261–270 of 544 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do animals have friends, enemies, cliques? Yes. Do animals play practical jokes on each other? Yes. I've seen all of these in cows.
Cow practical joke anecdotes, please! :-)
I’ve never understood these questions. “Are animals conscious?” Well, could you give me the definition of consciousness? No you can’t. So now you’re asking me both to define it and show if animals have it or not. Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.…
I’ve never understood these questions. “Are animals conscious?” Well, could you give me the definition of consciousness? No you can’t. So now you’re asking me both to define it and show if animals have it or not. Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.…
To me - as someone who is not a biologist or a professional in this field - this appears to be consciousness. I couldn't imagine anyone trying to argue against that.
I’ve never understood these questions. “Are animals conscious?” Well, could you give me the definition of consciousness? No you can’t. So now you’re asking me both to define it and show if animals have it or not. Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.…
Do animals have friends, enemies, cliques? Yes. Do animals play practical jokes on each other? Yes. I've seen all of these in cows.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only reason why animal consciousness has been controversial historically is a religious one In your sentence I would substitute ''religious'' with other more specific terms like ''Judeo-Christian'' since Jainism and Hinduism have been talking about a continuum of consciousness in all living things for almost 3,000 years: specifically described by them as the Ātman and the Jiva. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4…
Sure but in Hinduism and Buddhism, humans are higher than animals. In general, only humans are capable of escaping samsara.
I’ve never understood these questions. “Are animals conscious?” Well, could you give me the definition of consciousness? No you can’t. So now you’re asking me both to define it and show if animals have it or not. Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.…
Again, without definition then anything measured against an invisible yardstick are just words on a page. Then again, the few months I spent living in Bakersfield CA, led me to question whether some or indeed most of the folks there were just low fidelity NPC's.
I’ve never understood these questions. “Are animals conscious?” Well, could you give me the definition of consciousness? No you can’t. So now you’re asking me both to define it and show if animals have it or not. Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.…
Do animals have friends, enemies, cliques? Yes. Do animals play practical jokes on each other? Yes. I've seen all of these in cows.
She has a number of variations on this theme, and with each failure she tries something slightly different. Until I catch her and bring her back inside.
The reason I know this is because, before I was aware that it was happening, it succeeded at least twice. (I'm picturing people reading this saying, in Lisa Simpsons's voice, "is my brother dumber than a hamster? Hamster two, Bart zero" - because that's what my inner voice is saying right now).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, without definition then anything measured against an invisible yardstick are just words on a page. Then again, the few months I spent living in Bakersfield CA, led me to question whether some or indeed most of the folks there were just low fidelity NPC's.
Consciousness must be mipmapped. It only starts to present at a reasonably close distance.
Maybe if we made LLMs out of steak people would stop thinking they were conscious.
or at least that is my read of academics that say the universe is deterministic
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I consider the difference between animals and us as ... don't laugh .. the difference between an 8bit video game and a playstation3/4/5 one. We might have 10, 1000, or 100000x more details but the core ingredients are the same.
Who says that you have more detail. An eagle can see much farther and in more detail than you, and yeah it can fly. A bat has sonar. Some orient by Earths magnetic field which we do not detect. Etc.