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Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness

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Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness

#31

Post by verroq »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #24
cristianpascu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Humans adapt to the moral system of their society. There is no set of "universal morals" that all humans have.

But do realise this, since I'm not a moral relativity apologist. I'm going to say that moral systems are not equal and some backward societies need to get their systems fixed.

Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness

#33

Post by contingencies »

What is the meaning of human life, or, for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know an answer to this question means to be religious.

You ask: Does it make any sense, then, to pose this question?

I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.

- Einstein (as quoted in Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934)

Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness

#34

Post by gregsq »

mseebach wrote: post #26
gregsq wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong word. Consciousness, not conscience.

D'oh. Of course.

Yeah. Simple single sentence from me which doesn't do your comment justice.

The connection between consciousness as an idea expressed by this declaration, and general extant environment is an interesting philosophical pursuit. I didn't think conscience so much, as an anterior attribute. But apologies if I appeared curt. I need practice.

Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness

#35

Post by RivieraKid »

regal wrote: post #21
mseebach wrote: post #8

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

It should be possible with current technology to create a robot, that would react positively to mirror test.

Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness

#37

Post by mseebach »

gregsq wrote: post #34
mseebach wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D'oh. Of course.

Yeah. Simple single sentence from me which doesn't do your comment justice. The connection between consciousness as an idea expressed by this declaration, and general extant environment is an interesting philosophical pursuit. I didn't think conscience so much, as an anterior attribute. But apologies if I appeared curt. I need practice.

No offence taken. Sometimes someone (me) is just wrong, and it shouldn't be unacceptable to point that out in so many words. Conscience and consciousness, despite the common root, just doesn't mean the same thing.

Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness

#38

Post by mseebach »

RivieraKid wrote: post #35
regal wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

It should be possible with current technology to create a robot, that would react positively to mirror test.

The experiment should be blind, which would be quite hard to design. At least, the robot designers wouldn't know that the mirror test would be the test, but ideally they would never have heard of the mirror test, indeed, they should have no good grasp of what a mirror even is.

Re: Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness

#40

Post by stiff »

mseebach wrote: post #8

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.

What has this to do with anything? They issued the declaration to put to attention conclusions exactly from "repeatable experiments testing falsifiable hypothesis in a peer reviewed journal".
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