that is because your expectations are so low for them. \\
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Beating the dead horse of animals vs humans
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that is because your expectations are so low for them. \\
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
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.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
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
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
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
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
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
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.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
It depends on how you define consciousness really..
I didn't get this bit, could you rephrase ?
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.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
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.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
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.
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Enmos
Valued Senior Member
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.
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.
Hey, in my crowd I wouldn't bet on it. I've always hung around with people who love language and play games with it. The other kind don't find me to be very good company.
Exactly my point, language games.... they understand the true meaning of animal but they know that socially we are only speaking of non-human animals. Nothing wrong with that its convenient, no need to change it.
Are you sure? That's a rather arbitrary definition. For starters, if you're excluding insects (six-legged arthropods) I'm sure you also exclude all the other arthropods: arachnids (eight legs), myriapods (centipedes and millipedes) and crustaceans (no standard number of legs but they're the aquatic ones). And why stop there? Surely you reject the mollusks, earthworms, jellyfish... all the way down to the amoebae; all of which are, properly, animals. I suspect what you meant to say was that only vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and bony fish) count as "true animals." People who use that paradigm probably include the cartilaginous fish (sharks, eels, rays, etc.) because it's unlikely that those people even know enough basic biology to realize that those animals are not real fish at all, but members of a separate phylum.
Sorry I did not get into the specifics.... lol I am just saying, nothing wrong with excluding us from that word when just talking to people, after all thats how we use it. Anyone with half a brain can realize we are animals too.
Back in the 1950s you'd occasionally hear an old back-country paradigm, in which "animal" meant only mammals. I used to have a kids' picture card game called "Animal, Bird or Fish?"Many animals have strong social instincts. Some are pack-social like most primates including humans, bonding strongly to a small circle of pack-mates, and some are herd-social, living in moderate harmony and cooperation with large number of anonymous herd-mates (or flock or whatever it's called for the particular species).
The pack-social species have many behaviors that are precursors to ours such as loyalty, self-sacrifice, rivalry, love and playfulness. The reason dogs were the first animal to domesticate themselves is that their attitudes and habits are similar enough to ours to make a compatible multi-species pack. Anyone who's lived with any species of parrot (arguably most are flock-social but their high IQ gives them many pack-social traits) knows how easily they fit into a human family while at the same time teaching us new ways of seeing the world.
That's because they don't have our massive forebrain and have not invented the technology of language, and because they don't have opposable thumbs and have not invented spatulas and frying pans. But despite those handicaps the cetaceans have invented complex communication systems that we can't even understand, and quite a few species of mammals and birds have invented primitive tools which they use to gather and prepare food more efficiently even if they can't use them for cooking.
Apes are even closer to us than we ever imagined. Both gorillas and chimpanzees have proven capable of learning American Sign Language. They develop an impressive vocabulary and use it to demonstrate abstract thinking processes. The first time Koko saw a zebra she called it a white tiger. One of them taught it to her baby.
I am not saying humans are separated from animals, I believed everything you said in these paragraphs before this thread even existed. And I completely agree with you that animals are: not stupid, just different. We may have brains, but some can fly, others can see better than us, some can hibernate, swim etc... I don't believe humans are superior simply because of our brain, our brain is an advantage to us just like their main characteristic is an advantage to them. I highly doubt our species will last as long as other highly successful species.
I'm just pointing out that the word "animal" has a well-defined meaning and to misuse it is to abuse it.It's not social life that sets us apart from all the other species. Whales, wolves, hyenas, budgies and myriad other species have a rich social life. Their inability to read doesn't differentiate them from us any more than it sets the indigenous people of the Amazon apart from us. What sets us apart from them is our qualitatively superior intelligence, which permits us to override our instincts to a degree that no other animal can approach.We have more emotions than fear in common with the other pack-social mammals. All of them feel a sense of caring for their pack-mates and also depending on them. A member of an African canine species brazenly strode into a research camp and slowly dragged out his anesthetized pack-mate who was scheduled for a blood test. The scientists were so touched that they just let it happen. He overrode his instinctive fear to manifest his instinctive caring, just as most humans do for a pack-mate in trouble.Most non-predatory birds are comfortable around other non-predatory species. Even birds that are not particularly social easily tolerate the proximity of other birds when feeding. When the weather warms up a little more I'll see blackbirds, finches, woodpeckers and several other species using my feeder together, with cardinals and pigeons cleaning up the ground underneath.
Nonetheless they're all programmed to recognize their own species. When it's time to migrate they flock together, and of course they will only do their mating dance for a female of their own species.
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
), 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.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
No dog? No cat? No parrot? Not even a budgie or a guinea pig?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
I have a cat.
I guess I do interact with animals a little.
No birds, no insects, no spiders, no fish ?
yes that it what i was referring to. even expressionless faces without the use of muscles as well.
river-wind
Valued Senior Member
An SUV is a light truck - that's how they get away with not adhering to emissions standards here in the US.An SUV is still a car, just like a 4 door sedan is a still a car.
So humans were not distinct from all other animals until 1955?
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Also fuel economy standards.
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.
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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