Beating the dead horse of animals vs humans

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Exterminate!!!, Apr 8, 2009.

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  1. John99 Banned Banned

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    that is because your expectations are so low for them. \\
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2009
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  3. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    It's not. See you tomorrow

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  5. Cellar_Door Whose Worth's unknown Registered Senior Member

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    And said with such certainty!

    But I'm confused here. It's obvious that they DO make the distinction, as any competent bird-watcher would know. So you're saying instead that blackbirds aren't 'concious'?
    That would suggest that they are nothing but robotic masses of flesh, doing everything from pure instinct and nothing from an awareness and understanding of their surroundings.
     
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  7. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    John.. I'm not going to harp on this for very long. Here's the first hit I got:

    Chimpanzees, like humans, also depend on visual discrimination. According to a report in the June 17 issue of Nature, chimpanzees can easily recognize faces of their brethren presented in digitized photographs.

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990621043845.htm
     
  8. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Isn't that the consensus ?

    Hey.. don't look at me. I'm just going with the flow on this one.
    If people don't agree with me they'll have no choice but to recognize self-awareness in animals

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  9. Cellar_Door Whose Worth's unknown Registered Senior Member

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    I agree, but aren't I right in thinking that the issue here is with the term 'animal'? A blackbird is concious whereas a large number of insect species or plankton are clearly not. 'Moving organism' shouldn't equate to 'animal'. If it does then all this arguing about animal rights is flawed for the beginning.
     
  10. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    It depends on how you define consciousness really..

    I didn't get this bit, could you rephrase ?
     
  11. Cellar_Door Whose Worth's unknown Registered Senior Member

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    Well...

    http://dictionary.reference.com

    Just take a look at how vague the definition of animal can be.

    So 'Animals vs. Humans' is a discussion pretty much doomed from the start. Especially as plenty of posts have wasted time trying to define the various terms.
    'Humans vs. All Other Mammals', on the other hand, would be much better.
     
  12. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I'd say that is a pretty strict definition.. as strict as they come actually.
    Although you were probably referring to the second one.
    I guess we pretty much agree.

    I agree, this was my point as well.
     
  13. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    This is absolutely true. We have something like 100 muscles in our faces. Many of them, e.g. the ones that furrow our brows or the ones that raise our eyebrows in surprise, do absolutely nothing but change our expressions. Many of the muscles around our mouths are used for speech, but they are also very expressive visually, e.g. pouting and smiling. No other mammal has anywhere near this many facial muscles and their ability to express themselves by changing the shape of their face is, qualitatively, vastly inferior to ours. Obviously this correlates with the fact that most of them have hair on their faces so the subtle shapes would be invisible.

    The faces of other classes of vertebrates are virtually incapable of expression. Birds (at least the psittacines) can dilate and contract their pupils in a rapid rhythm to show excitement (hand a parrot her favorite treat and watch her eyes) but they have no other mobility of the skin on their skull except the ability to blink and open and close their rigid beaks.
    All mammals and birds dream; their brainwaves go through the same patterns ours do. This gives us a convenient yardstick by which to measure their cognitive processes and rule that they have both a conscious and an unconscious state.

    The dictionary definitions of "conscious" aren't much help because they're too anthropocentric. They refer to awareness of one's existence and one's surroundings. Clearly all mammals and birds are aware of their surroundings and plan their actions to suit them. Yet the lower classes of vertebrates do the same thing; koi are famous for their ability to learn and to recognize people, and iguanas appear to be at least one step above automata.

    As for being aware of their existence, dolphins have individual names for themselves embedded in their squeak-language, and apes who have learned ASL seem to use the first/second/third person paradigm correctly and instinctively. But one can only wonder whether a termite is aware of its existence, much less a worm which can rather easily divide in half or a one-celled creature that hasn't got very many molecules to devote to cognition.

    I don't see where to draw the line. The lower phyla demonstrate what we would call "conscious" behavior. Ants are well organized and purposeful; octopi are downright spooky in their intelligence. You keep drilling down to the level of an amoeba and try to decide which of its behaviors are conscious and which are instinctive, and suddenly you slap your forehead and remember that it has only one cell and therefore has got nothing even remotely analogous to a brain.
    I would hardly call that "vague." It's a very clear, accurate, biological definition. It distinguishes the animals accurately from the other five kingdoms of organisms: plants, fungi, protists, bacteria and archaea. You couldn't find another definition that is so precise yet so concise.

    If you're concerned about the disagreement over protozoa and similar species of protists, don't be. That just means that the definition hasn't quite been standardized, not that it's vague. We've only developed the six-kingdom model during the last century. Before that people classified algae and fungi as plants and bacteria as animals. There is so little commonality among the protists that they are not, technically, even referred to as a kingdom. Just a catch-all group of leftovers.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2009
  14. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I'm sorry Fraggle but that's not what he meant.
    I answered with "Apes ?".
    His follow-up question was:
    He wants to make the point that while all animals (of the same species) look alike, humans do not. Which is of course complete bullshit. I'd even go as far as to say that it implies some tendencies towards racism.
    Besides, Apes have facial expression very similar to humans.
     
  15. Cellar_Door Whose Worth's unknown Registered Senior Member

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    Of course I agree that the first definition is adequate but, as you have pointed out, that was not the only one given. It's vague, it hasn't been standardised - in the end it all amounts to the same thing. How can one discuss animal rights and status if they're unclear about what animals actually are?

    Anyway, I'm going round in circles. My essential point is that defining the boundaries between animals and humans is pointless - intelligence/sentience is a spectrum.
     
  16. chris4355 Registered Senior Member

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    You seem to be much more knowledgeable in this field than I am. And I could see how our interpretation of the word differs greatly because of it.

    To me, the misuse of this word does not bother me, simply because its not my field of study and in my evironment using the word animal simply means talking about non human ones.

    Is that wrong? Technically, yes. As I stated before, all humans are animals. Its just that I don't live with animals (non-human

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    ), and don't interact with them. So to me, and most of the world population, its just more convenient to use it as a word just for non-humans.

    Do I believe misuse of that word psychologically affects people to believe we really are different from animals? Maybe, it depends on the person. To me, it doesn't.
     
  17. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    No dog? No cat? No parrot? Not even a budgie or a guinea pig?
     
  18. chris4355 Registered Senior Member

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    I have a cat.

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    I guess I do interact with animals a little.
     
  19. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    No birds, no insects, no spiders, no fish ?
     
  20. John99 Banned Banned

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    yes that it what i was referring to. even expressionless faces without the use of muscles as well.
     
  21. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    An SUV is a light truck - that's how they get away with not adhering to emissions standards here in the US.

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    So humans were not distinct from all other animals until 1955?
     
  22. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Also fuel economy standards.
     
  23. jmpet Valued Senior Member

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    I don't consider myself an animal because "I" am my consciousness, which is the mental activity taking place in the frontal lobes of my brain. "I" can fit in my hand.

    My body- which is the thing "I" control is an animal. You could cut out my frontal lobes and I would be a thoughtless animal- it's my human brain that puts me above an animal.

    And if you could transplant my brain to another human body and "I" would become that body.

    Being self-aware is a HUGE evolutionary leap. Having the capacity to form free thoughts is something only us humans (and whales, and dolphins) have- everything else in nature reacts to stimuli whereas we act and effect change... we are above the animals, we control the planet.

    Think of the possibilities for humans over the next 100,000 years- it's almost mind boggling to think of what society will be like then- and it's all because of our human brains.

    As far as all the animals go- we have a responsibility to keep them from extinction. It's altruism- something only a human would understand.
     
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