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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?

#201

Post by AsyncAwait »

tpeo wrote: post #164
AsyncAwait wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with being kind. It has a lot do do with contributing to the discussion with something useful. Just asserting things without any evidence is not useful and thus downvoted to make more room for more useful comments nearer where people would see them, that's all.

I disagree that a comment has to be sourced to be a contribution to the discussion. Whether or not something can be a contribution depends entirely on what people expect from comments. If all I expect is to have a little bit of thought, it doesn't really need to pack on citations, and even a question might suffice. Which might sound dilletante -ish , but isn't really out of place for anyone reading a pop-sci article…

There's a difference between a comment stating an opinion having no citations, (I think that...) and one supposedly stating facts, (You cannot have...). At least if we want HN to maintain a higher quality of discussion than 4chan.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#202

Post by CuriouslyC »

StavrosK wrote: post #198
CuriouslyC wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does consciousness have to emerge? Why can't it be intrinsic?

Intrinsic to what? Individual molecules don't have consciousness, a group of them forming a brain does. It has to emerge at some point.

How do you know an individual molecule doesn't have consciousness?

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#203

Post by gus_massa »

lngnmn wrote: post #67
tpeo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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shit for holding an opinion which actually was quite common in the philosophy of mind, and which hasn't been quite yet superseded.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.

I'll post an article that is not a serious technical discussion, but I hope you enjoy it anyway because it has a very different perspective. It's a nice story and it is reposted every other year in HN. http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html (HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8152131 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3549320 )

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#204

Post by red75prime »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #202
StavrosK wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intrinsic to what? Individual molecules don't have consciousness, a group of them forming a brain does. It has to emerge at some point.

How do you know an individual molecule doesn't have consciousness?

There's no observable effects to distinguish conscious and unconscious molecule. Having a definition that can't be used for experimental validation is not useful.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#205

Post by noiv »

Can't remember who first said: "A sentence is a formatted thought", however there is a lot of evidence how language shapes our thinking. It even includes distinguishing colors.

Maybe we should first find out how we think and then build a theory what thinking is in general.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#206

Post by known »

Unlike Animals, Humans have Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others);

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#207

Post by herbst »

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 honestly don't think we will stop eating meat. What I hope is that people will get more and more into more sustainable meat production. I don't see any issue eating local demeter meat which is classes over the EU organic label.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#208

Post by herbst »

peepopeep wrote: post #196
pmoriarty wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"..you have to ask yourself, is it OK for sentient beings to horribly suffer for us, so we can experience some pleasure that could be easily achieved by consuming alternative foods and shifting our perception" One can readily see that the answer to this question is "yes" even when the suffering is that of humans, much less animals. Many people readily consume products that are created in sweatshops, that are the prod…

I fall into this category of people. How should I feel about myself?

Stop

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#209

Post by sillysaurus3 »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #128
roceasta wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're trying to explain why you think animals can think. The desire and the ability to explain things, and not thinking per se, is (I guess) what distinguishes humans from animals.

> The desire and the ability to explain things, and not thinking per se, is (I guess) what distinguishes humans from animals. But how do you know that animals have no desire or ability to explain things to each other, at least amongst their own species? We may not be able to read it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, we already know that a parent can 'teach' its offspring that something is dangerous, for example…

Gorillas have apparently never asked a question. They've learned sign language, so this is an interesting distinction. If they had the desire or ability to ask questions, presumably they'd have done so. https://medium.com/@bleistern/why-dont-apes-ask-questions-9f...

I'd be interested to know the original sources and the rigor of the tests, though.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#210

Post by herbst »

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…

Fully agreed. I try to buy from small markets. And local and organic, If not (and well I live in a rich country) at least fair trade. I avoid companies and doughter companies that act evil to the environment, don't drive car, don't use a AC not even at 40 degree in bangkok, and I try to bring my own shopping bag. I probably do less environmental damage than the average hipster vegetarian /vegan
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