That's nice. But too many people can't tell the difference between supporting an idea and publishing a repeatable experiment to test a falsifiable hypothesis in a peer reviewed journal.
Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
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Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#22The day we stop hurting other creatures is likely to be the day we stop hurting each other; wondering whether this day will ever come.
It will not. "Hurting" is such a meaningless word nowadays.
The day we stop kidnapping, murdering and eating animals will be the day we stop kidnapping and murdering each other?
I honestly don't think the "animals have conscious thought" is the most effective way to change agriculture, but I will struggle to deny that gorilla whose eyes I looked into at Aspinalls was not looking back at me with the same understanding and knowledge.
Yes they are as conscious and thoughtful as humans, but humans are as unthinking and hard-wired as animals
Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#23That is actually the best summary of the current state of consciousness research that I've ever read.
That said, they don't talk much about whether they can prove degrees of conscious awareness. There may be homologous structures, but are they as large as in humans? If they're not, then perhaps you'd expect the animal to have a comparable and yet less-detailed experience.
Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
A computer can easily know right from wrong to the degree most humans are capable of (and too often they aren't very sophisticated at that) even today. But it's safe to assume that that ARM processor has no conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is simply the feeling of observing things, a feeling we assume the machines we've built do not have, for example.
Only if you program into the computer what is wrong and what is right.
Is it programmed into us? If not how do we feel it? If it is programmed in, can it be re-written?
Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fuck the news, acquire knowledge. :D The reason it pops up is someone noticed it, posted it online, and it grew viral because it's something people like to hear.
AGain, why not mention its from 2012 in the title then? That's what people do on HN for older contents. and if you f * the news then why do you come on a website that has NEWS in its title?
Hacker News is called Hacker News because it used to be called Startup News. The only mention of the word "news" in the Hacker News guidelines is in the line stating that "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is of course a big philosophical question. But in lieu of diving into that, because Wikipedia says so: Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgment may derive from values or norms (principles and rules). In psychological terms conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a human commits actions that go again…
Wrong word. Consciousness, not conscience.
D'oh. Of course.
Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fuck the news, acquire knowledge. :D The reason it pops up is someone noticed it, posted it online, and it grew viral because it's something people like to hear.
AGain, why not mention its from 2012 in the title then? That's what people do on HN for older contents. and if you f * the news then why do you come on a website that has NEWS in its title?
What!? I was not consciously aware this was a news site!
What if there was some way to discuss things ?
Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#28That's nice. But too many people can't tell the difference between supporting an idea and publishing a repeatable experiment to test a falsifiable hypothesis in a peer reviewed journal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test
Well, then, what's the point of signing a declaration 40 years later?
Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#29That's nice. But too many people can't tell the difference between supporting an idea and publishing a repeatable experiment to test a falsifiable hypothesis in a peer reviewed journal.
The difference is that the second is science and the first is every thing else. They are signing it to give the idea greater credence outside of their community, not within it. Obviously they hope to influence the world at large.
Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
#30Well, that's interesting, because there's no good scientific definition of consciousness.