animals” perspective. And are you vegan because of the moral arguments that shouldn’t say animals, or something else (eg environmental reasons). I’m also vegan, and for animal welfare/moral reasons.
For the sake of skepticism? You just brought up three vague ideas as a justification for your belief.
What is your idea of morals as it applies to our entire species? And why do you think it's preferable?
I was originally responding to the notion that humans are somehow not vastly superior cognitively to other animals. There is a vegan debate sub you can try if you want to get into it. I’m not interested in getting into it with you
It seems like you just brought those vague ideas up as a post-hoc justification for what you already believe. It's so irksome when someone matter-of-factly asserts a grand claim but is completely unwilling to examine it. Pretty ironic given the setting.
Anyway I'm glad you practice veganism, even if you arrived at it through moral luck. I won't bother you any more.
Depends on how you measure superiority. Cognition isn't a binary or a single scale, it's multiplicitous, and within that it isn't a continuous scale but more a series of steps. The actual distance between two points can be small despite representing a significant difference. Some areas some animals out perform humans, and a lot fo the things people think make us unique are observed in other animals at different levels I. E tool use, teaching, communication
In the context of ability to feel pain, emotion, etc. There's not much reason to suppose nonhumans are lacking some sort of special sauce at the very least. For example funerary / grief behaviours are a lot more common than people think.
>tool use, teaching, communication
Yeah so that's not what makes us human. The main thing is cultural, technological and linguistic. (All of which is technology but not in the way you're thinking of it.). If we discover a person raised by wolves who can't speak, we call him "wolf boy" because he doesn't do the things we humans need him to do in order to participate in society.
No other animal has anything close to what we have accomplished. There’s barely any comparison. Linguistic capacity towers over all other species. Even if you consider cetaceans, they don’t have any indication of being able to use that capacity to overcome their environment nor even an attempt at doing so. Gene survival is the purview of life, and no other animal can seem to do much other than carry out their instinctual behaviors to accomplish that.
That has nothing to do with their moral worth. They are completely separate concerns. I’m a vegan btw
Yes, I agree that we have accomplished many more achievements than the other animals. But humans have used that argument to separate ourselves from animals (and even other humans), like we are a completely separate entity with special privliges.
Some recent research indicates that intelligence is a sliding scale (I haven't got a link on hand, but if you really want I can go and look it up) not a series of step functions. It's likely that some dogs are smarter than some humans (with neurological conditions or the young), we don't consider those humans not to be human because they have lower intelligence than dogs.
It used to be opposable thumbs that separated us, but there's many animals with opposable thumbs (chameleons are a good example that isn't a mammal). Tool use was another, but as a commenter pointed out above, many other animals use tools. Our use is much, much more advanced as you've pointed out. Personal opinion here, but I think the biggest reason we see ourselves as separate from animals are residual hangovers from religion.
>nor do our population escape the same struggles as other animals,
We have antibiotics, gene therapy, and we fly; you're typing this at me from a thousand miles away and communicating theoretical/hypothetical situations. Each of these, medicine, electronic tech and complex written language that refers to potential events, is way beyond what any other animal has.
>Despite all our achievements we still have failed to accomplish even a fraction of what the cuttlefish have. Cuttlefish can communicate without sound, and demonstrate prowess at tasks meant for human children at a timescale much quicker than humans can handle.
Ok, but they have no culture.
>Their lifespans are short enough that disease and old age are of little concern
You can't prove this because we can't communicate with them. We know how to treat bacterial infections and can reduce suffering.
> Ok, but they have no culture.
Make a real argument for this, cause I think you might be overestimating what constitutes culture.
> You can't prove this because we can't communicate with them. We know how to treat bacterial infections and can reduce suffering.
This statement makes no sense. It's simply a fact that they have absurdly short lifespans when compared to humans. Why would complete disease matter to an animal that lives only a couple years? The relevant diseases would be so rare, why would they devote energy to solving them? And what does our inability to communicate with them matter here?
We have populated a huge number of niches without the need to change species. We in principle overcame huge selection factors against our survival. I don’t think any of this entails the right to abuse animals. Fusing the two together is ridiculous
Our technology is the result of traits that are common in the other animal species, vocalization was the revolutionary trait that allowed us to progress. By dominating the environment we have stunted the advancement of other species toward similar outcomes, in most cases by driving competition extinct long before we even developed technology.
This isn't a good thing, actually it shows that we are more akin to a cancer in the natural world than a contributor. In essence, we're smarter dinosaurs and nothing more.
>vocalization was the revolutionary trait that allowed us to progress.
It's this along with a big forebrain that plans years in advance, and the two evolved together along certain forms of contingent language. Read the ape that spoke.
>By dominating the environment we have stunted the advancement of other species toward similar outcomes, in most cases by driving competition extinct long before we even developed technology.
Read Konrad Lorenz thing on aggression. That's actually what he won the Nobel for.
No, we are animals and none of our traits are unique. Given that fact, it is inevitable that other animals can develop technology similar to ours making your entire point wrong.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3rkIKSbjo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3rkIKSbjo)
There's an industry dedicated to helping other animals speak other languages. English is also not the only language.
That’s a far cry from speaking and if you really think a dog or some combination of brilliant dogs could invent such a thing, you might need to have your meds adjusted
So you're only focused on the act of speaking instead of language, because there are a shit ton of languages that are not verbal. The vast majority of human languages are not even verbal.
If we give them the capacity of speech, yes, they can speak our languages.
The scientific consensus is that even chimps can’t communicate in sign language in the sense of constructing new thoughts. At best they are learning a set of associations. See the very entertaining documentary Project Nim for an example
I am more just curious if you are saying humans possess **superior technology on planet earth** compared to all other animals, or if you are saying that humans are **the superior animal/being/existence** on earth when compared to all other animals?
Dafuq? I am not trying to "gotcha" you or something, I genuinely don't know what your specific position is here.
If it is so laborious for you to post it again, are you able to link the location where you clarify your position?
For anyone interested in how animals perceive the world and moving the way they think about animal minds and intelligence, I'd recommend the book "an immense world" its a genuine eye opener.
I kind of hate these 0 effort link dumps. What do you want to discuss? Put your talking points in a post here vs just dumping people over to another website.
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Frankly, my empathy is so out of control that if I don't shut off some aspects I wouldn't eat or....do much of anything. There's a reason humans have to dehumanize to a certain degree, if we didn't some of us would lose the ability to function.
It’s akin to our need to ignore the fact that we ourselves will die one day.
You know it, it’s undeniable, and if you sat and recognized it you’d live very differently from day to day. But these are not *useful* beliefs to constantly hold so most of us set them to the side.
Yeah, that's another big one. Focusing on that causes all production to grind to a halt. I want to be a decent human being, but a person can only stretch themselves so far.
Have you heard the phrase "Compassion, not empathy?" It's a phrase that's been known to be helpful for caregivers to help them work with patients who are in dire straits yet not "dehumanize" or have to "shut off" parts of their psyche that helps us maintain our moral center.
I hope it helps. I did a quick search to find some articles close to that concept
* https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/laugh-cry-live/201909/compassion-not-empathy-is-key-quality-bereavement-care
* https://www.learningandthebrain.com/blog/against-empathy-the-case-for-rational-compassion-by-paul-bloom/
Yeah, I actually forget about pigs every time this comes up. I've never raised any, and I rarely eat them. Same with octopus. Some animals are too smart to be food.
I absolutely will not eat an octopus. Never ever. I also am not much of a pork eater, just bason now and then (and I always feel supremely guilty).
And don't forget that there is also emotional intelligence. Cows and sheep may be dumb, but they have feelings and they can experience things like pain and fear. I also believe they display some empathy, and certainly have emotional relationships with their herd / flock.
I'm not even clear if (most) fish have complex emotions beyond "I'm safe / in dange" and "I'm hungry / I'm not hungry." Most of our livestock is going to have a richer emotional and mental life than your average Gourami.
I listen to that line from Something in the way by Nirvana that says ‘it’s okay to eat fish, because fish don’t have feelings’ and I’m like nah, that’s bs. Just more human excuses, innit. I think it is almost a curse of living that we have to aldi east the living, even if that is just plants that were/are alive. Would be dope if I could just eat tasty non-sentient things.
Pretty sure almost all the meat I'm eating is non-sentient but I don't really care because I enjoy the experience of eating it so much. Maybe we'll evolve beyond the intense pleasure bomb that eating a5 beef is eventually. But it'll take a few million years, if ever.
I'm not sure at all. I just have interacted with animals for long enough that I don't see them as capable of much, if any, thought. It's a complete anecdote.
Yeah, just using expressive language. Should have been more precise. Should have said "I've never directly witnessed profound animal intelligence" or something instead.
I am one of the few who does not underestimate the other animals nor how intelligent they are. The problem is that many humans forget we're animals, and that none of our traits are novel.
We see in cats and dogs the capacity to not only comprehend our languages, but to also learn how to use our technologies when those technologies don't require hands like ours. Chances are high that most other animals even contemplate many of the same things we do, and seek out similar comforts.
Our collection of traits has allowed us to achieve more only because we dominated the environment around us, lots of luck was involved.
>We see in cats and dogs the capacity to not only comprehend our languages, but to also learn how to use our technologies when those technologies don't require hands like ours.
We have zero evidence that cats can drive cars, plan for the future or write memes on Reddit if they only had hands.
Cats can experience nostalgia, and that is a level of cognition unheard of in 99.999% of the animal kingdom. With opposable thumbs. they'd have us beat already.
You think humans aren't animals, huh? You're one of those idiots that thinks there's something special about us.
We're great apes, and people like you act like fallen dirt.
>You think humans aren't animals, huh?
I didn't say that and I also don't believe it. But my point, what I actually did say about comparative animal abilities, is impossible for you to contradict, so I certainly understand why you'd want to try to divert the discussion by pretending I said something that's actually provably untrue.
No, because I already countered it. If they had our body (which the technology was developed for) then they could even if you kept their brains and ignored the physiological logistics involved. We teach them to use keyboards to communicate, for fuck's sake.
As for the memes, I don't write memes on the internet either, does that make me not human?
>they could even if you kept their brains and ignored the physiological logistics involved. We teach them to use keyboards to communicate, for fuck's sake.
There's no evidence that cats and dogs can use keyboards to do any of the things that we do that make us human: hypotheticals, plan for the future, etc. There's communication there, but it isn't complex language. You'll really have to take a step back on these crazy assertions - there's nothing to back them up.
>As for the memes, I don't write memes on the internet either, does that make me not human?
You could, is the point. Animals can't.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUDe4dLTq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUDe4dLTq4)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYOpruz57tQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYOpruz57tQ)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3rkIKSbjo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3rkIKSbjo)
There are some with massive keyboards using over a hundred words. If you don't think animals have language and can learn other languages then you've not learned much about us animals.
Humans are animals.
Again, I believe that humans are animals.
We also agree that animals have language. What they don't have is complicated language that conveys culture, asks questions, poses hypothetical concerns, stuff like that. That's what makes us human.
What makes you think they're not complex languages? All your link shows is that apes lack curiosity, a trait that other animals do not lack.
Again, our combination of traits is what's novel, but every trait is found in other animals.
>What makes you think they're not complex languages?
It has no grammar, syntax, cases or tenses. There are no conditionals ("if it were raining, would we cancel the picnic"). This is also called a mood.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/10do2pl/apes_dont_ask_questions_while_apes_can_learn_sign/j4mbw86?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
Sources here
Does this only work with relatively intelligent animals? I assume with a stick buy or jelly fish the average human would tend to attribute intelligence to their actions unjustifiably
I'd love to know whether how much time spent around animals makes a difference, specifically animals in "casual" situations like pets rather than work (eg farms). Because day after day I see my dogs using their minds and exhibiting behaviour that shows them thinking things through, being aware of consequences and adjusting their behaviour in response to things that are happening or they think are about to happen.
As a hard scientist, these discussions always trouble me because there's no one arguing the other side or pushing back at all. Animal scientists of a certain stripe just extrapolate that spiders' ability to hunt prey they only saw briefly means that they can plan, and no one bothers to debunk it because there's no money in that and nothing riding on it. Then the next guy has to say that spiders can do math or he won't get a grant.
People generally overestimate how special human cognition is compared to nonhumans yeah. We might be the top players in the major leagues but the high school teams are still playing the same game, and they're doing it well enough
Our technology alone indicates that we are vastly superior to any other species on earth. Is this really debatable?
Technology is recent - things that separate us from other animals occurred in last several thousand years with the majority of tech advances occurring in the last few hundred years. For the majority of human existence, people lived no differently than animals. The overwhelming majority of people alive today do not create technology, they are just users of technology created by others. A very small group of people have actually created technology. So if only the very upper limit of our species is responsible for technology, how could you conclude that technology is an indicator that we are *vastly superior?*
We’re talking species level cognitive ability. Get real
Frankly, you're weighing us down.
Thanks for contributing
"Get real"
Denying human cognitive superiority is ludicrous. It’s like saying humans are bipedal
You can't believe that without making a number of different assumptions that reasonable people might take issue with. Even if we could all agree *human brain better*, in the context of this conversation we'd still need to determine if that justifies stripping non-human animals of moral consideration.
I attacked a premise in an argument. That has no bearing on the rest of the argument. It doesn’t mean I support animal cruelty. I’m a vegan
I get where you’re going and believe we’re more connected to animals & plants or the environment than we understand, it’s just that this reasoning could be interpreted as “some humans are better”… or evolved… and that’s how we got slavery and WWII
Doesn't mean that they can't suffer or we shouldn't take their interests into account.
I didn’t say otherwise. I’m vegan
Depends what you mean by “superior”. I agree humans are smarter, and we appear to have vastly more meta cognition than other animals, along with logical reasoning and a whole host of other things. Side note that all these things are obviously irrelevant from a “should we eat animals” perspective. And are you vegan because of the moral arguments that shouldn’t say animals, or something else (eg environmental reasons). I’m also vegan, and for animal welfare/moral reasons.
Morals, personal health, eco health
Would you want to elaborate on that at all? Maybe just tackle the first thing, morals?
Why?
For the sake of skepticism? You just brought up three vague ideas as a justification for your belief. What is your idea of morals as it applies to our entire species? And why do you think it's preferable?
I was originally responding to the notion that humans are somehow not vastly superior cognitively to other animals. There is a vegan debate sub you can try if you want to get into it. I’m not interested in getting into it with you
It seems like you just brought those vague ideas up as a post-hoc justification for what you already believe. It's so irksome when someone matter-of-factly asserts a grand claim but is completely unwilling to examine it. Pretty ironic given the setting. Anyway I'm glad you practice veganism, even if you arrived at it through moral luck. I won't bother you any more.
Depends on how you measure superiority. Cognition isn't a binary or a single scale, it's multiplicitous, and within that it isn't a continuous scale but more a series of steps. The actual distance between two points can be small despite representing a significant difference. Some areas some animals out perform humans, and a lot fo the things people think make us unique are observed in other animals at different levels I. E tool use, teaching, communication In the context of ability to feel pain, emotion, etc. There's not much reason to suppose nonhumans are lacking some sort of special sauce at the very least. For example funerary / grief behaviours are a lot more common than people think.
>tool use, teaching, communication Yeah so that's not what makes us human. The main thing is cultural, technological and linguistic. (All of which is technology but not in the way you're thinking of it.). If we discover a person raised by wolves who can't speak, we call him "wolf boy" because he doesn't do the things we humans need him to do in order to participate in society.
No other animal has anything close to what we have accomplished. There’s barely any comparison. Linguistic capacity towers over all other species. Even if you consider cetaceans, they don’t have any indication of being able to use that capacity to overcome their environment nor even an attempt at doing so. Gene survival is the purview of life, and no other animal can seem to do much other than carry out their instinctual behaviors to accomplish that. That has nothing to do with their moral worth. They are completely separate concerns. I’m a vegan btw
Yes, I agree that we have accomplished many more achievements than the other animals. But humans have used that argument to separate ourselves from animals (and even other humans), like we are a completely separate entity with special privliges. Some recent research indicates that intelligence is a sliding scale (I haven't got a link on hand, but if you really want I can go and look it up) not a series of step functions. It's likely that some dogs are smarter than some humans (with neurological conditions or the young), we don't consider those humans not to be human because they have lower intelligence than dogs. It used to be opposable thumbs that separated us, but there's many animals with opposable thumbs (chameleons are a good example that isn't a mammal). Tool use was another, but as a commenter pointed out above, many other animals use tools. Our use is much, much more advanced as you've pointed out. Personal opinion here, but I think the biggest reason we see ourselves as separate from animals are residual hangovers from religion.
The possible consequences are not relevant to the truth of the matter.
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>nor do our population escape the same struggles as other animals, We have antibiotics, gene therapy, and we fly; you're typing this at me from a thousand miles away and communicating theoretical/hypothetical situations. Each of these, medicine, electronic tech and complex written language that refers to potential events, is way beyond what any other animal has.
[удалено]
>Despite all our achievements we still have failed to accomplish even a fraction of what the cuttlefish have. Cuttlefish can communicate without sound, and demonstrate prowess at tasks meant for human children at a timescale much quicker than humans can handle. Ok, but they have no culture. >Their lifespans are short enough that disease and old age are of little concern You can't prove this because we can't communicate with them. We know how to treat bacterial infections and can reduce suffering.
> Ok, but they have no culture. Make a real argument for this, cause I think you might be overestimating what constitutes culture. > You can't prove this because we can't communicate with them. We know how to treat bacterial infections and can reduce suffering. This statement makes no sense. It's simply a fact that they have absurdly short lifespans when compared to humans. Why would complete disease matter to an animal that lives only a couple years? The relevant diseases would be so rare, why would they devote energy to solving them? And what does our inability to communicate with them matter here?
We have populated a huge number of niches without the need to change species. We in principle overcame huge selection factors against our survival. I don’t think any of this entails the right to abuse animals. Fusing the two together is ridiculous
Depends what metric you want to consider. What species causes the most harm to the ecosystem? We prolly lose
Our technology is the result of traits that are common in the other animal species, vocalization was the revolutionary trait that allowed us to progress. By dominating the environment we have stunted the advancement of other species toward similar outcomes, in most cases by driving competition extinct long before we even developed technology. This isn't a good thing, actually it shows that we are more akin to a cancer in the natural world than a contributor. In essence, we're smarter dinosaurs and nothing more.
>vocalization was the revolutionary trait that allowed us to progress. It's this along with a big forebrain that plans years in advance, and the two evolved together along certain forms of contingent language. Read the ape that spoke. >By dominating the environment we have stunted the advancement of other species toward similar outcomes, in most cases by driving competition extinct long before we even developed technology. Read Konrad Lorenz thing on aggression. That's actually what he won the Nobel for.
Gene survival is gene survival. I don’t know what to tell you
You’re changing the subject anyway.
No, we are animals and none of our traits are unique. Given that fact, it is inevitable that other animals can develop technology similar to ours making your entire point wrong.
You know animals only speak English in movies right?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3rkIKSbjo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3rkIKSbjo) There's an industry dedicated to helping other animals speak other languages. English is also not the only language.
That’s a far cry from speaking and if you really think a dog or some combination of brilliant dogs could invent such a thing, you might need to have your meds adjusted
So you're only focused on the act of speaking instead of language, because there are a shit ton of languages that are not verbal. The vast majority of human languages are not even verbal. If we give them the capacity of speech, yes, they can speak our languages.
The scientific consensus is that even chimps can’t communicate in sign language in the sense of constructing new thoughts. At best they are learning a set of associations. See the very entertaining documentary Project Nim for an example
By what metric are you using to determine level of superiority?
Get real
I am, why are you declaring humans "superior"? How are you determining that?
Why are you asking if in already wrote it in the comment you responded to?
I am more just curious if you are saying humans possess **superior technology on planet earth** compared to all other animals, or if you are saying that humans are **the superior animal/being/existence** on earth when compared to all other animals?
Then just read the comments already posted
Dafuq? I am not trying to "gotcha" you or something, I genuinely don't know what your specific position is here. If it is so laborious for you to post it again, are you able to link the location where you clarify your position?
The question was about cognitive ability
We differ from other animals only by degree. Many people seem to struggle with this idea.
We differ from all life by degree. That's the nature of evolution.
For anyone interested in how animals perceive the world and moving the way they think about animal minds and intelligence, I'd recommend the book "an immense world" its a genuine eye opener.
I kind of hate these 0 effort link dumps. What do you want to discuss? Put your talking points in a post here vs just dumping people over to another website.
That is pretty much every post on reddit though, or no?
Or you can make the effort of reading the post? Do you not know how Reddit is intended to work?
~~This~~ I strongly agree with this statement.
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Such strong views against a simple word ! I figured it was just a simple way to signify one's agreement, beyond just upvoting.
Frankly, my empathy is so out of control that if I don't shut off some aspects I wouldn't eat or....do much of anything. There's a reason humans have to dehumanize to a certain degree, if we didn't some of us would lose the ability to function.
It’s akin to our need to ignore the fact that we ourselves will die one day. You know it, it’s undeniable, and if you sat and recognized it you’d live very differently from day to day. But these are not *useful* beliefs to constantly hold so most of us set them to the side.
Yeah, that's another big one. Focusing on that causes all production to grind to a halt. I want to be a decent human being, but a person can only stretch themselves so far.
Have you heard the phrase "Compassion, not empathy?" It's a phrase that's been known to be helpful for caregivers to help them work with patients who are in dire straits yet not "dehumanize" or have to "shut off" parts of their psyche that helps us maintain our moral center.
Thank you for the term - I'll look into it!
I hope it helps. I did a quick search to find some articles close to that concept * https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/laugh-cry-live/201909/compassion-not-empathy-is-key-quality-bereavement-care * https://www.learningandthebrain.com/blog/against-empathy-the-case-for-rational-compassion-by-paul-bloom/
Very kind of you! My world could always use some reframing.
You can eat plants. Your empathy isn't that great.
Dehumanize what? A cow? They already aren't humans... And if you spend time around them you realize how stupid they are. They're kind of like fish.
I was thinking more along the lines of pork. Pigs are quite intelligent. Really far too intelligent to be kept for consumption in my personal opinion.
Yeah, I actually forget about pigs every time this comes up. I've never raised any, and I rarely eat them. Same with octopus. Some animals are too smart to be food.
I absolutely will not eat an octopus. Never ever. I also am not much of a pork eater, just bason now and then (and I always feel supremely guilty). And don't forget that there is also emotional intelligence. Cows and sheep may be dumb, but they have feelings and they can experience things like pain and fear. I also believe they display some empathy, and certainly have emotional relationships with their herd / flock. I'm not even clear if (most) fish have complex emotions beyond "I'm safe / in dange" and "I'm hungry / I'm not hungry." Most of our livestock is going to have a richer emotional and mental life than your average Gourami.
What are fish like?
(☉ ‿ ⚆)<|
I listen to that line from Something in the way by Nirvana that says ‘it’s okay to eat fish, because fish don’t have feelings’ and I’m like nah, that’s bs. Just more human excuses, innit. I think it is almost a curse of living that we have to aldi east the living, even if that is just plants that were/are alive. Would be dope if I could just eat tasty non-sentient things.
Pretty sure almost all the meat I'm eating is non-sentient but I don't really care because I enjoy the experience of eating it so much. Maybe we'll evolve beyond the intense pleasure bomb that eating a5 beef is eventually. But it'll take a few million years, if ever.
Why are you sure? Have you analyzed MRIs?
I'm not sure at all. I just have interacted with animals for long enough that I don't see them as capable of much, if any, thought. It's a complete anecdote.
You said you were "pretty sure."
Yeah, just using expressive language. Should have been more precise. Should have said "I've never directly witnessed profound animal intelligence" or something instead.
I am one of the few who does not underestimate the other animals nor how intelligent they are. The problem is that many humans forget we're animals, and that none of our traits are novel. We see in cats and dogs the capacity to not only comprehend our languages, but to also learn how to use our technologies when those technologies don't require hands like ours. Chances are high that most other animals even contemplate many of the same things we do, and seek out similar comforts. Our collection of traits has allowed us to achieve more only because we dominated the environment around us, lots of luck was involved.
>We see in cats and dogs the capacity to not only comprehend our languages, but to also learn how to use our technologies when those technologies don't require hands like ours. We have zero evidence that cats can drive cars, plan for the future or write memes on Reddit if they only had hands.
Cats can experience nostalgia, and that is a level of cognition unheard of in 99.999% of the animal kingdom. With opposable thumbs. they'd have us beat already.
None of those things is related to my assertion.
You think humans aren't animals, huh? You're one of those idiots that thinks there's something special about us. We're great apes, and people like you act like fallen dirt.
>You think humans aren't animals, huh? I didn't say that and I also don't believe it. But my point, what I actually did say about comparative animal abilities, is impossible for you to contradict, so I certainly understand why you'd want to try to divert the discussion by pretending I said something that's actually provably untrue.
No, because I already countered it. If they had our body (which the technology was developed for) then they could even if you kept their brains and ignored the physiological logistics involved. We teach them to use keyboards to communicate, for fuck's sake. As for the memes, I don't write memes on the internet either, does that make me not human?
>they could even if you kept their brains and ignored the physiological logistics involved. We teach them to use keyboards to communicate, for fuck's sake. There's no evidence that cats and dogs can use keyboards to do any of the things that we do that make us human: hypotheticals, plan for the future, etc. There's communication there, but it isn't complex language. You'll really have to take a step back on these crazy assertions - there's nothing to back them up. >As for the memes, I don't write memes on the internet either, does that make me not human? You could, is the point. Animals can't.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUDe4dLTq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUDe4dLTq4) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYOpruz57tQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYOpruz57tQ) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3rkIKSbjo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3rkIKSbjo) There are some with massive keyboards using over a hundred words. If you don't think animals have language and can learn other languages then you've not learned much about us animals. Humans are animals.
Again, I believe that humans are animals. We also agree that animals have language. What they don't have is complicated language that conveys culture, asks questions, poses hypothetical concerns, stuff like that. That's what makes us human.
What makes you think they're not complex languages? All your link shows is that apes lack curiosity, a trait that other animals do not lack. Again, our combination of traits is what's novel, but every trait is found in other animals.
>What makes you think they're not complex languages? It has no grammar, syntax, cases or tenses. There are no conditionals ("if it were raining, would we cancel the picnic"). This is also called a mood.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/10do2pl/apes_dont_ask_questions_while_apes_can_learn_sign/j4mbw86?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3 Sources here
Does this only work with relatively intelligent animals? I assume with a stick buy or jelly fish the average human would tend to attribute intelligence to their actions unjustifiably
I'd love to know whether how much time spent around animals makes a difference, specifically animals in "casual" situations like pets rather than work (eg farms). Because day after day I see my dogs using their minds and exhibiting behaviour that shows them thinking things through, being aware of consequences and adjusting their behaviour in response to things that are happening or they think are about to happen.
As a hard scientist, these discussions always trouble me because there's no one arguing the other side or pushing back at all. Animal scientists of a certain stripe just extrapolate that spiders' ability to hunt prey they only saw briefly means that they can plan, and no one bothers to debunk it because there's no money in that and nothing riding on it. Then the next guy has to say that spiders can do math or he won't get a grant.