> I find it surprising that you struggle to respond to this idea because it is not a fringe one. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that it is the predominant View held by humans on this planet about their relation to the natural world.
I think you are correct that this is the predominant view held by humans, but it doesn't mean it is justified. It is hard to dispute it quickly without invoking something like god, which is something I am uncomfortable doing. What I can do is start with something like Descartes's meditation. Without his ability to invoke god, we are left with the paradox of the world being ultimately unknowable. Likewise if you start from the idea that there is a real world. At best, you become committed to the paradox that we are living within our own imaginations somehow embedded in our brains. From any other starting point, at some point in our reasoning we are led to a deep paradox, which seems to be a defining aspect of our consciousness. Ultimately, the world is unknowable and the best we can do is be honest, humble and do our best with what we have.
That leads me to why I reject what we both consider to be the predominant view held by humans. If we trust natural history, we can see that the mammalian anatomy has been conserved for at least 65 million years. Mammals adapted to all kinds of environments, grew large, grew small, etc, but fundamentally, the mammalian anatomy remains the same (even the whales have essentially the same anatomy as any other mammal). As long as the physics of our world remains constant, function is determined by structure. That means that the same functions that underlie our experience underlie other mammals. The only major difference with humans is that we grew out a section of our brain (the neocortex), which gives us greater ability to visualize, synthesize the input from our senses, develop speech, and interrupt other parts of our nervous system (i.e., like using meditation to quiet the mind, dampen the response from the amygdala, etc).
With that understanding, it seems deeply wrong to subjugate other consciousnesses. It seems like instead of having a "tenant owner rights" view of Earth, we should view ourselves as gardeners cultivating the planet out of a sense of beauty and love that coincides with helping ourselves and other creatures.
That is one thing I am deeply committed to. Humans exist as the most exquisite and beautiful branch of life and are the greatest care-givers on this planet. We not only give of our bodies like the other mammals to nurture, and develop groups to care for individuals, we also care so much that we care about truth, and continue to grapple with it even when it seems out of reach.