131–140 of 269 posts
So we're not the only: - tool-using animal - fire-using animal - language-using animal - animal which domesticates other animals - animal which builds complex structures Aha! I know! We're the only animal which continually comes up with reasons why we're special.
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Well when you find the great badger city where badgers have been able to put aside their differences and work towards common goals together then let me know. I'd love to see it. In the meantime I'll stick with the assumption that there is still some sort of difference.
And you'll call that difference 'consciousness'. OK. Meanwhile, I found a great termite city where termites have put aside their differences and work towards common goals together. Also coral. Their city is a thousand kilometres long.
Whatever one makes of the mental capacity of these individual eusocial animals (they're not too bright; you can lure them into termite windmills), collectively they substantially alter their local environment to their benefit.
There are whole valleys full of mounds rising a couple of metres above ground level in places where they are endemic:
https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/06/79/d5/55/...
https://www.experiencethewild.com.au/Images/CathMound-300-PM...
and here's a a whole mess of such mounds in a field:
https://photos.travelblog.org/Photos/87121/530935/f/5448597-...
That's a lot of biomass with a lot of total neurons, and even though aren't as tightly coupled as the ones in our skulls, they still manage to coordinate a lot of constructive activity. I think it's reasonable to wonder if culture and aesthetics emerge as termite numbers grow large.
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oh god I thought it was a team name not an actual animal.
To be fair "Firehawk Raptors" is a pretty cool name. Even maybe for a death metal band. Or the next javascript framework.
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Of course not, but there just has to be one apart from ours, right? Besides we will all be extinct anyway before that because evolution takes billions of years.
That's probably a question that CS researches will get to address one day in the future... Estimating what percentage of reasonable length DNA arrangements leads to intelligent organisms.
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I bet a little bit of it in the modern world is rationalization for eating and generally mistreating animals.
Which animal we morally can eat is a huge and difficult concept... In some cultures eating horse meat is normal, in others vegetarianism is the honourable goal. Have you ever asked yourself why you eat or why you don't eat some animals? It is typically a product of the culture we grew up in, rarely the product of an intentional thought process. Would you eat another human? What about another ape? An elephant? A monke…
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I bet a little bit of it in the modern world is rationalization for eating and generally mistreating animals.
Which animal we morally can eat is a huge and difficult concept... In some cultures eating horse meat is normal, in others vegetarianism is the honourable goal. Have you ever asked yourself why you eat or why you don't eat some animals? It is typically a product of the culture we grew up in, rarely the product of an intentional thought process. Would you eat another human? What about another ape? An elephant? A monke…
The level of intelligence plays little role, as long as the animals don't use it to actively try to fight back or escape. E.g. pigs are no less smart than dogs.
The sixth referenced paper: Bird, R. B., D. W. Bird, B. F. Codding, C. H. Parker, and J. H. Jones. 2008. The “Fire Stick Farming” Hypothesis: Australian Aboriginal Foraging Strategies, Biodiversity, and Anthropogenic Fire Mosaics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105:14796–14801. Crossref, PubMed, Google Scholar Not quite an aptronym, but close.
The paper was written by two people called "Bird" ?! File under "nominative determinism"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
Kidding aside, I'd never heard about "nominative determinism" before. That's rather neat.
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Apes are demonstrably aware of the future: https://www.livescience.com/2620-humans-apes-plan.html And also demonstrably have a sense of morality: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/19/health/chimpanzee-fairness...
Yes, chimps dictators don’t fare well. That’s not what I meant. Chimps don’t have a complex set of morals about which they discuss and evolve with time. I didn’t say we know for sure what is good or what is not. But we can abstract the concepts and evolve our morals. Chimps will never get to debate about gay marriage or other “chimp” rights.
We can't speak to the depths of such a debate, because we can't participate in the debate. It's an (inter-)subjective matter for the animals involved; all we can do as external observes is be objective. But this then leads us into a categorical error: because we can describe a behaviour using objective language, we therefore decide that it in fact contains no subjectivity; eg., is not truly conscious.
We used to mis-apply this logic to so-called "inferior" human cultures, denying their humanity because we couldn't get inside their minds. This was wrong, and led to great evil. Until recently, we've applied the same thinking to animals -- but it's just as wrong. There are a shrinking number of Descartian holdouts, and I guess you're one of them. But all evidence and logic is against you.
Also, according to our two instructors, the "universal" (read: they witnessed two Harris hawks do this independently) call for a dog or wolf, their natural predator, sounds like "Dog!"
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> India until 2 generations ago - arranged marriage is good. Today that's evil. Suggest you do some homework. Something like 80%-90% of marriages in India are still arranged. And most people are pretty happy with this situation, or at least no more miserable than "Love marriages" -- which remain highly controversial -- would make them.
The definition of 'arranged marriage' today has been neutered. Until 2 generations ago, arranged marriage meant that women had absolutely no say in their marriage - it was at the decision of the parents and to further the desires of the parents. Today, arranged marriage means that the woman's parents will present her with prospective marriage partners but leave the decision making to her, including veto or asking the…
