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Can we know what animals are thinking?

medium.economist.com

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Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#61

Post by tpeo »

sddfd wrote: post #54
tpeo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hey, I didn't say anything about eating the baby! You're the one thinking about it. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

What do you find unfair about the example?

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#62

Post by wolco »

cryodesign wrote: post #59
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],…

Or we will look back at at vegans and see them as an extreme version of a normal healthy adult. Much the same way we place healthy values on skinny people when taken to the extreme it becomes unhealthy and counter productive.

If animals can think and they eat other animals perhaps they will be able to teach us why it may be an acceptable choice.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#63

Post by tpeo »

lngnmn wrote: post #5

No. Animals don't think, because thinking requires language, based on it conceptual thinking and related brain circuitry which animals still didn't evolve. Signaling systems and elaborate warning cries do not account for a language. Animals only feel. They have emotions, environmental clues and heuristics, everything but a language and hence no thinking by definition. That is exactly what some call non-verbal,'animal…

I find it funny that you're being downvoted to shit for holding an opinion which actually was quite common in the philosophy of mind, and which hasn't been quite yet superseded. Or at least I guess so, because nothing in philosophy ever really is.

The identification of thought (or rather reason) with language was explicitly advocated by Descartes in part V of the Discourse on the Method, where he suggested a test for distinguishing a perfect automaton from a human being. It's a view more often associated with him, but other early modern thinkers such as Locke, Leibniz and Kant made similar statements.

But in each case they were also more concerned with abstract thought, rather than just the general information processing that all animals do.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#64

Post by oh_sigh »

lngnmn wrote: post #5

No. Animals don't think, because thinking requires language, based on it conceptual thinking and related brain circuitry which animals still didn't evolve. Signaling systems and elaborate warning cries do not account for a language. Animals only feel. They have emotions, environmental clues and heuristics, everything but a language and hence no thinking by definition. That is exactly what some call non-verbal,'animal…

Why does thinking require language? Besides for you defining it as such.

Ancient Inuits may have said flying requires feathers.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#65

Post by pier25 »

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 find that being a vegetarian for moral reasons is quite delusional.

We, humans, are inflicting much more suffering to flora and fauna by the simple fact of participating in the industrial modern lifestyle. Buying food at the supermarket, using the internet, travelling, AC, and pretty much any activity we can think of.

The underlying problem is that to sustain 7+ billion people we need industrialisation which requires massive amounts of resources (energy, land, minerals, etc). The modern lifestyle doesn't help either.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#66

Post by soared »

pier25 wrote: post #65
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 find that being a vegetarian for moral reasons is quite delusional. We, humans, are inflicting much more suffering to flora and fauna by the simple fact of participating in the industrial modern lifestyle. Buying food at the supermarket, using the internet, travelling, AC, and pretty much any activity we can think of. The underlying problem is that to sustain 7+ billion people we need industrialisation which requir…

Well except that meat is a much larger factor in global warming than anything else in our diet. You can't just choose to not participate in modern industrial life, but you can easily choose to not eat meat.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/eat-less...

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#67

Post by lngnmn »

tpeo wrote: post #63
lngnmn wrote: post #5

No. Animals don't think, because thinking requires language, based on it conceptual thinking and related brain circuitry which animals still didn't evolve. Signaling systems and elaborate warning cries do not account for a language. Animals only feel. They have emotions, environmental clues and heuristics, everything but a language and hence no thinking by definition. That is exactly what some call non-verbal,'animal…

I find it funny that you're being downvoted to shit for holding an opinion which actually was quite common in the philosophy of mind, and which hasn't been quite yet superseded. Or at least I guess so, because nothing in philosophy ever really is. The identification of thought (or rather reason ) with language was explicitly advocated by Descartes in part V of the Discourse on the Method , where he suggested a test f…

Exactly. Information processing is information processing, and thinking is a process which is based on a language.

Otherwise it loses all meaning - cells are thinking, tissues are thinking, computers are thinking, bacterias, etc.

People seem to forget that "thinking machines" is still a metaphor which cannot be interpreted literally.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#68

Post by grossvogel »

pier25 wrote: post #65
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 find that being a vegetarian for moral reasons is quite delusional. We, humans, are inflicting much more suffering to flora and fauna by the simple fact of participating in the industrial modern lifestyle. Buying food at the supermarket, using the internet, travelling, AC, and pretty much any activity we can think of. The underlying problem is that to sustain 7+ billion people we need industrialisation which requir…

Just because it's not enough doesn't mean it's delusional.

I'm a vegetarian partly out of compassion for the animals who might be eaten and partly because of the other harmful effects of industrialized meat production.

In addition, I don't own a car and try to avoid non-human-powered transportation in general, I use air conditioning extremely sparingly despite living in Louisiana, I avoid buying crap I don't need online or in person, and I choose my foods and their sources carefully.

These are all personal choices, and I'm sharing them not to lecture or to be holier than thou. I'm just trying to say this: Maybe the correct reaction to "being a vegetarian alone won't save the world," is "I should be thoughtful about all the ways my choices impact the world" rather than "I'll have the 72oz steak."

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#69

Post by csomar »

XorNot wrote: post #32
jdavis703 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who gets chased by a dog at least once a month on my daily commute I'm pretty sure they do want to eat me. Maybe a couple are just trying to herd me but I think you underestimate their prey drive.

A lot of cities have a feral cat problem. Very few have a feral dog problem, because a feral dog problem rapidly becomes a feral dog pack problem, and it turns out a pack of feral dogs is pretty good at hunting people.

Yeah, I live in a third world and the government regularly clean the place out of "aggressive" dogs. I do have dog packs just near my residence and sometimes it's like 7-8 dogs just in front of entry. But they are not aggressive and only pregnant females will follow humans and peg for food.

If the municipality doesn't clean the area it would be a "real" danger against kids.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#70

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

gruez wrote: post #55
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?

I never said my position was logical, just rational so far as it's based on my limited subjective reasoning.
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