Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Can we know what animals are thinking?

medium.economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 234 posts

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#51

Post by glenstein »

_dps wrote: post #2

"No animals have all the attributes of human minds; but almost all the attributes of human minds are found in some animal or other" This was a fun read in general, but I think it's particularly interesting to consider some of its implications in the context of trends in AI (to be clear, the article has nothing to do with AI). I think the excerpt above is rapidly becoming true for current generation ML/AI systems (I'm…

>The submarine "swims", but almost none of that activity could be mapped onto how a human swims.

Along similar lines Hubert Dreyfus famously said "current claims and hopes for progress in models for making computers intelligent are like the belief that someone climbing the tree is making progress toward reaching the moon."

The problem with this way of thinking is that the fundamental principle in question gets conceded like it's no big deal. If you grant that I can swim, that I can climb a tree, even an inch, you've already given me absolutely everything. Of course further progress will be hard, but it won't be forbidden by some kind of transcendent philosophical principle.

So with the submarine example, we might "swim" differently, but we can both navigate through water. What would be cause for concern in the sense of raising some fundamental limitation would be if we discover that the place we want to go simple isn't accessible by any "submarine" we could ever build, or that the place we want to go isn't to be found in the "water."

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#52

Post by dispo001 »

KekDemaga wrote: post #25
leoharsha2 wrote: post #17

No. They don't. Animals live in the moment and understand causal relationships within time and space. They don't abstract their thoughts and form assemblies or sciences or write histories. Though they understand causal laws better than humans sometimes. Hence you can't teach an animal like you would a human. But you can train an animal. This works on habit, not on abstract thought. Both animals and humans can be trai…

This crow really appears to be thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerUbHmuY04&app=desktop

the body language is awesome

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#53

Post by doomslay »

Xcelerate wrote: post #38

As someone who isn't a vegetarian (and who feels guilty eating bacon if I start thinking about it too much), I can't help but to wonder if eating meat will be considered the "barbaric" practice of this generation for future generations. I'm sure previous generations didn't consider their barbaric practices to be such at the time.

God I hope not. People are already ridiculously detached from nature, we don't need to go even further away from nature.

I think there is a real movement and push back against all this political correctness and endless 'feelings' based discussion thankfully.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#54

Post by sddfd »

tpeo wrote: post #37
sddfd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite convenient to think that, because we eat animals. I'm not a vegetarian, I enjoy steak and pork chops a lot. But I think animals, especially cows and pigs, are more conscious of their existence than we like to think. I tend to agree that speech plays a central role in how our thoughts are organized, but I think the importance of being able to articulate oneself /with language/ as a measure of consciousness…

I don't see how it would be "convenient", since it doesn't seem necessary that an animal be conscious for us to require ourselves to not harm it out of a moral concern. Babies are either unconscious or have a very low degree of consciousness, but infanticide is still morally abhorrent.

I agree that there is a moral aspect to eating sentient being, whether they are conscious or not.

Your argument, however, is mixing the aspects of consciousness, and cannibalism in the form of infanticide. To me, that doesn't seem to be fair.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#55

Post by gruez »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #36

I think the more rational position would be that animals do think, as we are animals, and we think. To claim that animals do not think has no basis outside of our own condescending perspective. If we cannot prove one way or another then I feel my position is the more rational and should be the default position.

>I think the more rational position would be that animals do think, as we are animals, and we think.

    *x* can *y*, as *z* is a subset of *x*, and *z* can *y*.
See the issue here?

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#56

Post by glenstein »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #36

I think the more rational position would be that animals do think, as we are animals, and we think. To claim that animals do not think has no basis outside of our own condescending perspective. If we cannot prove one way or another then I feel my position is the more rational and should be the default position.

Right. And to phrase your point in a way that relates to the concern of anthropocentrism that often comes up in these contexts: what could be more anthropocentric than thinking that thinking belongs exclusively to humans?

People are so worried about projecting human qualities onto non-human things that they go the opposite extreme and assume that a whole range of qualities gets to be claimed as exclusively belonging to humans.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#57

Post by gregcrv »

Xcelerate wrote: post #38

As someone who isn't a vegetarian (and who feels guilty eating bacon if I start thinking about it too much), I can't help but to wonder if eating meat will be considered the "barbaric" practice of this generation for future generations. I'm sure previous generations didn't consider their barbaric practices to be such at the time.

Some cultures considered the practice of eating animals to be barbaric already more than 2000 years ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_vegetarianism

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#58

Post by newscracker »

Xcelerate wrote: post #38

As someone who isn't a vegetarian (and who feels guilty eating bacon if I start thinking about it too much), I can't help but to wonder if eating meat will be considered the "barbaric" practice of this generation for future generations. I'm sure previous generations didn't consider their barbaric practices to be such at the time.

You might enjoy watching this comedy mockumentary titled "Carnage". [1] It was available on Vimeo for free, but am unable to find the link.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnage_(2017_film)

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#59

Post by cryodesign »

Xcelerate wrote: post #38

As someone who isn't a vegetarian (and who feels guilty eating bacon if I start thinking about it too much), I can't help but to wonder if eating meat will be considered the "barbaric" practice of this generation for future generations. I'm sure previous generations didn't consider their barbaric practices to be such at the time.

I think it will be. People of the future will look at this time the same way we look back to when it was accepted to have human slaves.

Medicine (and millions of other people) has already proven that we don't need meat to survive. We have plenty of alternatives now.

But we are addicted to meat - because it gives us pleasure. But then you have to ask yourself, is it OK for sentient beings to horribly suffer for us[1], so we can experience some pleasure that could be easily achieved by consuming alternative foods[2] and shifting our perception. Consuming meat is also not the best way to efficiently feed the world.

Here is what Dr Neil Barnard says about bacon:

Power Foods for the Brain (17min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_ONFix_e4k

[1] Earthlings - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc2oizSsmUs (I challenge you to watch this and not think 'WTF')

[2] Beyond Meat - great presentation by Ethan Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x8jfiaLCPY

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#60

Post by skadamou »

danielam wrote: post #39

While the particularities may be interesting, much of what's said isn't surprising (though for Cartesians, it may be, and the author does throw Descartes' name around a few times). There is a great deal of confusion about this subject and a number of philosophical errors in the comments (w.r.t. language, religion, qualia, zombies, etc). For those who do want some perspective, I recommend starting with Feser's introdu…

Boy there is a lot in Feser’s work to unpack. I haven’t gotten through all of the links you posted yet, but the crux of his argument (and evidently the argument Thomists make) is that humans are different because we are capable of abstract reasoning and logic whereas animals are not. Do you suppose animals really are not capable of these two mental faculties? Abstraction seems more difficult to dissect but it does not seem too farfetched to imagine that animals are capable of making future plans based on an understanding of cause and effect. Don’t you think that implies some level of logical reasoning? I know Feser’s views are not necessarily indicative of your own but I would appreciate your opinion
Post reply on HN