I really want to hear audio samples of each of the species listed as just to hear the range of laughter types amoung species!
UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
181–190 of 201 posts
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s one major distinction between humans and animals: language. Not like “me want banana” language like in apes but like fully “ideas within ideas within ideas” language, with recursion and case and noun classes and all that. It’s incredible. It’s astonishing. We are like gods compared to other animals. And ever since we have had language (not even that long — ~50k years or so) we have been using it to tell stori…
There's nothing immoral with eating things. Why would there be? The other posters' rabbit-fox example is a great point. I also strongly reject the idea that we need 'our specialness' to 'justify eating things and how we treat them'. I don't need justification beyond: 'That thing is made of meat. I can eat meat. I'm going to kill it and eat it'. There is no moral crisis. Things die. Things get eaten. Just 2 days ago,…
It sounds to me like you don't believe in morality in general at all. Assuming I'm wrong - what is morality to you?
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
>How come for you the starting point is that animals do not have feelings and emotions like us, and that we have to have evidence for it? That's not exactly what he's saying. He's saying that the overall qualia of an animal is not that of a human. In other words, despite (arguably) having certain experiences that are similar (or even identical) to humans, the totality is different in an important way. More concretely…
It’s not clear how (b) is relevant to the conversation. Regarding (a) I would have the exact same reply. Unless the word “equivalent” is playing a critical role for you, because it will be impossible to prove or disprove equivalence. My experience of guilt may not even be equivalent to yours strictly speaking, and we belong to the same species, I assume ;-).
(b) is relevant if you think that the qualia of consciousness has a bearing on the ethics of eating meat.
>Unless the word “equivalent” is playing a critical role for you, because it will be impossible to prove or disprove equivalence.
To be clear: I haven't actually stated my position in this debate.
More to your point: this entire debate is an ethical one, so it's in the philosophical realm, so one should disabuse oneself of the notion that anything is going to be "disproven". The best we can aim for is a consistent ethical system, and conversely, the pointing out of inconsistencies.
This having been said, there's a contradiction of terms if you simultaneously hold the belief -- as you seem to do -- that eating animals is wrong because they are in some sense "like us" while at the same time rejecting any notion of (non)equivalence. You exactly appeal to equivalence when you say, "Really, other animals are so similar to us on every dimension except language". So you are being inconsistent.
Therefore, if this is indeed your position, you're going to have to grapple with the issue of threshold. How much similarity is too much? Holistically, is the experience of being $ANIMAL equivalent to (or within some bounds of) the experience of being human? If there are differences, which ones matter and which ones don't ... and in what amount? Those are the questions the GP was asking, and they are directly relevant to the argument.
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you believe you should reduce suffering, it would be better for you to quickly kill a chicken and eat it. Otherwise, a cat, bird of prey or other animal might kill that chicken. And cats are cruel killers that slowly torture their prey before eating them.
We can just stop breeding chickens for the slaughter?
Is it better to have lived and die, or not live at all?
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s one major distinction between humans and animals: language. Not like “me want banana” language like in apes but like fully “ideas within ideas within ideas” language, with recursion and case and noun classes and all that. It’s incredible. It’s astonishing. We are like gods compared to other animals. And ever since we have had language (not even that long — ~50k years or so) we have been using it to tell stori…
I see nothing immoral in a bear eating a human. It’s just being a bear. But just like any other social animal, as humans we’re of course going to kill that bear so it stops eating us. It has nothing to do with us being superior than a bear. We just don’t want to die like any other animal! And as humans I see nothing wrong with eating other animals (outside of animal cruelty, e.g. factory farms). As animals, we natura…
Suffering is bad. Abuse is bad. Enjoyment is good.
Suffering is inevitable, abuse is not. The best we can do in life is minimize abuse while maximizing enjoyment.
Meat is not immoral, abuse is. It's really that easy. Unfortunately, most meat comes from abused beings.
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can just stop breeding chickens for the slaughter?
Is it better to have lived and die, or not live at all?
Correction: is it better to suffer and die or not live at all? The vast majority of the 8 billion plus chickens slaughtered in the USA each year experience primarily pain and stress for their short lives.
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#187There are often discussions about what makes humans special and things like self-awareness, humour, sarcasm, tool usage, ethics etc are brought forward. I think there are hardly any fundamental differences between humans and other animals. We've merely reached an intelligence threshold that allowed us to develop better languages and writing and that means knowledge can be collected and passed on much much better. Lau…
There’s one major distinction between humans and animals: language. Not like “me want banana” language like in apes but like fully “ideas within ideas within ideas” language, with recursion and case and noun classes and all that. It’s incredible. It’s astonishing. We are like gods compared to other animals. And ever since we have had language (not even that long — ~50k years or so) we have been using it to tell stori…
> There’s one major distinction between humans and animals: language. Not like “me want banana” language like in apes but like fully “ideas within ideas within ideas” language, with recursion and case and noun classes and all that. It’s incredible. It’s astonishing. We are like gods compared to other animals.
Does emoting about a claim make it true somehow?
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing immoral with eating things. Why would there be? The other posters' rabbit-fox example is a great point. I also strongly reject the idea that we need 'our specialness' to 'justify eating things and how we treat them'. I don't need justification beyond: 'That thing is made of meat. I can eat meat. I'm going to kill it and eat it'. There is no moral crisis. Things die. Things get eaten. Just 2 days ago,…
It sounds to me like you don't believe in morality in general at all. Assuming I'm wrong - what is morality to you?
I wrote something else, but actually, upon 2nd thought, you are correct. I do think morality is an invention. A quote (one of my favorites) describes better than I can.
“Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgments ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.” -- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
I am extremely thankful moral law was invented. I invented my own, just like everyone else has for thousands of years. Our individual Human morals generally have enough overlap to keep things working. But they aren't true "laws".
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#189This is one of the most beautiful ideas to have ever entered my awareness. Laughter is hard to beat in terms of sheer beauty--the more of it in the universe, the better. And on same planet what's more!
I've read, but forgot where, that grinning -- not exactly laughter, but a related act -- is also related to aggression or has its roots in it. It's hard to deny exposed teeth in a wide green -- think chimpanzee -- look at least slightly threatening.
Think about this--as omnivores, we are happy when fed by flesh--Feasting amidst laughter--joy amidst butchery.
Can we transcend this--sublimate laughter into a realm of undeathful life? Should we? Are vegans and transhumans idealogical bedfellows?
I love chickens--as pets and as dinner.
Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
You stated "[t]here is no moral obligation to abstain from meat, whatsoever." Hand-wavy attempts at dismissing entire bodies of study within philosophy won't work with most intelligent people, either. Peter Singer is an excellent starting point for exploring the dimensions of morality for eating animal flesh. I can't argue against your own sense of guilt, since it's possible for some people to feel not at all [0]. Yo…
It is exceedingly hilarious that you took: 1. I drowned two rodents that lived, shit, probably bred, and carried diseases through my walls and attic 2. I eat meat and feel no guilt And then used that to call me a psychopath. Thank you for the amusement. Goodbye.
I didn't call you a psychopath, and truly cannot make that call since I'm not a psychologist. It remains fair to say that drowning animals is psychopathic behavior, however.
Please try to research a more philosophical approach to morality and ethics. Shutting down in the face of an alternative viewpoint is hardly a productive approach to conversation. Cheers.