What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals? [Archive]

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 12:13 PM

Oh, you mean things like "What separates Man from the animals!"? Eh, I don't think anything. Anything that makes us distinct is just a matter of scale, of degrees. Saying we're "different" from "the animals" because we're more intelligent is like saying that the cheetah is different from the animals because they're fast, or the blue whale is different from the other animals because it's the biggest. Our intelligence is just another evolved adaptation, like all the rest.
I really wish I could find it again, but in one of my classes at uni there was a diagram looking at all the "[X] is what separates Man from the animals!" claims over history, and every single one of them had been debunked. Ability to feel pain, ability to feel emotion, ability to form memories, problem solving, tool use, altruism, abstract thought, now even culture... Every single one of these things only humans could supposedly do, other animals have been found that do them too. People keep shifting the goal posts, and researchers keep hitting them anyway. We are not uniquely unique, we are special snowflakes just like every other species.

What I want to know is, why do humans insist on proving to themselves that they are any different to other animals? What is so bad about being an animal? It doesn't make our intelligence, creativity or any of our achievements any less real or significant. Why insist those goalposts are there at all, much less continually shift them in the face of evidence? Why not take our place within all the incredible wonder of nature, instead of insisting that we must, MUST be above and outside it?
Which, interestingly, is just another way of asking the title question: not, "what is the feature that separates Homo sapiens from other animals?", but "why bother trying to separate Homo sapiens from other animals?"

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 12:26 PM

Crow

2015-03-12, 12:29 PM

I am absolutely with Serpentine, and would like to add that some humans still have a long way to go before they can begin to claim they've truly separated themselves from the animals. I think this constant desire to separate ourselves and prove that we are somehow different stems from guilt and denial of this fact.

edit: Though now that I think of it, are there any other animals that commit suicide (and not in a "protecting their cubs" sort of way)?

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-12, 12:53 PM

Over several instances of casually researching the subject, I've seen it said that what makes us truly different from other species on planet Earth is not sentience or self-awareness, and upon looking into the term "sapience" I find that it's actually well on the human side of the line, rather than being itself the line.

If you accept, like I do, the premise that there truly IS something that truly separates us from the rest of the animal species that can be expressed in words, then please help me express it.

We are the creative species. We reflect the creativity of the universe in general, unlike the beasts. We can use our creativity to willfully increase our relative potential population density, through application of technology and development of new social forms. What beast does this? Beasts make tools, beasts communicate, beasts build cities, but they are all enchained to their genetic destinies; they lack free minds. We, on the other hand, can use our minds to transform our practise through the discovery of universal principles of light, nuclear power, astronomy, biology, etc. This has allowed us to improve the Earth increasing its hominid carrying capacity 600-fold. That's the difference between us and animals.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 01:00 PM

We are the creative species. We reflect the creativity of the universe in general, unlike the beasts. We can use our creativity to willfully increase our relative potential population density, through application of technology and development of new social forms. What beast does this? Beasts make tools, beasts communicate, beasts build cities, but they are all enchained to their genetic destinies; they lack free minds. We, on the other hand, can use our minds to transform our practise through the discovery of universal principles of light, nuclear power, astronomy, biology, etc. This has allowed us to improve the Earth increasing its hominid carrying capacity 600-fold. That's the difference between us and animals.

THANK YOU! For a minute there I was concerned that I'd walked into the Playground's Cynic Zone. +2,000 YES points.

warty goblin

2015-03-12, 01:09 PM

We're animals. We're born, eat, excrete, breed, die. So does every other animal on earth. Nothing special about us doing it. We've got more complicated brains in some aspects - not in others - which lets us do things that other animals can't, but other animals can do things we can't. Humans for instance really suck at catching giant squid. Sperm whales are very good at it. Sperm whales don't do eigenvector analysis; (some) humans do. I see no reason that the first is any more or less special than the other.

I confess I don't understand the need for humans to be special or uniqe in order for things to 'mean' something. Probably because I'm pretty sure nothing really 'means' anything in a cosmic sort of sense. Meaning is very local. A male peacock fanning out his tail means he's trying to attract a mate; I don't think this is particularly relevant to the hypothetical slime-beings of Zeta-12, anymore than the Mona Lisa is. But it's a fairly pressing issue for the peacock, and given the dense wad of people around the Mona Lisa studiously ignoring the 'no flash photography' sign printed in every language since ancient Sumerian, I got the sense it was pretty important for themselves as well. Really I think this mostly suggests a certain degree of humbleness in the way a person approaches the world.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 01:13 PM

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 01:14 PM

THANK YOU! For a minute there I was concerned that I'd walked into the Playground's Cynic Zone. +2,000 YES points.I resent the implication that acknowledging that humans are just another animal makes me a "cynic". There's nothing cynical about it. It's beautiful and empowering, in fact. We're a part of the glorious diversity and wonder of nature, testament to the infinite potential of the universe. It feels me with wonder and awe at the power of nature and the potential of the universe, not... whatever emotion cynicism is meant to create.

We are the creative species. We reflect the creativity of the universe in general, unlike the beasts. We can use our creativity to willfully increase our relative potential population density, through application of technology and development of new social forms. What beast does this? Beasts make tools, beasts communicate, beasts build cities, but they are all enchained to their genetic destinies; they lack free minds. We, on the other hand, can use our minds to transform our practise through the discovery of universal principles of light, nuclear power, astronomy, biology, etc. This has allowed us to improve the Earth increasing its hominid carrying capacity 600-fold. That's the difference between us and animals.
Other animals create. Other animals apply technology and develop social forms. More and more we're learning just how "free" animal minds are, and more and more it's much of a kind with ours. Other animals transform their practice. And all the rest is just a quantitative change in intelligence, not qualitative.

There is one thing I've been able to think of that might "separate man from the animals". That is humans being capable, as a species, of consciously limiting themselves, in terms of resource use, reproduction and the like, for the sake of other species, biodiversity, and the health of the planet. There are some ways that some individuals are getting there, but as a species? Maybe someday, but not yet, and until we do, we're just another animal.
But "just another animal" is awesome, in both the modern and antique sense of the word. I find far more beauty and meaning in being "just another animal" than being some special snowflake fancypants nonbeast.

If you really believe that are species is no more capable of ridiculously incredible things than say, a dung beetle
Relative capability of ridiculously incredible things seems like a poor basis for qualitative difference to me. We are capable of different incredible things, certainly things that seem more "incredible" to us than what dung beetles do. But at the same time, you are sorely selling the humble dung beetle incredibly short. For example, I've heard that without the introduction dung beetles alongside livestock, Australia would be knee-deep in dung. That's pretty incredible to me. There's a reason the ancient Egyptians were big fans.

then your mindset is too alien to me for any possibility of my comprehending it.
The feeling is mutual.

Coidzor

2015-03-12, 01:18 PM

If you want some real SCIENCE! you'll just have to check back in 50 to 100 years.

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 01:20 PM

If you want some real SCIENCE! you'll just have to check back in 50 to 100 years.
More like 50 to 100 years ago, really. Like I said, we've been systematically debunking every "separating man from beast" goal post shift since people started studying this stuff properly.

Coidzor

2015-03-12, 01:25 PM

More like 50 to 100 years ago, really. Like I said, we've been systematically debunking every "separating man from beast" goal post shift since people started studying this stuff properly.

The intelligence cut-off for personhood was defined with anything we'd reasonably want to use and be intellectually honest about it back during Dubya Dubya One or the 60s?

warty goblin

2015-03-12, 01:26 PM

It's not about "meaning something" to me. It's not a NEED for humans to be special or unique, to me. It's a belief that we ARE, and an exploration of WHY we are. If you really believe that are species is no more capable of ridiculously incredible things than say, a dung beetle, then your mindset is too alien to me for any possibility of my comprehending it.

Hey, have you tried hatching offspring from a ball of elephant dung bigger than you are? Because from where I'm sitting, that's pretty incredible. I mean I can't even roll a ball of crap bigger then myself, and I sure couldn't live on it as a newborn.

Which is to say I think we're exactly as capable of ridiculously incredible things as a dung beetle. Mostly because I concluded some time ago the only reason to think we're more so is an entirely internal, subjective over-valuation of ourselves. For a truly disinterested outsider, why would the fact we are the 'creative species' be any more interesting than the dung beetle being the dung-rolling species*? The dung beetle is certainly more interested in other dung beetles than it is me; probably because beetle/human romance isn't such a happening thing. I confess a similar disinterest, probably for similar reasons. Which makes it rather hard for me to think that we're the most special thing going in any universal sense.

*Technically family.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 01:37 PM

I resent the implication that acknowledging that humans are just another animal makes me a "cynic". There's nothing cynical about it. It's beautiful and empowering, in fact. We're a part of the glorious diversity and wonder of nature, testament to the infinite potential of the universe. It feels me with wonder and awe at the power of nature and the potential of the universe, not... whatever emotion cynicism is meant to create.

Other animals create. Other animals apply technology and develop social forms. More and more we're learning just how "free" animal minds are, and more and more it's much of a kind with ours. Other animals transform their practice. And all the rest is just a quantitative change in intelligence, not qualitative.

There is one thing I've been able to think of that might "separate man from the animals". That is humans being capable, as a species, of consciously limiting themselves, in terms of resource use, reproduction and the like, for the sake of other species, biodiversity, and the health of the planet. There are some ways that some individuals are getting there, but as a species? Maybe someday, but not yet, and until we do, we're just another animal.
But "just another animal" is awesome, in both the modern and antique sense of the word. I find far more beauty and meaning in being "just another animal" than being some special snowflake fancypants nonbeast.

Relative capability of ridiculously incredible things seems like a poor basis for qualitative difference to me. We are capable of different incredible things, certainly things that seem more "incredible" to us than what dung beetles do. But at the same time, you are sorely selling the humble dung beetle incredibly short. For example, I've heard that without the introduction dung beetles alongside livestock, Australia would be knee-deep in dung. That's pretty incredible to me. There's a reason the ancient Egyptians were big fans.

The feeling is mutual.

But "just another animal" is awesome. Now that...I REALLY don't understand. How is being "just another" ANYTHING at all awesome?! It's like you propose a world where, to quote The Incredibles, everyone's special and no one is. That just doesn't make any damn sense to me!

As for the rest...why be a PART of something when you can be beyond it? I believe we are separate and distinct from the "natural" world, not outside of it in the cold, but above it with the capacity and potential to bend it to our will. That previous attempts to do so ended in tragedy only spoke that as a civilization we are not ready, not developed, not wise enough to succeed yet. I still believe that the potential exists for this to someday happen. We are a "testament to the infinite potential of the universe" not because we are LIKE other creatures, but because we are not, because we are BEYOND them.

And for this part:

Other animals create. Other animals apply technology and develop social forms. More and more we're learning just how "free" animal minds are, and more and more it's much of a kind with ours. Other animals transform their practice. And all the rest is just a quantitative change in intelligence, not qualitative.

I'm going to need an example of animals developing social forms and actually coming up with an innovation that lasts beyond the lifetime of that one animal, because I can't think of any myself. And yeah, maybe the dung beetle does some pretty incredible things in its own way, but the only way a dung beetle would go to space is if WE take it there (probably for an experiment). And the dung beetle wouldn't know what the hell is going on, it wouldn't know what space IS. Would even a dolphin be able to formulate the kind of thinking to come up with such concepts that we have? Do NOT presume to tell me humanity isn't special.

All right, now I've calmed down a bit I'd like to clear something up. I don't intend to claim, even with my pronouncement that humans have the potential to bend nature to our will, that we are *better* than other animals. "Better", "worse", and "equal" people is a flawed concept that we humans invented that does not actually exist. The only "better" or "worse" is how effectively something performs their designed function, something that with living creatures of even moderate complexity is near impossible to definitively assign. I mean that we humans are DIFFERENT from animals in nature, our function/functions is/are so indescribably complex to such an extreme degree that we're entirely distinct from them.

Flickerdart

2015-03-12, 01:37 PM

It's our *****. Compared to other primates, we have massive penises compared to body size.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 01:52 PM

It's our *****. Compared to other primates, we have massive penises compared to body size.

LOL, I needed that. +1,000 YES points.

SiuiS

2015-03-12, 01:59 PM

That isn't acceptable to me as a "point of separation"--not something that we have MORE of than other animals, but something that we have that other animals DON'T have is what I'm looking for.

Metafaculty. You can think about thinking and alter the systems that you think with thereby. A squirrel can think, but it cannot think about how it thinks and optimize it's thinking.

In tests, a chimpanzee can be taught to drive a car. They can even be taught to use traffic lights. They cannot be taught future preparation or any of that though. If a chimpanzee is driving a car, and the light in front of it turns red, it will stop. It will not pull up to the light and stop. It will not go through the intersection it is in the middle of. It will just stop. "Stop at the line only, while the light is red" is not something they can do.
And how could they? How would you explain preparing to stop for some future event that may not be in effect upon arrival at that future, to someone who doesn't also have that ability?

Coidzor

2015-03-12, 02:04 PM

It's our *****. Compared to other primates, we have massive penises compared to body size.

Also, boobies 24/7/365.25 after pubescence.

SiuiS

2015-03-12, 02:07 PM

It's our *****. Compared to other primates, we have massive penises compared to body size.

Even the women? :smalleek:

I resent the implication that acknowledging that humans are just another animal makes me a "cynic". There's nothing cynical about it.

The trouble here is semantic. "Just" another animal is a limiter. It reduces humans down to animals. Your later stuff in this post instead elevates the worth of animals to human level. That tends to work better. It's an irrational emotional reflex, but it's a powerful one.

Other animals create. Other animals apply technology and develop social forms. More and more we're learning just how "free" animal minds are, and more and more it's much of a kind with ours. Other animals transform their practice. And all the rest is just a quantitative change in intelligence, not qualitative.

There is one thing I've been able to think of that might "separate man from the animals". That is humans being capable, as a species, of consciously limiting themselves, in terms of resource use, reproduction and the like, for the sake of other species, biodiversity, and the health of the planet. There are some ways that some individuals are getting there, but as a species? Maybe someday, but not yet, and until we do, we're just another animal.
But "Also another animal" is awesome, in both the modern and antique sense of the word. I find far more beauty and meaning in being "just another animal" than being some special snowflake fancypants nonbeast.

Interesting.

I made a minor change. :)

What do you mean by both modern and antique sense?

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 02:07 PM

Tvtyrant

2015-03-12, 02:10 PM

I will let a cleverer man than myself argue my position.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Telonius

2015-03-12, 02:11 PM

Elderand

2015-03-12, 02:12 PM

Crows and apes are among the animals we've studied so far that have revealed culture, and the passing on of innovation and discoveries. And that's just the animals we've been able to study directly.

Whales too, different groups of whales, from the same specie but in different part of the wolrd, will communicate using a different language that has evolved over several generation. They have their own names too.

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 02:13 PM

Whales too, different groups of whales, from the same specie but in different part of the wolrd, will communicate using a different language that has evolved over several generation. They have their own names too.
Heck, even cattle develop accents.

Elderand

2015-03-12, 02:15 PM

Heck, even cattle develop accents.

Cows have best friends, they get stressed out when you separate them from their best friends. They also like "Everybody hurt" best of all music and tend to align themselves along the north south magnetic axis. Cows are awesome.

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 02:16 PM

And deadly!

Mx.Silver

2015-03-12, 02:21 PM

I have to think there's SOMETHING other than mere degree of intelligence that DOES actually separate us. Otherwise the only thing preventing someone from someone making the dolphins a race as advanced as the version of them in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are the extreme difficulties of artificially enhancing dolphin brains. I CAN'T believe that.
Why not?

Though now that I think of it, are there any other animals that commit suicide (and not in a "protecting their cubs" sort of way)
There have been documented examples animals killing themselves through their own actions*, although whether or not they actually commit suicide as we'd think of it is very hard to judge because we don't know if they're doing it out of a conscious desire to end their own lives.
On a related note, self-harm has definitely been observed in other species, as have behaviours and psychological issues that are consistent with depression.

*although not in lemmings, contrary to some popular myths.

Flickerdart

2015-03-12, 02:22 PM

Even the women? :smalleek:
"Elves have tiny penises. *takes a drink* Especially the women."

Also, boobies 24/7/365.25 after pubescence.
Not for all women, though.

But yeah, being human is a one-way ticket to sexytown, population 7 billion. That's what separates us from the animals!

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 02:30 PM

There have been documented examples animals killing themselves through their own actions*, although whether or not they actually commit suicide as we'd think of it is very hard to judge because we don't know if they're doing it out of a conscious desire to end their own lives.
On a related note, self-harm has definitely been observed in other species, as have behaviours and psychological issues that are consistent with depression.
Some whale beachings, maybe? I've heard pigs can suffer depression, and I believe other animals can as well. Let's have a quick Google search out of curiosity... Looks like dog suicides are fairly well documented. Various bugs have a type of self-sacrifice suicide. And this article (http://www.oddee.com/item_98725.aspx) will do for now because it's 5.30am and I need to go to bed.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 02:31 PM

I don't think you can get "beyond" something that's still part of you. We've developed and improved over a few billion years of evolution. That's going to continue to be true, as long as we're in the universe. Our current state is not what it was, and not what it will be; but that doesn't change the fact that we all have our basic origins in simpler animals. Even if we learn how to manipulate our own genetic material, or upload our consciousness into immortal machines, we'll still be made of the same stardust.

Just because we're a carbon based life form, there's no true, definitive distinction between us and other carbon based life forms? The pedantry seems to be getting really excessive to me here if you consider that if we get the ability to manipulate our own genetic material still not rising beyond anything. Look. There are commonalities between humans and animals. There are commonalities between a helium balloon and a sun with helium in it. But a balloon will never do many things that suns do, and animals will never do many things that humans do. We. Are. Distinct. From them.

Aedilred

2015-03-12, 02:31 PM

Our ability to weasel out of things is what separates us from the animals.

Except the weasel.

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 02:34 PM

Dire Moose

2015-03-12, 02:40 PM

Bipedalism, mammal (primate) but with extremely limited hair, opposed thumbs, probably a bunch of organ and skeletal structure things I'm not enough of an anatomist to know. There, distinctions between H. sap and the rest of the animal kingdom, easy. :smallbiggrin:

I believe H. erectus, H. rudolfensis, H. heidelbergensis, H. floresensis, and at least a few species of Australopithecus would fall under that description as well, though.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 02:41 PM

A whale can do things baboons can't do. Aphids can do things eagles can't do. Sharks can do things humans can't do. We don't think the same way other animals think, sure, but that applies to all the other animals as well - dolphins don't think like dogs don't think like spiders. We are "distinct" from other animals just as each of those are also distinct from other animals, including us. We're still animals, doing animal things, just some things more or less so than others. We are at the far end of several scales, but not all of them, and they're all still scales, not discrete values.

I, err...I'm supposing you weren't privvy to that edit on the first page I made after I stopped being so incensed. It seems now our only point of disagreement is whether or not being distinct separates us from animals. I believe that the particular ways we are distinct from animals does separate us from them, and it certainly seems you disagree. However, at least the point of contention is now something I can agree TO disagree on.

Tvtyrant

2015-03-12, 02:42 PM

We. Are. Distinct. From them.

Except where we aren't. There is nothing important distinguishing us from them. Every criteria you give for humanity being separate that we can't supply another animal that does that has to be so vague as to be meaningless. Say you use "architecture" and we start talking about nests and mounds and hives, so you turn to language and we go into the intricacy of bee language and whale song, so you switch to meta cognition and we talk about dolphins and chimps.

The only argument you have is that we have built more stuff, but that stuff is relatively recent. Your bloodline is more than 400 million years old, but out of all of those ancestors only in the last 10,000 years have we deviated our behavior from tribal hunter-gatherers. Who is to say that in 100,000 years Dolphins won't be making dampsuits so they can explore the surface world, or New Caledonian Crows won't be assassinating mankind using tiny sniper rifles?

There isn't much difference between monkey's smashing shells with rocks in Indonesia and Homo Habilis using monofaced cutters to scrape hides.

veti

2015-03-12, 02:56 PM

The answer to your "why bother" question, for me, is that with all we've accomplished, civilizations, societies, art, science...I have to think there's SOMETHING other than mere degree of intelligence that DOES actually separate us. Otherwise the only thing preventing someone from someone making the dolphins a race as advanced as the version of them in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are the extreme difficulties of artificially enhancing dolphin brains. I CAN'T believe that. We ARE special, it's NOT just a degree of intelligence or anything else. I can't even contemplate the possibility of that premise being false. But it's attitudes like this that get me dangerously close to such contemplations, so I want to find just what this is. I want to prove my view.

I'm afraid that if you take the question even slightly seriously, the "argument from personal incredulity" (which is all you seem to have at this stage) is not going to convince even yourself for very long, let alone anyone else.

Yep, we used to believe we were something quite separate. We used to believe in "souls". When that fell out of favour, we talked about "sentience". But pretty much as soon as we put a testable definition on "sentience", it was shown that many animals have it. More recently we've moved the goalposts to "sapience", which still doesn't have a testable definition, which makes it safe for now (although scientifically speaking, also worthless).

Humans are animals. That's not a limiting thing, we're not "just another" animal any more than Terry Pratchett was "just another" human.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 02:56 PM

Except where we aren't. There is nothing important distinguishing us from them.

See to me, that's like saying we are not and will never BE important, more important, than other species. And that's just too depressing for me to take.

Elderand

2015-03-12, 03:04 PM

See to me, that's like saying we are not and will never BE important, more important, than other species. And that's just too depressing for me to take.

Thing is, reality isn't contingent on anyone's feelings. Things are what they are reguardless of your opinion on the matter.

Telonius

2015-03-12, 03:08 PM

Serpentine

2015-03-12, 03:12 PM

See to me, that's like saying we are not and will never BE important, more important, than other species. And that's just too depressing for me to take.

We are exactly as important as other species, and that is very important. Depressing or not - I personally find it nothing of the sort - it's an important thing to understand. It's not that we're not important, it's that everything else is too.
To be excessively honest, I feel like if your ego and sense of self worth hinges on you being meaningfully "beyond" and more important than the other animals with which you share this planet, that says more about you than zoological reality.

I don't know what alteration you're talking about (not in the first post that I can see, at any rate), but it seems like the prevailing "distinctness" being pointed at is the things we can do that (as far as we know, a significant qualifier) other animals can't. But then that applies as much to other animals as well. There is a species of frog that, when threatened, can break its finger bones through its skin and squirt its own blood at the enemy. No other animal can do that, so is it then "beyond" other animals? Several species of cephalopod can change their colour and texture with incredible speed and accuracy, a feat that also requires remarkable brain power; does that not make them "special"? Heck, even in intelligence, that great capstone of our supposed triumph over animalness, is rated in more than a dozen different ways, and we don't even win at all of those - pigeons, for example, are better at us at spacial awareness, and if shown a way to do a task chimpanzees are better than human children at eliminating the steps that don't do anything. What makes our supposed "special" things more "special" than theirs? WITHOUT resorting to "because they're done by us".

Flickerdart

2015-03-12, 03:15 PM

There isn't much difference between monkey's smashing shells with rocks in Indonesia and Homo Habilis using monofaced cutters to scrape hides.
Except Habilis's massive junk.

Tvtyrant

2015-03-12, 03:21 PM

Except Habilis's massive junk.

I swear if "Hung like a Habilis" becomes a term I am blaming you for it. :smallfurious:

Kudos for making me snort hot coffee though...

Elderand

2015-03-12, 03:23 PM

I swear if "Hung like a Habilis" becomes a term I am blaming you for it. :smallfurious:

Kudos for making me snort hot coffee though...

Pfff Habilis got nothing. barnacles are where it's at.

Tvtyrant

2015-03-12, 03:31 PM

Pfff Habilis got nothing. barnacles are where it's at.

Do I want to know? I thought Barnacles were crustaceans that expelled their exoskeleton once they created a ceramic shell?

Flickerdart

2015-03-12, 03:38 PM

Pfff Habilis got nothing. barnacles are where it's at.
Which is why I specified "out of the primates" earlier. There are some insane dongs out there we can't even compare to.

warty goblin

2015-03-12, 03:44 PM

But "just another animal" is awesome. Now that...I REALLY don't understand. How is being "just another" ANYTHING at all awesome?! It's like you propose a world where, to quote The Incredibles, everyone's special and no one is. That just doesn't make any damn sense to me!
It's not like being not just another animal gets one all that much; I'm just another human, one of roughly eight billion, and no more unique than any other. If I leave work today and get run over by a bus, approximately twenty people will be extremely upset by this. And in under a hundred years, every single one of them will be dead and I'll be entirely forgotten. A hundred after that the last people who knew somebody who gave a damn about me will be gone too. A rhinoceros is multiple orders of magnitude more special than I am.

As for the rest...why be a PART of something when you can be beyond it? I believe we are separate and distinct from the "natural" world, not outside of it in the cold, but above it with the capacity and potential to bend it to our will. That previous attempts to do so ended in tragedy only spoke that as a civilization we are not ready, not developed, not wise enough to succeed yet. I still believe that the potential exists for this to someday happen. We are a "testament to the infinite potential of the universe" not because we are LIKE other creatures, but because we are not, because we are BEYOND them.
So one of my earliest memories is helping my Dad slaughter a hog. Pig blood is very much like human blood; even at four or five I was old enough to see and smell that. And the pictures of human hearts I had seen in books looked an awful lot like the pig heart I was holding in my hand. I had also helped with slaughtering ducks, which were much more different from the pig than I was.

Which is a pretty obvious indication to me that I'm no more unique or apart from nature than the pig and the duck were. And really, being apart from nature is a very strange premise in the first place. I eat plants and animals; those are natural. I digest that food via bacteria in my gut; those are natural. My brain is a group of cells (natural) communicating via electrical and chemical impulses, all extremely natural. Cut out parts of my brain, parts of my personality and behavior - the thing that's supposed to be 'me' in some transcendent sense - will change. The only conclusion I can reach based on the teaming multitude of evidence the world gives me every single day is that I am as natural as anything else in it.

I'm going to need an example of animals developing social forms and actually coming up with an innovation that lasts beyond the lifetime of that one animal, because I can't think of any myself. And yeah, maybe the dung beetle does some pretty incredible things in its own way, but the only way a dung beetle would go to space is if WE take it there (probably for an experiment). And the dung beetle wouldn't know what the hell is going on, it wouldn't know what space IS. Would even a dolphin be able to formulate the kind of thinking to come up with such concepts that we have? Do NOT presume to tell me humanity isn't special.
What makes going to space more remarkable than a dolphin or a dung beetle? I find it more interesting, but I'm human and therefore have a vested interest in humanity. I simply view this interest as fundamentally rooted in being human rather than there being anything externally more interesting or remarkable about spaceflight versus rolling around giant blobs of crap.

We're special, sure. Just not uniquely special.

Crows now use cars to crack nuts, having learned that cars do not move when the light is red, and it is therefore safe to put nuts or other hard objects under the wheels. Since this particular environment is unlikely to have occurred in nature prior to the twentieth century, I am forced to conclude that this is in fact a development. Pretty much any sort of animal never exposed to humans is not afraid of us; but they learn the mistake of that generally pretty quick.

It's our *****. Compared to other primates, we have massive penises compared to body size.
Compared to a sheep however, we are very deficient in the testicular department. I mean just laughably so.

Killer Angel

2015-03-12, 03:47 PM

edit: Though now that I think of it, are there any other animals that commit suicide (and not in a "protecting their cubs" sort of way)?

Leaving aside lemmings? :smalltongue:
Jokes apart, there are certainly animals that let themselves die or show self-destructive behavior, if they remain alone. Goldfishes, dogs, lovebirds...

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 03:49 PM

Thing is, reality isn't contingent on anyone's feelings. Things are what they are reguardless of your opinion on the matter.

You say that like you know definitely that your reality is reality and my idea has absolutely no bearing on it whatsoever. I can't take anyone like that seriously.

I'm afraid that if you take the question even slightly seriously, the "argument from personal incredulity" (which is all you seem to have at this stage) is not going to convince even yourself for very long, let alone anyone else.

Yep, we used to believe we were something quite separate. We used to believe in "souls". When that fell out of favour, we talked about "sentience". But pretty much as soon as we put a testable definition on "sentience", it was shown that many animals have it. More recently we've moved the goalposts to "sapience", which still doesn't have a testable definition, which makes it safe for now (although scientifically speaking, also worthless).

Humans are animals. That's not a limiting thing, we're not "just another" animal any more than Terry Pratchett was "just another" human.

Err...hang on. When did humanity at large stop believing in souls?! O_O

You could apply that logic to any animal. A dog is distinct from animals. So is a wolf, and a dingo, and a coyote. Every animal, including humans, is distinct from animals.

There are a bunch of things that we do flat-out better than the rest of the animal kingdom; planning, thinking, creating tools, using language, making pictures of cats and posting them on the internet. All of that is amazing and wonderful, and all of it has roots in our ancestry. Even the few things that only humans (or very close relatives) do - making jokes, clothes, toys, art - are born of the same evolutionary processes that made us human to begin with. Yes, we're distinct. That doesn't make us separate.

As I stated before, "distinct and separate" vs. "distinct but NOT separate" is something I'm willing to agree to disagree on.

Crow

2015-03-12, 03:58 PM

New Caledonian Crows won't be assassinating mankind using tiny sniper rifles?

Don't tell them! We must have the element of surprise on our side.

veti

2015-03-12, 03:58 PM

Err...hang on. When did humanity at large stop believing in souls?! O_O

It's not so much about "belief", as "using the term in serious discussion".

200 years ago, you could thump your podium and declare that "you had a soul and that made you different", and most of your audience, educated and otherwise, would nod and agree. But now - well, we have this tacit agreement that religious folks are allowed to talk about "souls" all they like, but they won't try to use it as a scientific argument, because to do that they'd have to put it up for rigorous definition and testing, and nobody wants to go there.

I know of only one person who's tried to define a "soul" as something that exists in a real and detectable form, and his conclusion was... well, let's just say he's a vegetarian.

warty goblin

2015-03-12, 04:01 PM

You say that like you know definitely that your reality is reality and my idea has absolutely no bearing on it whatsoever. I can't take anyone like that seriously.

I don't think that follows from what veti is saying; which is that "I want it to be this way because otherwise I'll feel bad' does not carry any information about the shape of reality, nor is it a convincing argument about why anybody should think reality behaves a certain way.

Err...hang on. When did humanity at large stop believing in souls?! O_O
Humanity at large apparently still does. It's no longer exactly a cutting edge scientific hypothesis though. Now come up with an exact hypothesis for what one is, do some tests and show that humans have one, but cockroaches don't, and you might be on to something. Otherwise I suspect the world's biologists will remain unconvinced.

As I stated before, "distinct and separate" vs. "distinct but NOT separate" is something I'm willing to agree to disagree on.
So how would you say we are separate and distinct from other animals?

Elderand

2015-03-12, 04:13 PM

Do I want to know? I thought Barnacles were crustaceans that expelled their exoskeleton once they created a ceramic shell?

Biggest penis to body size ratio. Barnacles have a penis that's 40 times the size of their body. That's as many as four tens and that's awesome.

Err...hang on. When did humanity at large stop believing in souls?! O_O

Humanity at large didn't, funny thing though, reality isn't a democracy either, what the majority or minority think is true is not necessrly what's true either. As far as science go, the idea of souls pretty much fell out of fashion when we started to notice that brain injury led to change in personality. That was pretty much the nail in the coffin of body/soul dualism.

Of course that depends on your definition of soul, but the usual Personality/spirit that's inhabiting a body yet separate from it is pretty much as seriously taken by science as the idea of a flat earth.

Flickerdart

2015-03-12, 04:21 PM

Leaving aside lemmings? :smalltongue:
Lemmings don't kill themselves.

Dodom

2015-03-12, 06:17 PM

See to me, that's like saying we are not and will never BE important, more important, than other species. And that's just too depressing for me to take.

If that's what worries you, the answer you're looking for doesn't lay in science. Importance isn't an objective fact, it's relative to the observer. Humans could be a completely mediocre species and still be the most important one to other humans. Humans are special in that they're "Us". We view the world from our own point of view. What's large or small or fast or slow is compared to us, because that's the metric we understand. We generally have more empathy for one another than for other creatures, and will save a bad human over a good dog if needed. What's depressing in our importance not being rooted in some universal, cosmic truth?

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 06:36 PM

I don't think that follows from what veti is saying; which is that "I want it to be this way because otherwise I'll feel bad' does not carry any information about the shape of reality, nor is it a convincing argument about why anybody should think reality behaves a certain way.

See, where I have the issue here is "I WANT" it to be this way. In an attempt to change someone's mind, the burden of proof lies with the person attempting to change the other person's mind. It's not that I "want" it to be this way, it's that I genuinely DO believe it this way because to me there is no conclusive proof that humanity is or is not distinct and special from other animal species, and to me "humanity is distinct and special" is the more attractive option to believe in. Also, it is a belief that is largely harmless to my existence at large, so I quite frankly don't give a damn that it's not rooted in concrete fact.

In summary, if someone believes something that

1. The belief hasn't been or can't be definitively disproved
2. The belief is not whatsoever detrimental to them or those around them

Then why give a crap that they believe it? I apply this to other people as well as myself. "If it doesn't hurt anything, then it's whatever" is my golden rule.

Humanity at large apparently still does. It's no longer exactly a cutting edge scientific hypothesis though. Now come up with an exact hypothesis for what one is, do some tests and show that humans have one, but cockroaches don't, and you might be on to something. Otherwise I suspect the world's biologists will remain unconvinced.

Thank you (and several others) for the clarification.

So how would you say we are separate and distinct from other animals?

That is the question I created this thread to help me answer in the first place. Most of you don't seem particularly interested in helping in this regard, but whatever.

Elderand

2015-03-12, 06:54 PM

See, where I have the issue here is "I WANT" it to be this way. In an attempt to change someone's mind, the burden of proof lies with the person attempting to change the other person's mind. It's not that I "want" it to be this way, it's that I genuinely DO believe it this way because to me there is no conclusive proof that humanity is or is not distinct and special from other animal species, and to me "humanity is distinct and special" is the more attractive option to believe in. Also, it is a belief that is largely harmless to my existence at large, so I quite frankly don't give a damn that it's not rooted in concrete fact.

Yeah, the minute you claim things like burden of proof and yet admit you don't give a damn about fact is the minute you've just proven you are not after discussion or actualy learning anything. you just want people to pat you on the back and confirm your own cognitive bias.

Eldan

2015-03-12, 06:54 PM

It just seems that most of us don't really see the distinction, nor see why it is all that important.

veti

2015-03-12, 06:59 PM

In summary, if someone believes something that

1. The belief hasn't been or can't be definitively disproved
2. The belief is not whatsoever detrimental to them or those around them

Then why give a crap that they believe it? I apply this to other people as well as myself. "If it doesn't hurt anything, then it's whatever" is my golden rule.

The thing is, this particular belief can be detrimental to you and those around you. Most obviously, it can be detrimental to animals; but also to people whom you can be persuaded to view as "no better than animals". You might think now that that's an empty set, but history shows us it's all too easy to persuade people to put others into it.

And then you've, several times now, expressed your passionate personal investment in this belief. That's also potentially harmful to yourself, because there is a non-zero probability that sooner or later, you'll be persuaded out of it, and that will come as a great shock - greater, if we don't put in some groundwork on your behalf now. (You're welcome, by the way.)

As to "the belief hasn't been or can't be definitively disproved" - that depends on what, specifically, the belief is, which is something that hasn't been stated. Many beliefs closely related to what you see to be asking, have been fairly definitively disproved. If nothing else, we're doing you a service by telling you that, so that you know not to try to adopt those ones.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 07:18 PM

Yeah, the minute you claim things like burden of proof and yet admit you don't give a damn about fact is the minute you've just proven you are not after discussion or actualy learning anything. you just want people to pat you on the back and confirm your own cognitive bias.

I admit this unashamedly.

The thing is, this particular belief can be detrimental to you and those around you. Most obviously, it can be detrimental to animals; but also to people whom you can be persuaded to view as "no better than animals". You might think now that that's an empty set, but history shows us it's all too easy to persuade people to put others into it.

And then you've, several times now, expressed your passionate personal investment in this belief. That's also potentially harmful to yourself, because there is a non-zero probability that sooner or later, you'll be persuaded out of it, and that will come as a great shock - greater, if we don't put in some groundwork on your behalf now. (You're welcome, by the way.)

As to "the belief hasn't been or can't be definitively disproved" - that depends on what, specifically, the belief is, which is something that hasn't been stated. Many beliefs closely related to what you see to be asking, have been fairly definitively disproved. If nothing else, we're doing you a service by telling you that, so that you know not to try to adopt those ones.

If I am to be shocked like that, it certainly wouldn't be the first time, and I've come through the other times fine and been stronger for it. But...I mean, all I want to believe is Humans Are Special. That we have something other organisms don't that is actually meaningful. How is that so wrong? And I NEVER view any people as "no better than animals." I'll make SURE it remains an empty set.

warty goblin

2015-03-12, 07:41 PM

If I am to be shocked like that, it certainly wouldn't be the first time, and I've come through the other times fine and been stronger for it. But...I mean, all I want to believe is Humans Are Special. That we have something other organisms don't that is actually meaningful. How is that so wrong? And I NEVER view any people as "no better than animals." I'll make SURE it remains an empty set.
Is there anything particularly terrible about the universe if we aren't super-special? I'm genuinely curious here, because I've never been able to make sense of the desire for humans to have some particular thing that makes us totally special and unique and everything.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-12, 07:54 PM

warty goblin

2015-03-12, 08:05 PM

Is stepping on that cockroach murder or not?
Honestly the uniqueness or not of humanity seems entirely orthogonal to the matter of killing animals to me. If humans are something special, then stepping on the cockroach obviously has nothing to do with murder. If stepping on that cockroach makes me a murderer and humans are 'just' another animal, then the wolf is a serial killer born and bred. Strangely nobody ever seems to argue that wolves should all be doing 25 to life for their vicious, cannibalistic gang murders of elk. Apparently not killing and eating things is some sort of homo sapiens' burden to which those lesser animals are not subject. Which is at best missing the more positive consequences of seeing humans as another animal in nature, and at worst actively inconsistent with the principle in the first place.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 08:14 PM

Is there anything particularly terrible about the universe if we aren't super-special? I'm genuinely curious here, because I've never been able to make sense of the desire for humans to have some particular thing that makes us totally special and unique and everything.

Not terrible about the universe, but it means everything we've accomplished as a species--civilization, science, law, technology, philosophy--isn't something we can look on our species and be proud of because any bloody single cell can quite possibly get that far given enough millions of years. It invalidates the notability of our accomplishments, and I think that's pretty dang terrible.

Mx.Silver

2015-03-12, 08:18 PM

That is the question I created this thread to help me answer in the first place. Most of you don't seem particularly interested in helping in this regard, but whatever.
'There isn't one' is a valid answer to the thread title question. I think everyone appreciates that you don't like that answer, but the general consensus is that it's still the most accurate answer to the question that's available. For most people, ignoring it would not be intellectually honest.

Some whale beachings, maybe? I've heard pigs can suffer depression, and I believe other animals can as well. Let's have a quick Google search out of curiosity... Looks like dog suicides are fairly well documented. Various bugs have a type of self-sacrifice suicide. And this article (http://www.oddee.com/item_98725.aspx) will do for now because it's 5.30am and I need to go to bed.
Yeah, given the shared capacity for psychological disorders associated with suicide (and various other behaviours in general) it does seem entirely plausible that some animals have the capacity for deliberate suicide. It's just very difficult to prove, because to do that you'd need to show that the animal is consciously aware of the attempt and that said attempt will kill it, which is not easy to do).

Strangely nobody ever seems to argue that wolves should all be doing 25 to life for their vicious, cannibalistic gang murders of elk.
It's about as strange as why practically no one who eats meat seems to think much about how closely 'pro-carnivore' arguments resemble rationalisations for a pre-existing societal norm of the culture they were raised in.

Knaight

2015-03-12, 08:28 PM

Just because we're a carbon based life form, there's no true, definitive distinction between us and other carbon based life forms? The pedantry seems to be getting really excessive to me here if you consider that if we get the ability to manipulate our own genetic material still not rising beyond anything. Look. There are commonalities between humans and animals. There are commonalities between a helium balloon and a sun with helium in it. But a balloon will never do many things that suns do, and animals will never do many things that humans do. We. Are. Distinct. From them.
We're a distinct species, aren't we? The evidence for separating out us from everything else is laughable (lets be honest, I have a lot more in common with a chimp than it has in common with cyanobacteria, if I had to split humans, chimps, and cyanobacteria into two categories based on commonality it's cyanobacteria that gets seperated out).

Not terrible about the universe, but it means everything we've accomplished as a species--civilization, science, law, technology, philosophy--isn't something we can look on our species and be proud of because any bloody single cell can quite possibly get that far given enough millions of years. It invalidates the notability of our accomplishments, and I think that's pretty dang terrible.
That something else might maybe do the same thing that someone has already done one day doesn't invalidate jack. Even if you look within the species, there's plenty of stuff that people do that is really impressive, even though other people also do so. There's more to accomplishment than uniqueness.

This is besides the point though. Whether or not we want humans to be unique has absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the matter. That it would be terrible if something was true doesn't mean it isn't true. For instance, it would be terrible if people were dying of starvation and lack of potable water right now. "Pretty dang terrible" wouldn't even begin to cover it. Yet it's still the case, and acting like it isn't is just going to ensure it stays that way.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 08:38 PM

We're a distinct species, aren't we? The evidence for separating out us from everything else is laughable (lets be honest, I have a lot more in common with a chimp than it has in common with cyanobacteria, if I had to split humans, chimps, and cyanobacteria into two categories based on commonality it's cyanobacteria that gets seperated out).

That something else might maybe do the same thing that someone has already done one day doesn't invalidate jack. Even if you look within the species, there's plenty of stuff that people do that is really impressive, even though other people also do so. There's more to accomplishment than uniqueness.

This is besides the point though. Whether or not we want humans to be unique has absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the matter. That it would be terrible if something was true doesn't mean it isn't true. For instance, it would be terrible if people were dying of starvation and lack of potable water right now. "Pretty dang terrible" wouldn't even begin to cover it. Yet it's still the case, and acting like it isn't is just going to ensure it stays that way.

Hmm. You know, I don't even know why I think that the idea that someone else is going to do the same stuff as us is that terrible. Also, you're getting real-world scenario all over my philosophical pedantry :P However, I still don't understand how so many of you can state that the premise that we are not unique beings, with nothing to separate us from the rest is an absolute certainty. I would think our lack of knowledge of the world in general would at least allow for the possibility still.

warty goblin

2015-03-12, 08:55 PM

Hmm. You know, I don't even know why I think that the idea that someone else is going to do the same stuff as us is that terrible. Also, you're getting real-world scenario all over my philosophical pedantry :P However, I still don't understand how so many of you can state that the premise that we are not unique beings, with nothing to separate us from the rest is an absolute certainty. I would think our lack of knowledge of the world in general would at least allow for the possibility still.
Am I absolutely certain? No. I'm absolutely certain of very few things, most of them involving math. But I can't really think of any compelling evidence that we're especially special to the point where no other life form could possibly ever do what we've done, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. Like the extremely strong fossil record detailing how we evolved from ancestral primates, the genetic information that shows our overwhelming similarity with surviving great apes, the various extinct lines of tool-using hominids demonstrates the origins of our tool use, frequent use of tools by other mammal and bird species, etc. So there's a lot of evidence on one side, and zilch on the other, which makes the best bet that we aren't especially special.

Which I don't think devalues what humans have done in the slightest. After all we did it, not crows or dolphins, and I think what we've done is damn remarkable. So is a monarch butterfly migrating across a continent.

Mx.Silver

2015-03-12, 09:00 PM

However, I still don't understand how so many of you can state that the premise that we are not unique beings, with nothing to separate us from the rest is an absolute certainty..
They aren't, they're just not appending their statements with 'of course, it is conceivable that some form of evidence could possible exist that would render this position false'. Because that's generally not a statement that's necessary to make.

Lheticus

2015-03-12, 09:12 PM

They aren't, they're just not appending their statements with 'of course, it is conceivable that some form of evidence could possible exist that would render this position false'. Because that's generally not a statement that's necessary to make.

A statement like this:

Thing is, reality isn't contingent on anyone's feelings. Things are what they are reguardless of your opinion on the matter.

To me implies a sense of absolute certainty that I'm wrong and your own position is right.

veti

2015-03-12, 09:36 PM

A statement like this:

Thing is, reality isn't contingent on anyone's feelings. Things are what they are reguardless of your opinion on the matter.
To me implies a sense of absolute certainty that I'm wrong and your own position is right.

I'm not the author of that statement, but I think you're misinterpreting it.

I think what it means is that "the strength of anyone's feelings on the matter are not evidence. This includes both you and me. If you want to talk about 'proof', then statements like 'It just MUST BE so' aren't going to cut any ice, no matter how big a font you type them in."

Gnome Alone

2015-03-12, 09:38 PM

A statement like this:

To me implies a sense of absolute certainty that I'm wrong and your own position is right.

No, it's just saying that whether us human-peoples are Super-Special Dudes or large predatory mammals that're slightly too clever for our own collective good, that it's true regardless of what we think about it.

Now if that particularly offends you, it might be because you're really emotionally invested in the idea of human exceptionalism or human dominion-over-the-earth or whatever. I mean, I'm pretty firmly in the camp of there being no "special" elevation, divine, scientific or otherwise, of homo sapiens sapiens (the species so smart-nice they smart-named it twice) but if someone pointed out that if puny hu-mans ARE special then it don't matter what I think about it, well, yeah, if that's true then it ain't gonna offend me.

Serpentine

2015-03-13, 12:18 AM

However, I still don't understand how so many of you can state that the premise that we are not unique beings, with nothing to separate us from the rest is an absolute certainty. I would our lack of knowledge of the world in general would at least allow for the possibility still.
Not an "absolute certainty", but with the evidence weighted in its favour, combined with the history of study in this area: like I said, every time someone insisted that such and such thing "separated man from the animals", when we actually set or out to look for that thing in other animals, we found it. Based on our record, I have no reason to think the next goalpost won't be demolished just the same.

Not terrible about the universe, but it means everything we've accomplished as a species--civilization, science, law, technology, philosophy--isn't something we can look on our species and be proud of because any bloody single cell can quite possibly get that far given enough millions of years. It invalidates the notability of our accomplishments, and I think that's pretty dang terrible.
Nonsense, it makes it that much more iincredible. We are stardust that coalesced into a bald ape that chance and influence shaped into a being that could crave a reconnection with the stars and set out to forge it. It is mind-bogglingly awesome (I can't even find words big enough to describe it) that we managed to go from a single celled organism surviving in muck to thoughtful beings who can not only construct the tools to take us away from this planet but imagine the implications and possibilities of doing so. Any animal "could" do that, sure, whatever that means, but we're the ones who DID. It took billions of billion to one chances to happen in just the right way for us to get to where we are. That is damn near miraculous, the fact that if it wasn't us it might have eventually been something else (my money's on cephalopods) notwithstanding.

So are you now just after a list of things we can do that other animals can't? Because that is easy enough, at least for a given level of specificity and investigation. Our stamina, for example, is by all accounts remarkable. But the thing I want to make clear is that we could make a similar list for just about every other animal as well - every species has things that make them distinct, that's why they're different species. And at least to me, that is wonderful beyond words, not depressing.

Crow

2015-03-13, 12:31 AM

Maybe Lheticus' desire that mankind be something more than animals is the very thing that does separate us from them. Until we figure out a way to determine if animals aspire to be something greater than their brethren however, there is no way I know of that we could verify it. :)

Serpentine

2015-03-13, 12:43 AM

Now THAT I find depressing. But as you say, how can we know? Might not the lion think itself "beyond" the antelope?

Crow

2015-03-13, 12:51 AM

Now THAT I find depressing. But as you say, how can we know? Might not the lion think itself "beyond" the antelope?

Well, I think my husky believes herself better than I. :smallbiggrin:

Serpentine

2015-03-13, 01:13 AM

Well, I think my husky believes herself better than I. :smallbiggrin:

To be fair, she is cuter...

(I assume. Don't think I've actually seen either of you)

Crow

2015-03-13, 01:27 AM

To be fair, she is cuter...

(I assume. Don't think I've actually seen either of you)

You are correct! (She seems to know it too)

SiuiS

2015-03-13, 01:33 AM

I dunno. Crow's got that gruff gym dude vibe. :smallwink:

Jeff the Green

2015-03-13, 01:40 AM

Large populations of us can digest lactose well into adulthood.

(You'll find some sources saying some pinnipeds have lactase persistence, but this is incorrect. Instead, they don't even produce lactase at all because their milk doesn't have lactose in it.)

Edit:
Oh, and we're also the only animal to drive extinct one of every extant class of vertebrates. Probably also one of every major phylum of animal, but that's impossible to verify since we haven't been keeping track of most of them for very long and a couple are purely aquatic. And the only one to render a virus extinct. And the only one to drive another species extinct because it was fun (dodos, off the top of my head; people didn't eat them because they tasted horrible). And the only one to drive a species extinct on purpose.

We're also probably the fastest to cause an extinction. 3.5 billion to 0 in 50 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon) may not put us in a category separate from the eutherians that invaded South America when the Isthmus of Panama opened, but it certainly puts us orders of magnitude closer to Chicxulub or the Siberian Traps than any species to exist.

Gavran

2015-03-13, 03:20 AM

Aedilred

2015-03-13, 04:09 AM

Hmm.

I'm not sure that an argument from potential really works: while the question may not make it explicit I think it is designed to ask not what separates humans from any other species that could conceivably exist (or could have existed) but what separates us from any other species that does exist or has existed. There is an important difference there, I think.

Moreover, the idea that, since all previous hypotheses on the subject have been disproved (or at least, those that have been tested), all future ones will be, and therefore there is no answer (and thus the question is, ultimately, invalid), is lazy reasoning. That may not be what is intended, but it is at times how things have come across. One can perhaps say without fear that no such property exists to the best of our current knowledge, but that's probably the best we can do.

There is also a danger of missing the wood for the trees, I think. It might well be that there is no individual such property that is unique to humans, and testing for each in isolation might have failed to show one, but there may very well be a combination of such properties that is. Of course, the same could be said of any species to an extent, and the value that is placed on each property for the purposes of answering the question is largely a philosophical one.

That said, the question of scale does deserve to be taken into account, I think. Humans are not the only species to use tools, for instance; we may not even be the only species to use complex tools. But we are the only species to have developed tools that allow us to outcompete almost every other species on the planet in its native environment. Birds may possess the ability to fly, which humans do not, for instance, but humans have developed tools which allow us to fly higher and faster than any bird. That is not to say that no other species conceivably could not evolve capable of developing such tools themselves, but none have done so.

In any case the question as a whole is largely philosophical - and thus difficult to verify, as Crow says. There is also a significant role to be played by religion in the way the question is approached and answered, but obviously we can't talk about that here. Approaching the question as something to be proven conclusively using the scientific method and treated as invalid until such a time is probably missing the point, and likely isn't going to satisfy anyone asking it.

Knaight

2015-03-13, 08:23 AM

Hmm. You know, I don't even know why I think that the idea that someone else is going to do the same stuff as us is that terrible. Also, you're getting real-world scenario all over my philosophical pedantry :P However, I still don't understand how so many of you can state that the premise that we are not unique beings, with nothing to separate us from the rest is an absolute certainty. I would think our lack of knowledge of the world in general would at least allow for the possibility still.

I'm not absolutely certain. It's the strongest theory by a ridiculously wide margin, but it could be wrong. However, even if I am wrong, that doesn't change the fact that there's absolutely no intrinsic correlation between what we want the world to be like and what it is. If we're going to bring those closer together, we're going to have to work at it, and in the case of intrinsic specialness that can't be worked at.

So yeah, the possibility is there. It's also possible that we're all living in vats hooked up to a virtual reality, Matrix style. I suppose I can't even technically rule out the rest of reality being a figment of my imagination, like an extreme solipsist. There's no particular reason to consider any of those true though, regardless of how favorable they are (granted, the latter two would suck).

Xuc Xac

2015-03-13, 11:43 AM

Lheticus and those of like mind keep saying "we" and "us": we've gone into space, we've deciphered and altered dna, we've built skyscrapers and jumbo jets with minibars. I don't think Lheticus has actually done any of those things.

If we draw the line between "humans" and "animals" and say "humans have built rockets and flown into space" then Lheticus will find himself on the animal side of the line.

To me, the whole thing seems like a way to be rewarded without working for it. I'm special and amazing because people I could theoretically interbreed with have done amazing things. It's like a fan demanding a Super Bowl championship ring because they were wearing the same color shirt as the guys that spent a decade or more training to get on the team and then actually won the game.

Flickerdart

2015-03-13, 12:15 PM

If we draw the line between "humans" and "animals" and say "humans have built rockets and flown into space" then Lheticus will find himself on the animal side of the line.
Nobody builds a rocket by themselves. Every single thing any of us do stands on the shoulders of giants, thousands of years of societal progress all the way back to hunter-gatherer days, when some kind souls figured out language and how to make sure their babies didn't get eaten. Every person who participates in the society of a country with a space program has contributed - through taxation and effort put towards maintaining that society through their job - contributes to those rockets that fly into space. "Humans have built a society capable of sending rockets to space" is a more accurate statement.

Maybe that's what makes us different from animals - we're capable of leaving our world radically different from how it was when we entered it. There's an Anthropocene, but no Elephantocene or Dolphinocene.

Jeff the Green

2015-03-13, 12:16 PM

Wait, are you telling me humans are the best at eating cheese?

I now know my purpose. Yayyy delicious cheeses.

Edit: Aw, crap. Tell me we're the best at tasting cheese too or I'll fall back into existential crisis mode!

Probably not; that'd probably be something like a bloodhound with a really good sense of smell. Besides, there's very little lactose in cheese to begin with. That's why, for example, it's fine to give to a rat as a treat. In fact, cheese far predates the evolution of lactase persistence.

Maybe that's what makes us different from animals - we're capable of leaving our world radically different from how it was when we entered it. There's an Anthropocene, but no Elephantocene or Dolphinocene.

That's just scale, though. Earthworms and honeybees have radically changed North America's ecology in ways we don't fully understand yet. Beavers cause even greater change, but in a smaller area. If we're not going to sayour language, which is more complex than any other animal's, makes us unique, neither does that.

Killer Angel

2015-03-13, 01:39 PM

Lemmings don't kill themselves.

Why do you want to ruin such a nice misconception? :smallwink:

Anyway, my more serious point on the other animals, stands.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-13, 01:41 PM

Honestly the uniqueness or not of humanity seems entirely orthogonal to the matter of killing animals to me. If humans are something special, then stepping on the cockroach obviously has nothing to do with murder.

True.

If stepping on that cockroach makes me a murderer and humans are 'just' another animal, then the wolf is a serial killer born and bred. Strangely nobody ever seems to argue that wolves should all be doing 25 to life for their vicious, cannibalistic gang murders of elk.

Meet nobody, at your service. If animals are the same as humans, if humans are the same as animals, morally speaking, then of course we should be engineering a way to stop predation in the animal kingdom. No, I'm not kidding. Or else we should abandon the pretense of morality altogether and just rape, rob and kill at will as animals do.

Apparently not killing and eating things is some sort of homo sapiens' burden to which those lesser animals are not subject.

Apparent to whom? Those who assert humans are "just animals" or those who know humans are a species-level above all the other animals?

Which is at best missing the more positive consequences of seeing humans as another animal in nature, and at worst actively inconsistent with the principle in the first place.

Sorry, don't understand this last sentence, could you please rephrase? Are humans "special" and therefore not culpable for murdering cockroaches, or are they not special and therefore either culpable (if we extend human morality to all our "brothers and sisters") or not culpable (if we extend animal morality to humans)?

Coidzor

2015-03-13, 01:44 PM

Wait, are you telling me humans are the best at eating cheese?

I now know my purpose. Yayyy delicious cheeses.

Edit: Aw, crap. Tell me we're the best at tasting cheese too or I'll fall back into existential crisis mode!

It's more like Northern Europeans, Bantus, and one other ethnicity that originated somewhere in Asia, IIRC, are the best at digesting milk. Then are you progress from the areas those peoples traditionally occupied in antiquity and the like, you find that you expand into those who can digest yogurt without issue and then further you get to those who can digest cheese without issue, when taken as a whole.

IIRC.

There are some people who can't digest cheese without running into issues due to lactose, but I can't remember if there are any Peoples which, when taken as a whole, generally can't digest cheese without issue.

Killer Angel

2015-03-13, 01:44 PM

Another thing in which we differ from animals.
AFAIK, we're the only ones that keep other animals in captivity.

Grim Portent

2015-03-13, 01:55 PM

Another thing in which we differ from animals.
AFAIK, we're the only ones that keep other animals in captivity.

Ants take slaves and raise livestock. Does that count?

Tvtyrant

2015-03-13, 02:27 PM

Probably not; that'd probably be something like a bloodhound with a really good sense of smell. Besides, there's very little lactose in cheese to begin with. That's why, for example, it's fine to give to a rat as a treat. In fact, cheese far predates the evolution of lactase persistence.

That's just scale, though. Earthworms and honeybees have radically changed North America's ecology in ways we don't fully understand yet. Beavers cause even greater change, but in a smaller area. If we're not going to sayour language, which is more complex than any other animal's, makes us unique, neither does that.

Not to mention our environmental changes are small compared to early flowering plants. Entire biomes were replaced from the bottom up.

Killer Angel

2015-03-13, 03:33 PM

Ants take slaves and raise livestock. Does that count?

but those serve a very specific purpose, and cover a practical need. I'm talkin more about pets, zoo, and similar.

Lheticus

2015-03-13, 05:17 PM

Meet nobody, at your service. If animals are the same as humans, if humans are the same as animals, morally speaking, then of course we should be engineering a way to stop predation in the animal kingdom. No, I'm not kidding. Or else we should abandon the pretense of morality altogether and just rape, rob and kill at will as animals do.

THIS. Every single one of you going "proof proof proof, all the proof points to NO true point of distinction between humans and other animals" THIS is my proof: WE are the ones, the only ones, to even ATTEMPT to suppress the true violent, merciless, utterly impartial kill or be killed nature of the "natural" world. For all the aspects of her that are beautiful and glorious, THAT is the true nature of Mother Nature--a planet and a universe, that is utterly incapable of giving a **** about any life that exists within it. Humans alone have chosen to stare Mother Nature in the eye and say "No. We won't live in accordance to your savagery. We're going to change things." And to a significant extent, we have. For us to have conceived of this decision and then made it, I can't help but think there's SOMETHING truly unique about us.

Coidzor

2015-03-13, 05:28 PM

THIS. Every single one of you going "proof proof proof, all the proof points to NO true point of distinction between humans and other animals" THIS is my proof: WE are the ones, the only ones, to even ATTEMPT to suppress the true violent, merciless, utterly impartial kill or be killed nature of the "natural" world. For all the aspects of her that are beautiful and glorious, THAT is the true nature of Mother Nature--a planet and a universe, that is utterly incapable of giving a **** about any life that exists within it. Humans alone have chosen to stare Mother Nature in the eye and say "No. We won't live in accordance to your savagery. We're going to change things." And to a significant extent, we have. For us to have conceived of this decision and then made it, I can't help but think there's SOMETHING truly unique about us.

No one has disputed that as a species we have some tendency towards possessing some sort of morality, especially when we exist within the context of a civilization and society.

Not all humans live within civilizations and societies, though, unless we use a definition that extends it to isolated family bands. As far as I'm aware, culture is ubiquitous amongst humans, but there is no universal culture of humans and there are other animals that have localized or regional cultures.

That said, the both of you seem to be operating under some kind of misunderstanding of the state of nature.

Also, there's not really any point in getting mad at people for pointing out the difficulties in drawing a clear and distinct line between humans and other animals when you asked about where that line is in the first place. :smallconfused:

Lheticus

2015-03-13, 06:05 PM

No one has disputed that as a species we have some tendency towards possessing some sort of morality, especially when we exist within the context of a civilization and society.

Not all humans live within civilizations and societies, though, unless we use a definition that extends it to isolated family bands. As far as I'm aware, culture is ubiquitous amongst humans, but there is no universal culture of humans and there are other animals that have localized or regional cultures.

That said, the both of you seem to be operating under some kind of misunderstanding of the state of nature.

Also, there's not really any point in getting mad at people for pointing out the difficulties in drawing a clear and distinct line between humans and other animals when you asked about where that line is in the first place. :smallconfused:

I'm not mad. I was just excited because I thought I finally had a decent point to make. And just because ALL humans are not civilized and living in societies does not invalidate said point that we are the only species to develop a civilization beyond the extent of a (relatively for the semantical pedants in the room) mindless colony. We are the only species that comes anywhere near being able to possibly do that, including those with high animal intelligence like dolphins. Furthermore, this sentence "That said, the both of you seem to be operating under some kind of misunderstanding of the state of nature" is begging for elaboration. By "the both of us" I assume you mean me and Donnadogsoth. Please, do tell how the views on nature he and I have put forth are such a misunderstanding.

stcfg

2015-03-13, 07:46 PM

but those serve a very specific purpose, and cover a practical need. I'm talkin more about pets, zoo, and similar.

Koko the gorilla has a couple pet cats. I think I heard about other cases as well but they tend to be unique as well instead of stuff that happens in the wild.

Douglas

2015-03-13, 08:11 PM

I don't think anyone's mentioned this one yet: complex language. The ability to transmit knowledge from one individual to another, and thus build on it over the generations, is sharply limited by the complexity of the shared language of the individuals. Without this, our civilization and technology would not exist beyond a very basic level. While communication has been observed in plenty in other animals, sometimes even quite complex communication, as far as I know nothing else has ever approached the level of human language.

Dire Moose

2015-03-13, 08:23 PM

Pets: I seem to remember hearing about baboons raising African Wild Dog pups somewhere.

Language: The usual counterpoint to that one is dolphins, which have an extremely complex system of clicks, squeaks, and whistles that include unique "call signs" for individual dolphins.

Serpentine

2015-03-14, 01:10 AM

Another thing in which we differ from animals.
AFAIK, we're the only ones that keep other animals in captivity.

As mentioned, there's evidence of it in ants and other animals.

but those serve a very specific purpose, and cover a practical need. I'm talkin more about pets, zoo, and similar.

Yet another goal post shift. Those are just an extension of the others, and in any case evidence of pet-keeping in other animals exists.

THIS. Every single one of you going "proof proof proof, all the proof points to NO true point of distinction between humans and other animals" THIS is my proof: WE are the ones, the only ones, to even ATTEMPT to suppress the true violent, merciless, utterly impartial kill or be killed nature of the "natural" world. For all the aspects of her that are beautiful and glorious, THAT is the true nature of Mother Nature--a planet and a universe, that is utterly incapable of giving a **** about any life that exists within it. Humans alone have chosen to stare Mother Nature in the eye and say "No. We won't live in accordance to your savagery. We're going to change things." And to a significant extent, we have. For us to have conceived of this decision and then made it, I can't help but think there's SOMETHING truly unique about us.

Eh, not really. I mean, we still have wars and genocides and murders, animal abuse, wholesale destruction of the environment, etc. And, moreover, there's heaps of evidence for altruism and the suppression of violent instincts among other animals as well.
As I said, this is getting towards something I might possibly consider something that counts as "thing that separates humans for animals", but we're still far from achieving that as a species yet.

I don't think anyone's mentioned this one yet: complex language. The ability to transmit knowledge from one individual to another, and thus build on it over the generations, is sharply limited by the complexity of the shared language of the individuals. Without this, our civilization and technology would not exist beyond a very basic level. While communication has been observed in plenty in other animals, sometimes even quite complex communication, as far as I know nothing else has ever approached the level of human language.

This, culture and morality appear to be pretty much where we're up to now, and now that we've started looking for it, we're starting to find signs of it. Dolphins and some birds, for example, use grammar in their communications.
Finally, I would point out that if you're including the qualifier of "complex", you're acknowledging that this is a sliding scale, not a discrete feature.

Gnome Alone

2015-03-14, 01:15 AM

Nonsense, it makes it that much more iincredible. We are stardust that coalesced into a bald ape that chance and influence shaped into a being that could crave a reconnection with the stars and set out to forge it. It is mind-bogglingly awesome (I can't even find words big enough to describe it) that we managed to go from a single celled organism surviving in muck to thoughtful beings who can not only construct the tools to take us away from this planet but imagine the implications and possibilities of doing so. Any animal "could" do that, sure, whatever that means, but we're the ones who DID. It took billions of billion to one chances to happen in just the right way for us to get to where we are. That is damn near miraculous, the fact that if it wasn't us it might have eventually been something else (my money's on cephalopods) notwithstanding.

It might still eventually be them! It's not like evolution just stopped. We may be the first species to wake up (I mean, I don't think we're Oh So Special but it seems to me that our defining trait is extreme self-awareness) but we're not necessarily the last.

I think one problem with trying to convince anyone away from human exceptionalism is that if you'reemotionally invested in it, then what can you believe in otherwise, right? It'd be kinda depressing, I think, to stop believing something (even if it's false) and then replace it with nothing. So I'm gonna propose an alternative by way of quoting from Daniel Quinn's novel/Socratic dialogue Ishmael, which is practically required reading for any investigation into Human Specialness or the Lack Thereof.

"There is a sort of tendency in evolution, wouldn't you say? If you start with those ultra simple critters in the ancient seas and move up step by step to everything we see here now and beyond then you have to observe a tendency toward . . . complexity. And toward self awareness and intelligence.

"That is, all sorts of creatures on this planet appear to be on the verge of attaining that self awareness and intelligence. So it's definitely not just humans that the gods are after. We were never meant to be the only players on this stage. Apparently the gods intend this planet to be a garden filled with creatures that are self aware and intelligent.

"Man's destiny is to be the first to learn that creatures like man have a choice: They can try to thwart the gods and perish in the attempt or they can stand aside and make some room for all the rest. But it's more than that. His destiny is to be the father of them all. I don't mean by direct descent. By giving all the rest their chance--the whales and the dolphins and the chimps and the raccoons--he becomes in some sense their progenitor.

"In a billion years, whatever is around then, whoever is around then, says, "Man? Oh yes, man! What a wonderful creature he was! It was within his grasp to destroy the entire world and to trample all our futures into the dust but he saw the light before it was too late and pulled back. He pulled back and gave the rest of us our chance. He showed us all how it had to be done if the world was to go on being a garden forever. Man was the role model for us all!"

"In other words, the world doesn't need to belong to man but it does need man to belong to it."

That is a better story to believe in, right?

bluewind95

2015-03-14, 01:20 AM

We have the Internet and can communicate with other creatures on the other side of the planet.

... Really, biologically speaking? We're animals and nothing else. There's no absolute thing making us more special than anything else. We're better at many things than other animals, and we're worse at many things than other animals. Our culture, though (or rather our collection of cultures) is unique, and while, yes, the culture of other animal groups is also unique, ours means more to us. It's what directly affects us the most.

What I find... hard to understand... is people thinking that we are somehow the culmination of evolution, that other things would evolve into something like us given more time. Evolution isn't a race towards a specific goal. Evolution is the adaptation of a species into, well, a certain habitat. In terms of living in the sea, a dolphin is more evolved than us, and in terms of living on land, an ant is more evolved than a dolphin is. Evolution doesn't aim to make more people. It's just the process in which a species gets the minimum requirements to survive a specific habitat/niche.

I also don't see how being animals makes any of what our species has done any less amazing. Bee hives are amazing. So are our monuments and temples and other things. No other animal is going to make things quite like that no matter what because no other animal is ever going to be human. Our only claim to natural uniqueness is that we belong to Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Nothing else does and nothing else ever will.

Serpentine

2015-03-14, 01:32 AM

It might still eventually be them! It's not like evolution just stopped. We may be the first species to wake up (I mean, I don't think we're Oh So Special but it seems to me that our defining trait is extreme self-awareness) but we're not necessarily the last.

I think one problem with trying to convince away from human exceptionalism is that if you'reemotionally invested in it, then what can you believe in otherwise, right? It'd be kinda depressing, I think, to stop believing something (even if it's false) and then replace it with nothing. So I'm gonna propose an alternative by way of quoting from Daniel Quinn's novel/Socratic dialogue Ishmael, which is practically required reading for any investigation into Human Specialness or the Lack Thereof.

"There is a sort of tendency in evolution, wouldn't you say? If you start with those ultra simple critters in the ancient seas and move up step by step to everything we see here now and beyond then you have to observe a tendency toward . . . complexity. And toward self awareness and intelligence.

"That is, all sorts of creatures on this planet appear to be on the verge of attaining that self awareness and intelligence. So it's definitely not just humans that the gods are after. We were never meant to be the only players on this stage. Apparently the gods intend this planet to be a garden filled with creatures that are self aware and intelligent.

"Man's destiny is to be the first to learn that creatures like man have a choice: They can try to thwart the gods and perish in the attempt or they can stand aside and make some room for all the rest. But it's more than that. His destiny is to be the father of them all I don't mean by direct descent. By giving all the rest their chance the whales and the dolphins and the chimps and the raccoons he becomes in some sense their progenitor.

"In a billion years, whatever is around then, whoever is around then, says, "Man? Oh yes, man! What a wonderful creature he was! It was within his grasp to destroy the entire world and to trample all our futures into the dust but he saw the light before it was too late and pulled back. He pulled back and gave the rest of us our chance. He showed us all how it had to be done if the world was to go on being a garden forever. Man was the role model for us all!"

"In other words, the world doesn't need to belong to man but it does need man to belong to it."

That is a better story to believe in, right?
I like that a lot.

We have the Internet and can communicate with other creatures on the other side of the planet.

... Really, biologically speaking? We're animals and nothing else. There's no absolute thing making us more special than anything else. We're better at many things than other animals, and we're worse at many things than other animals. Our culture, though (or rather our collection of cultures) is unique, and while, yes, the culture of other animal groups is also unique, ours means more to us. It's what directly affects us the most.

What I find... hard to understand... is people thinking that we are somehow the culmination of evolution, that other things would evolve into something like us given more time. Evolution isn't a race towards a specific goal. Evolution is the adaptation of a species into, well, a certain habitat. In terms of living in the sea, a dolphin is more evolved than us, and in terms of living on land, an ant is more evolved than a dolphin is. Evolution doesn't aim to make more people. It's just the process in which a species gets the minimum requirements to survive a specific habitat/niche.

I also don't see how being animals makes any of what our species has done any less amazing. Bee hives are amazing. So are our monuments and temples and other things. No other animal is going to make things quite like that no matter what because no other animal is ever going to be human. Our only claim to natural uniqueness is that we belong to Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Nothing else does and nothing else ever will.

If you have me in mind in that middle bit, I want to be clear that I completely agree with you, and that isn't at all what I mean. Another animal *could*, and frankly I would be amazed if we were the only one that ever did, but it's not inevitable, it isn't necessary, and it isn't the ideal (because there is no ideal). Other animals aren't like us, because they don't need to be, and vice versa.

Douglas

2015-03-14, 01:42 AM

Finally, I would point out that if you're including the qualifier of "complex", you're acknowledging that this is a sliding scale, not a discrete feature.
It is, certainly, but there's a fuzzy borderline somewhere on the complexity scale where communicating arbitrary technological and conceptual advancements becomes possible, and that combined with the ability and interest to create such advancements is unique to humanity.

bluewind95

2015-03-14, 01:45 AM

If you have me in mind in that middle bit, I want to be clear that I completely agree with you, and that isn't at all what I mean. Another animal *could*, and frankly I would be amazed if we were the only one that ever did, but it's not inevitable, it isn't necessary, and it isn't the ideal (because there is no ideal). Other animals aren't like us, because they don't need to be, and vice versa.

Nah, actually I had someone in mind who said that they thought it was bad that humans being animals meant that any one cell could eventually do what we do given enough time. I can't actually remember who said it and I don't want to go back and find the name (I had a very draining week, day, tomorrow isn't looking great either, and I'm under the effects of a sleeping aid/relaxant). But uh, whoever said that came across like "everything will eventually tend towards humanity in evolution". And like you said, it's not necessary or ideal (and yeah, cos there is no ideal, I agree) and it doesn't need to happen, though yeah, it also isn't something that's impossible. I think, though, that if anything else gains human-like intelligence, they will not do exactly what we do. Their history is different. They may take inspiration from us, and we from them (if we're still around), but they won't be exactly like us because their very history is different. The exact steps of Homo Sapiens Sapiens will never be taken by anything else in the history of the universe. While this is true for all species, I still think it's beautiful, and it makes what we do important. It's what I mean to say when I say that being animals doesn't make us any less. We're still unique in being Homo Sapiens Sapiens, even if it's in the same way that other species are unique in being what they are.

I, uh, hope that makes sense.

Serpentine

2015-03-14, 03:24 AM

Perfect sense. I think we're well on the same frequency.

Killer Angel

2015-03-14, 03:27 AM

Yet another goal post shift.

"another"? Did you count more than one clarification from me? :smallannoyed:

Grim Portent

2015-03-14, 06:11 AM

I may have thought of one, we have what is possibly the worst physiology for our lifestyle. We've changed our behavior so fast over the past few million years that our spines, feet and so on haven't properly adjusted and give us a large number of health problems.

I don't know of any other animal like that which wasn't selectively bred by humans.

Serpentine

2015-03-14, 07:46 AM

"another"? Did you count more than one clarification from me? :smallannoyed:

Not you, specifically, but through the whole history of this subject. There's always a new "this is the thing that separates humans from animals", it's always disproven, and then there's always another "well then it's this" or "well no but it's (more complicated version of the same thing)". The goal posts keep on getting shifted.

Lheticus

2015-03-14, 11:21 AM

Nah, actually I had someone in mind who said that they thought it was bad that humans being animals meant that any one cell could eventually do what we do given enough time. I can't actually remember who said it and I don't want to go back and find the name (I had a very draining week, day, tomorrow isn't looking great either, and I'm under the effects of a sleeping aid/relaxant). But uh, whoever said that came across like "everything will eventually tend towards humanity in evolution". And like you said, it's not necessary or ideal (and yeah, cos there is no ideal, I agree) and it doesn't need to happen, though yeah, it also isn't something that's impossible. I think, though, that if anything else gains human-like intelligence, they will not do exactly what we do. Their history is different. They may take inspiration from us, and we from them (if we're still around), but they won't be exactly like us because their very history is different. The exact steps of Homo Sapiens Sapiens will never be taken by anything else in the history of the universe. While this is true for all species, I still think it's beautiful, and it makes what we do important. It's what I mean to say when I say that being animals doesn't make us any less. We're still unique in being Homo Sapiens Sapiens, even if it's in the same way that other species are unique in being what they are.

I, uh, hope that makes sense.

I was the one who said that...also the OP incidentally. This does rather make sense, a conclusion I came to after mulling over the allegory of Eden and original sin. We humans "ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil" which I took to mean that on our evolutionary path, we started to complicate our own existences enough so that it became necessary that concepts like Good, Evil, and Sin exist--this complication is why "sin" is a thing, hence the "original sin." But all that means is that we humans ate from that tree. It doesn't mean it is impossible for another species to do the same, it only means that no other species HAS at this point. I think I'm finally satisfied.

Killer Angel

2015-03-14, 01:55 PM

Not you, specifically, but through the whole history of this subject. There's always a new "this is the thing that separates humans from animals", it's always disproven, and then there's always another "well then it's this" or "well no but it's (more complicated version of the same thing)". The goal posts keep on getting shifted.

Oh, I see, i misunderstood the context of your phrase.
Yeah, there's effectively a tendency to do this.

If I had to choose a marker between humans and animals, would probably be the ability to understand abstract concepts. It's hard even for children (and almost impossible 'til a certain age).

noparlpf

2015-03-14, 10:26 PM

Over several instances of casually researching the subject, I've seen it said that what makes us truly different from other species on planet Earth is not sentience or self-awareness, and upon looking into the term "sapience" I find that it's actually well on the human side of the line, rather than being itself the line.

If you accept, like I do, the premise that there truly IS something that truly separates us from the rest of the animal species that can be expressed in words, then please help me express it.

Well if you can't figure out how to express it, maybe it can't be expressed in words. :smalltongue:

Seriously, though. If you ask me, it's that Homo sapiens sapiens is distinct enough from Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens denisova to warrant a different subspecies name. (A few taxonomists are starting to think of neanderthals and denisovans as subspecies instead of distinct species considering the recent genetic data that shows that some large human populations are about 5% neanderthal or denisovan.)

Sapience and intelligence aren't really relevant to me because they're so complicated and subjective. "Intelligent" doesn't even mean one thing within the human species, forget factoring in other species with different neurology and ways of thinking (corvids, cephalopods, elephants, dolphins). That and I don't really consider most humans to be intelligent anyway, but that's probably more a problem on my end. :smalltongue:

veti

2015-03-14, 10:51 PM

I was the one who said that...also the OP incidentally. This does rather make sense, a conclusion I came to after mulling over the allegory of Eden and original sin. We humans "ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil" which I took to mean that on our evolutionary path, we started to complicate our own existences enough so that it became necessary that concepts like Good, Evil, and Sin exist--this complication is why "sin" is a thing, hence the "original sin." But all that means is that we humans ate from that tree. It doesn't mean it is impossible for another species to do the same, it only means that no other species HAS at this point. I think I'm finally satisfied.

Let's try to avoid reference to specific religious stories...

You know that "morality" isn't uniquely human, right? Some apes have a concept of ownership, and will punish one of their number who steals from another. Some ducks mate for life, and again will punish one who abandons a mate. And any dog owner can tell you about the look of guilt and shame.

I think - and this is my suggestion for an answer to your original question - that all the things that are special about humanity can be traced from what we've done with language. As a species, our language skills are head and shoulders above any other animal, and that's what has enabled every notable thing we've done, from graffiti to city building.

But that is very much a difference of degree, not of kind. Not all humans are capable of understanding complex metaphors, for instance. I think it's entirely possible that there exist many animals whose language skills are every bit as sophisticated as those of some (adult) humans. And if you follow the logic through, that would imply that those specific people are no "better" than those specific non-humans.

Which is why I'm against drawing a sharp line between humans and non-humans. We should, to the very best of our ability, treat all animals "humanely", and yes I'm aware of the irony in that particular word. With humans it's easier, because we have a better understanding of what they want, so we have even less excuse for abusing them.

Coidzor

2015-03-15, 12:18 AM

Please, do tell how the views on nature he and I have put forth are such a misunderstanding.

You mean other than the fact that you think rape, intra-group murder, and wanton killing are standard, normative behavior amongst the animals most analogous to humans? :smalltongue:

Not you, specifically, but through the whole history of this subject. There's always a new "this is the thing that separates humans from animals", it's always disproven, and then there's always another "well then it's this" or "well no but it's (more complicated version of the same thing)". The goal posts keep on getting shifted.

Well, you know, human understanding of sapience is currently in flux. :smallwink:

Language: The usual counterpoint to that one is dolphins, which have an extremely complex system of clicks, squeaks, and whistles that include unique "call signs" for individual dolphins.

Corvids too, IIRC, they have names for themselves, other creatures, places, and foods from what I recall, and can communicate regarding directions and behaviors. Or maybe it was just crows specifically. IIRC there's a bunch of parrots that also have suggestions they have language of some sort and we've established they have some kind of naming system.

Jeff the Green

2015-03-15, 12:31 AM

And any dog owner can tell you about the look of guilt and shame.

Which appears to have nothing to do with either emotion. Dogs have just learned through operant conditioning that making that face means we yell at them less.

Coidzor

2015-03-15, 01:04 AM

Which appears to have nothing to do with either emotion. Dogs have just learned through operant conditioning that making that face means we yell at them less.

Dogs. They're secretly P-Zombies of our own making. :smallamused:

Lheticus

2015-03-15, 07:38 AM

You mean other than the fact that you think rape, intra-group murder, and wanton killing are standard, normative behavior amongst the animals most analogous to humans? :smalltongue:

When the heck did "most analogous to humans" enter my point? I'm not referring to any one species, any TEN or HUNDRED species, any specific act or group of them. I mean that nature AS A WHOLE is viciously, cruelly True Neutral. It would just as soon annihilate countless organisms through a forest fire from a lightning strike, a tornado, an earthquake as provide wonderous beauty. It would just as soon force vicious, murderous competition as foster cooperation. Nature is literally incapable of giving a crap.

Let's try to avoid reference to specific religious stories...

You know that "morality" isn't uniquely human, right? Some apes have a concept of ownership, and will punish one of their number who steals from another. Some ducks mate for life, and again will punish one who abandons a mate. And any dog owner can tell you about the look of guilt and shame.

I think - and this is my suggestion for an answer to your original question - that all the things that are special about humanity can be traced from what we've done with language. As a species, our language skills are head and shoulders above any other animal, and that's what has enabled every notable thing we've done, from graffiti to city building.

But that is very much a difference of degree, not of kind. Not all humans are capable of understanding complex metaphors, for instance. I think it's entirely possible that there exist many animals whose language skills are every bit as sophisticated as those of some (adult) humans. And if you follow the logic through, that would imply that those specific people are no "better" than those specific non-humans.

Which is why I'm against drawing a sharp line between humans and non-humans. We should, to the very best of our ability, treat all animals "humanely", and yes I'm aware of the irony in that particular word. With humans it's easier, because we have a better understanding of what they want, so we have even less excuse for abusing them.

Ffs I was trying to say I've come to terms with things with that post! That just because we got this complex first it doesn't mean that other creatures doing the same is impossible, and that I've found a way to be okay with that. Why are you still arguing against me? O_O

warty goblin

2015-03-15, 09:46 AM

When the heck did "most analogous to humans" enter my point? I'm not referring to any one species, any TEN or HUNDRED species, any specific act or group of them. I mean that nature AS A WHOLE is viciously, cruelly True Neutral. It would just as soon annihilate countless organisms through a forest fire from a lightning strike, a tornado, an earthquake as provide wonderous beauty.

Whereas we are capable of giving a crap, and bulldoze them anyway, 'cause we want another shopping mall. So yay us, I guess.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-15, 11:21 AM

Whereas we are capable of giving a crap, and bulldoze them anyway, 'cause we want another shopping mall. So yay us, I guess.

Why do you want to crap on our potential? What cynicism.

Gnome Alone

2015-03-15, 12:22 PM

Which appears to have nothing to do with either emotion. Dogs have just learned through operant conditioning that making that face means we yell at them less.

How can we really tell the difference though?

Jeff the Green

2015-03-15, 12:54 PM

How can we really tell the difference though?

A rather clever study (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611065839.htm), actually. They had some owners of dogs order their dog not to eat a treat and then leave the room. Then the scientists either had the dog eat it and leave evidence, had the dog eat it and cleaned up the evidence and replaced the treat, had the dog not eat it but make it look like it had, or had the dog not eat it and do nothing else. It didn't matter whether the dog actually did anything wrong; they only ever looked guilty if their owner scolded them.

Guilt and shame don't work like that. They're based on a comparison between self and a standard, not some external stimulus. Dog guilty looks are the equivalent of notpologies that an amoral politician gives when he wants to get out of a scandal but doesn't actually understand what he did that was wrong.

noparlpf

2015-03-15, 12:58 PM

A rather clever study (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611065839.htm), actually. They had some owners of dogs order their dog not to eat a treat and then leave the room. Then the scientists either had the dog eat it and leave evidence, had the dog eat it and cleaned up the evidence and replaced the treat, had the dog not eat it but make it look like it had, or had the dog not eat it and do nothing else. It didn't matter whether the dog actually did anything wrong; they only ever looked guilty if their owner scolded them.

Guilt and shame don't work like that. They're based on a comparison between self and a standard, not some external stimulus. Dog guilty looks are the equivalent of notpologies that an amoral politician gives when he wants to get out of a scandal but doesn't actually understand what he did that was wrong.

I mean...I pretty much only feel guilty when I get caught, but when I get caught it is "real" guilt.

Jeff the Green

2015-03-15, 01:10 PM

I mean...I pretty much only feel guilty when I get caught, but when I get caught it is "real" guilt.

Yeah, that's not real guilt; it's something like moral embarrassment. Guilt is The Telltale Heart, a spectre haunting you though nobody knows what you did. It's not a reaction to a conviction; it's what drives you to confess. It's often relieved by being caught.

Serpentine

2015-03-15, 01:11 PM

I don't know whether dog-shame is really analogous to human-shame, but, well, I feel like all that you could pretty much say the same things about little kids.

Jeff the Green

2015-03-15, 01:14 PM

I don't know whether dog-shame is really analogous to human-shame, but, well, I feel like all that you could pretty much say the same things about little kids.

I'm not at all convinced that you're entirely human until like 12 or so. Kids' reasoning, particularly moral reasoning, is truly alien.

Gnome Alone

2015-03-15, 01:23 PM

Re: the dog study, that is fascinating. I wonder how many breeds of dog they studied though. Because I wouldn't be surprised if the smarter ones, like collies or terriers, felt something akin to guilt. I don't really know how measurably canine intelligence fluctuates though. Hey I bet the dire wolves from Game of Thrones would feel bad.

Re: little kids, I dunno, I think a lot of them have a pretty strong conception of justice. Why do you think they're so obsessed with what is "fair," right? Man do I hate it when adults tell kids "life" isn't fair. Overbroad much? Not to mention it's usually a convenient dodge around how the adult is doing something unfair. But anyway, I think there's recent research suggesting than even babies have some kind of innate moral sense.

warty goblin

2015-03-15, 01:29 PM

Why do you want to crap on our potential? What cynicism.

I'm being honest. Potential means nothing unless realized, and what is realized is what we do. Not what we might do, could do, should do, or like to pretend we do - or in the case of our much vaunted potential think we could maybe do at some undetermined future date. The actual actions we take in physical reality every single day, that is what matters. And what we do is bulldoze, pave, plough, burn, poison, melt and otherwise destroy the lives and habitats of the vast majority of other species on the planet.

Which means it is quite honest to point out that when it comes to being red in tooth and claw, we're exactly zero steps above the rest of the natural world. And the only potential I'm crapping on by pointing this out is the delusion that a cheap hamburger at the food court makes us any better than a wolf killing an elk calf. The potential that actually matters - the potential to behave differently - depends on this honesty. One cannot do better until you know what you're doing wrong, and you'll never learn that by hiding in a comforting fable.

BannedInSchool

2015-03-15, 01:31 PM

Which appears to have nothing to do with either emotion. Dogs have just learned through operant conditioning that making that face means we yell at them less.
Might also have been selective pressure in the domestication of dogs for that reaction. I don't know whether to feel bad that we've bred them to take the abuse, or taken advantage of that they've adapted to be better parasites. :smalltongue:

Wardog

2015-03-15, 04:13 PM

My unscientific wild speculation:

The difference between humans and other animals is a difference of degree, not of kind.

But the effects of different degrees of sapience, communication, communal interaction, planning, memory, ethical awareness, etc., is non-linear, and once our ancestors reached a tipping-point in those things, it resulted in a massive leap in what we are capable off.

I'd also point out that while certain animal "designs" have popped up numerous times in unrelated groups (e.g. the shark/dolphin/ichthyosaur design, the "crocodile" design, etc), the "primate" design has only happened once, and the "primate with human-like intelligence" has only happened once within that. So while it is hypothetically possible that something else could evolve to do everything we can do, it seems to be very unlikely, and if we, and all other primates got wiped out, the world might have to wait another 500My for "Humans II: The Revenge of the Bipeds With Hands".

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-15, 04:32 PM

I'm being honest. Potential means nothing unless realized, and what is realized is what we do. Not what we might do, could do, should do, or like to pretend we do - or in the case of our much vaunted potential think we could maybe do at some undetermined future date. The actual actions we take in physical reality every single day, that is what matters. And what we do is bulldoze, pave, plough, burn, poison, melt and otherwise destroy the lives and habitats of the vast majority of other species on the planet.

Which means it is quite honest to point out that when it comes to being red in tooth and claw, we're exactly zero steps above the rest of the natural world. And the only potential I'm crapping on by pointing this out is the delusion that a cheap hamburger at the food court makes us any better than a wolf killing an elk calf. The potential that actually matters - the potential to behave differently - depends on this honesty. One cannot do better until you know what you're doing wrong, and you'll never learn that by hiding in a comforting fable.

Honesty also means looking at our potentials and realising that we alone are capable of willfully transforming our practice to accord with truth, compassion, and justice.

Also, will you answer my question?

Are humans "special" and therefore not culpable for murdering cockroaches, or are they not special and therefore either culpable (if we extend human morality to all our "brothers and sisters") or not culpable (if we extend animal morality to humans)?

warty goblin

2015-03-15, 05:14 PM

Honesty also means looking at our potentials and realising that we alone are capable of willfully transforming our practice to accord with truth, compassion, and justice.

I never denied we had that potential. As I said though, potential unused is irrelevant to what is done, and what we are doing is not. Ergo I don't see any particular reason to celebrate.

Also, will you answer my question?

Are humans "special" and therefore not culpable for murdering cockroaches, or are they not special and therefore either culpable (if we extend human morality to all our "brothers and sisters") or not culpable (if we extend animal morality to humans)?

Sure, the answer is none of the above. I personally do not see humans as "special" in the sense of being things of a separate kind from animals. I'm an animal, a wolf is a different sort of animal. Morality is a something we use to circumscribe human behavior towards other humans and to some extent members of other species. This is I think deeply rooted in human biology as expressed through environment and circumstance. It is emphatically not a realization of some greater transcendental truth.

So if wolves had morality, it would necessarily be rooted in wolf biology as expressed through the current environment. Which means that wolf morality is under no guarantee to copy human morality, and may in fact be entirely incompatible with it. In which case I would argue that the moral thing to do - as a human - is to leave the wolves to their business as much as possible. One may obviously defend oneself if attacked by a wolf, but to attempt to remake wolves to conform to particular human standards fails to respect the human value of freedom.

In conclusion, whether it is morally wrong to kill a cockroach - or a wolf - is a human question. My thinking is that it is not immoral, since humans are animals, and animals kill each other all the time, and I see little reason to separate ourselves in this regard. Whether the wolf is right to kill an elk (or us) is a wolf question. We aren't wolves and should leave well enough alone. Since wolves appear to enthusiastically kill and eat a variety of species (including on occasion each other) I conclude that insofar as wolf morality is a thing, it is entirely compatible to tearing things apart and eating them.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-15, 05:23 PM

I never denied we had that potential. As I said though, potential unused is irrelevant to what is done, and what we are doing is not. Ergo I don't see any particular reason to celebrate.

The impressionable children will settle for not being told in a cynical fashion that humanity is nothing special.

Sure, the answer is none of the above. I personally do not see humans as "special" in the sense of being things of a separate kind from animals. I'm an animal, a wolf is a different sort of animal. Morality is a something we use to circumscribe human behavior towards other humans and to some extent members of other species. This is I think deeply rooted in human biology as expressed through environment and circumstance. It is emphatically not a realization of some greater transcendental truth.

So if wolves had morality, it would necessarily be rooted in wolf biology as expressed through the current environment. Which means that wolf morality is under no guarantee to copy human morality, and may in fact be entirely incompatible with it. In which case I would argue that the moral thing to do - as a human - is to leave the wolves to their business as much as possible. One may obviously defend oneself if attacked by a wolf, but to attempt to remake wolves to conform to particular human standards fails to respect the human value of freedom.

In conclusion, whether it is morally wrong to kill a cockroach - or a wolf - is a human question. My thinking is that it is not immoral, since humans are animals, and animals kill each other all the time, and I see little reason to separate ourselves in this regard. Whether the wolf is right to kill an elk (or us) is a wolf question. We aren't wolves and should leave well enough alone. Since wolves appear to enthusiastically kill and eat a variety of species (including on occasion each other) I conclude that insofar as wolf morality is a thing, it is entirely compatible to tearing things apart and eating them.

If there is "little reason to separate ourselves in this regard," why may a man not kill his neighbour? If you say, "because humans are social animals" or somesuch, that merely places a hurdle to be crossed. Why may a clever man not kill his neighbour if he can get away with it?

noparlpf

2015-03-15, 05:35 PM

RE: Morality:
Morality is basically just a set of rules (primarily contrived but with some root in evolved behavior) that allows a group of humans to function as a unit. With one human in isolation, killing another human isn't "good" or "evil" or "just" or "unjust". It's just whatever works best for individual survival. In a group, killing another human is "bad" because it's disruptive. It threatens the integrity and survival of the group as an entity.

Yeah, that's not real guilt; it's something like moral embarrassment. Guilt is The Telltale Heart, a spectre haunting you though nobody knows what you did. It's not a reaction to a conviction; it's what drives you to confess. It's often relieved by being caught.

Oh. Oops. Well...probably why I have some of the diagnoses I do. Welp.

Re: little kids, I dunno, I think a lot of them have a pretty strong conception of justice. Why do you think they're so obsessed with what is "fair," right? Man do I hate it when adults tell kids "life" isn't fair. Overbroad much? Not to mention it's usually a convenient dodge around how the adult is doing something unfair. But anyway, I think there's recent research suggesting than even babies have some kind of innate moral sense.

To a kid, "fair" is just "what I want".

warty goblin

2015-03-15, 05:40 PM

The impressionable children will settle for not being told in a cynical fashion that humanity is nothing special.
Back when I was one of them there impressionable children, I distinctly remember feeling insulted and patronized whenever people went around telling me I was special just for existing. Or that I was special because I could have done something, whether or not I actually did it.

If there is "little reason to separate ourselves in this regard," why may a man not kill his neighbour? If you say, "because humans are social animals" or somesuch, that merely places a hurdle to be crossed. Why may a clever man not kill his neighbour if he can get away with it?
Because humans think it is wrong for a man to kill his neighbor. For certain values of neighbor. This is a very straightforwards point; human morality is a thing made by humans to govern human actions. Ergo it is immoral if it goes against human morality.

(Well, human moralities; there's never been just one, and pretending otherwise is very dangerous.)

SiuiS

2015-03-15, 06:11 PM

To a kid, "fair" is just "what I want".

I never understood this. Do most parents not actively try to instill a sense of right and wrong and good judgement from an early age? Am I really that special?

Coidzor

2015-03-15, 06:23 PM

In conclusion, whether it is morally wrong to kill a cockroach - or a wolf - is a human question. My thinking is that it is not immoral, since humans are animals, and animals kill each other all the time, and I see little reason to separate ourselves in this regard. Whether the wolf is right to kill an elk (or us) is a wolf question. We aren't wolves and should leave well enough alone. Since wolves appear to enthusiastically kill and eat a variety of species (including on occasion each other) I conclude that insofar as wolf morality is a thing, it is entirely compatible to tearing things apart and eating them.

Humans, at least on the whole, possess moral reasoning and the ability to judge context and tell the difference between killing a random wolf in the wild, killing a random wolf that has ended up becoming a nuisance animal, killing a random wolf in defense of the self or another, and killing entire packs of wolves at a time in an expression of orgiastic ecstasy at mass-killing.

Just as we can tell the difference between killing for sport, killing for food, and killing out of boredom or frustration.

Pretending otherwise is silly and probably sophistry, or at the very least, flawed, just as surely as insisting that humans should become some kind of caricature of sharks crossed with psychopaths without holding ourselves to be entirely different from animals because we have souls is also extremely flawed.

To a kid, "fair" is just "what I want".
I never understood this. Do most parents not actively try to instill a sense of right and wrong and good judgement from an early age? Am I really that special?

How old's the kid? How many siblings does the kid have? What are the parents like? Too many factors.

Combined with the admission of non-neurotypicality on the part of the speaker earlier in that post, we don't know how much of this is talking from their recollection of their personal past and how much is grounded in their perceptions and experiences of children at the anecdotal level and how much is grounded in scientific inquiry into the ability and moral reasoning of children.

veti

2015-03-15, 06:36 PM

Re: little kids, I dunno, I think a lot of them have a pretty strong conception of justice. Why do you think they're so obsessed with what is "fair," right? Man do I hate it when adults tell kids "life" isn't fair. Overbroad much? Not to mention it's usually a convenient dodge around how the adult is doing something unfair.

Speaking as a parent, I see it more as a dodge around the fact that (a) explaining the full ramifications of what they think is "fair" is a long and complex discussion, and this isn't the time or place even if the kid does have the attention span, (b) it seems likely that neither one of us could really define what is "fair" to save our lives, and (c) as a parent, you have to pick your moments to educate, you can't be a pedant 24/7. "Fair" is one of those useful lies that we just want kids to believe in, in the abstract, without being too specific about it.

I've never used that particular line (yet), but those who do - have nothing but sympathy from me.

Kids' sense of justice is very self-centric. That's not the same as selfish - they will often take up someone else's cause, quite as fiercely as their own - but that "someone else" will be someone they, personally, can see and touch. The concept that there are other people, whom we don't even know about directly, who may also be affected by what they do - is something they won't really begin to appreciate until they're teenagers at least.

noparlpf

2015-03-15, 06:37 PM

I never understood this. Do most parents not actively try to instill a sense of right and wrong and good judgement from an early age? Am I really that special?

You can try. My mum is the most stupidly honest and ethical person I know and if I were a bit less juvenile I'd probably admit that she's an amazing parent (and a single mother for half my life to boot). My brother inherited it from her. I picked up enough to be a more-or-less functional member of society instead of ending up in a mental institution or prison. My sister is still young enough that she hasn't grown out of her childish selfishness and she still constantly complains that things "aren't fair", ranging from me having a car (I paid nearly half the cost myself, and she's not anywhere near old enough to even get a permit anyway) to me getting a larger portion at dinner to my mother refusing to buy her a $1000 tablet PC on a whim.

Edit:

How old's the kid? How many siblings does the kid have? What are the parents like? Too many factors.

Combined with the admission of non-neurotypicality on the part of the speaker earlier in that post, we don't know how much of this is talking from their recollection of their personal past and how much is grounded in their perceptions and experiences of children at the anecdotal level and how much is grounded in scientific inquiry into the ability and moral reasoning of children.

I'm thinking primarily little kids, ranging up to ~14 years old, depending on various factors. Once they get past the worst part of puberty and start the long slog of growing a proper prefrontal cortex they start to become real people.

I'm basing this in part on anecdotal observation of small children and primarily on my tween sister. :smalltongue:

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-15, 08:08 PM

Back when I was one of them there impressionable children, I distinctly remember feeling insulted and patronized whenever people went around telling me I was special just for existing. Or that I was special because I could have done something, whether or not I actually did it.

Now you've misplaced the point. No one said man was special "just for existing," man is special for his potential, and that potential is worth something, and it is a crime against human nature not to tell children about it, but instead raising them to wallow in their own hopelessness and cynicism about their species' incidents of succumbing to unreason.

Because humans think it is wrong for a man to kill his neighbor. For certain values of neighbor. This is a very straightforwards point; human morality is a thing made by humans to govern human actions. Ergo it is immoral if it goes against human morality.

(Well, human moralities; there's never been just one, and pretending otherwise is very dangerous.)

What difference does any morality make, if there be any one or group whose morality differs? Some moralities love their neighbours, others eat them. What's the difference other than might making right?--or the admission that there is no morality after all and we might as well be like whatever animal we choose in our dealings with, or exploitations of, others?

SiuiS

2015-03-16, 02:06 AM

You can try. My mum is the most stupidly honest and ethical person I know and if I were a bit less juvenile I'd probably admit that she's an amazing parent (and a single mother for half my life to boot). My brother inherited it from her. I picked up enough to be a more-or-less functional member of society instead of ending up in a mental institution or prison. My sister is still young enough that she hasn't grown out of her childish selfishness and she still constantly complains that things "aren't fair", ranging from me having a car (I paid nearly half the cost myself, and she's not anywhere near old enough to even get a permit anyway) to me getting a larger portion at dinner to my mother refusing to buy her a $1000 tablet PC on a whim.

I know. There's the program language going in, and there's the hardware it has to root into.

Ideally, I will teach my child to be someone I respect. I hope she inherits my justice gene or whatever it's called, but if not, I can fold that into my understanding of caste and be okay. Dismayed, but okay.

What difference does any morality make, if there be any one or group whose morality differs? Some moralities love their neighbours, others eat them. What's the difference other than might making right?--or the admission that there is no morality after all and we might as well be like whatever animal we choose in our dealings with, or exploitations of, others?

This is a flawed argument because it assumes subjectivity means all things are equal.

If nothing has any inherent value, then it has the value you give it. It can be demonstrated that the thought chain of "well might makes right is ultimately how this shakes out" leads to people being bad people. Optimally you will behave in a way you want others to behave. Physical might is not the only might, and an understanding of social and psychological mechanisms shows that this is a much more complex process than you imply.

This is the danger of logic. You end up flattening everything out into excessively simplified and meaningless broad strokes. This is why logic is a part of rationality and neither the sole not most important part. You WILL have emotional and visceral reactions. They MUST be accounted for. You CANNOT have a purely logical system because a purely logical system assumes everything works in a clear and thought out manner. People are auboptimal. They do not compile.

Morality makes a difference because if establishes different strata of association and socialization. It allows one to justify some things past the normal intolerance threshold. It allows one to exist as part of a society instead of an individual in a cluster of individuals. And this is likely inherited; other primates have similar functions.

Serpentine

2015-03-16, 02:13 AM

Hoooo boy, this is where we're going now? Okay... I'm going to try to only say these three things on this subject:

1. There is nothing cynical about acknowledging the way things are, especially not when, as mentioned, honesty about reality is the necessary first step towards realising potential. Also, I don't think I've ever heard "but what will we tell the children?" used as a credible argument against anything ever.

2. Experiments have already found that certain monkeys have a very strong sense of fairness, so we know the foundations of morality are not an exclusively human thing.

3. Just because morality is subjective and evolved doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Subjective is not the same as arbitrary, and indeed the fact it's evolved (in both the biological and social sense) means it's almost certainly not arbitrary and rather serves some very important purposes. Beauty and love are subjective products of evolution too, but few but the most hard-line abstract-thinking nihilists and pragmatists would claim those are arbitrary and meaningless.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-16, 10:18 AM

This is a flawed argument because it assumes subjectivity means all things are equal.

If nothing has any inherent value, then it has the value you give it. It can be demonstrated that the thought chain of "well might makes right is ultimately how this shakes out" leads to people being bad people. Optimally you will behave in a way you want others to behave. Physical might is not the only might, and an understanding of social and psychological mechanisms shows that this is a much more complex process than you imply.

This is the danger of logic. You end up flattening everything out into excessively simplified and meaningless broad strokes. This is why logic is a part of rationality and neither the sole not most important part. You WILL have emotional and visceral reactions. They MUST be accounted for. You CANNOT have a purely logical system because a purely logical system assumes everything works in a clear and thought out manner. People are auboptimal. They do not compile.

Morality makes a difference because if establishes different strata of association and socialization. It allows one to justify some things past the normal intolerance threshold. It allows one to exist as part of a society instead of an individual in a cluster of individuals. And this is likely inherited; other primates have similar functions.

Is roach-squishing murder or not? If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred. That human life is sacred. If we're just primates, then morality is just a trick of social organisation, which we can dispense with at our pleasure.

Serpentine

2015-03-16, 10:44 AM

Your "if X then Y" premises are false. There are many more options than the ones you put forward.

warty goblin

2015-03-16, 11:13 AM

Now you've misplaced the point. No one said man was special "just for existing," man is special for his potential, and that potential is worth something, and it is a crime against human nature not to tell children about it, but instead raising them to wallow in their own hopelessness and cynicism about their species' incidents of succumbing to unreason.

I believe you missed the second portion of that statement; that being praised for things I might have done, but did do also struck me as phony and annoying. Regardless, what do children have to do with this? I was under the impression this was a conversation among adults, or is the thread overrun with crouching toddlers and hidden nine year olds?

What difference does any morality make, if there be any one or group whose morality differs? Some moralities love their neighbours, others eat them. What's the difference other than might making right?--or the admission that there is no morality after all and we might as well be like whatever animal we choose in our dealings with, or exploitations of, others?
Different moralities impact people's lives differently, and therefore make real differences in people's lives. It is fallacious to suppose that simply because something fails to be universally or transcendentally true it cannot be locally and conditionally true.

Hoooo boy, this is where we're going now? Okay... I'm going to try to only say these three things on this subject:

1. There is nothing cynical about acknowledging the way things are, especially not when, as mentioned, honesty about reality is the necessary first step towards realising potential. Also, I don't think I've ever heard "but what will we tell the children?" used as a credible argument against anything ever.

2. Experiments have already found that certain monkeys have a very strong sense of fairness, so we know the foundations of morality are not an exclusively human thing.

3. Just because morality is subjective and evolved doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Subjective is not the same as arbitrary, and indeed the fact it's evolved (in both the biological and social sense) means it's almost certainly not arbitrary and rather serves some very important purposes. Beauty and love are subjective products of evolution too, but few but the most hard-line abstract-thinking nihilists and pragmatists would claim those are arbitrary and meaningless.
Thank you for this, it's a very well written post.

Is roach-squishing murder or not? If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred. That human life is sacred. If we're just primates, then morality is just a trick of social organisation, which we can dispense with at our pleasure.

Not at all. We're one variety of animal among many; with the advantage of large brains capable of considering long-term consequences, which allows us to do things other animals cannot. We also have an unusually high capacity for empathy, which when used and developed very often has the effect of improving our lives and the lives of others. These are entirely biological functions, but they are biological functions that are in scale and combination uniquely human, which gives us as a species unique capabilities and potential. The fact that our potential and capability is unique to us is itself not unique to us however; chickens also have unique potential and capability, as do centipedes, wolf spiders, antelope and so on.

However being human, we need to be concerned with human actions. Which we judge by the plethora of human moralities, all of which are almost certainly rooted in human biology and then interpreted though circumstance and history. All of which are real things (or many real things, since we aren't all clones living out identical lives). Now I'd argue that it is in keeping with the traditions of human morality that have benefited the species greatly in the past to not run willy-nilly over the rest of the natural world, and that respecting its autonomy is a human virtue, and also to a large extent congruent with a long-term understanding of our self-interest. None of this requires some version of human morality to be universal, sacred or anything else, but instead is entirely consistent with an understanding of morality as conditional on human biology et cetera. Which in my view does nothing to reduce the importance of humanity, our morals or anything else.

Arguing that if humans are animals our morality is 'just' a trick of our social order or otherwise dispensable is like arguing that humans are 'just' mammals, and therefore free to our breath for two hours and go diving for giant squid, because the sperm whale is 'just' a mammal too. It ignores what we are and our particular place in nature for a Denethor-like insistence on either having the one extreme of utter and unapproachable uniqueness or the other of complete exchangability and uniformity on the other.

Wardog

2015-03-16, 02:25 PM

If there is "little reason to separate ourselves in this regard," why may a man not kill his neighbour? If you say, "because humans are social animals" or somesuch, that merely places a hurdle to be crossed. Why may a clever man not kill his neighbour if he can get away with it?

I don't want to be killed by my neighbour (or anyone else for that matter). Almost everyone else thinks the same way. I'm pretty sure you don't.

Most people don't want to kill their neighbour either*.

Hence, people generally agree not to kill each other*, and to "deal with"** those who do.

* Without good reason.
** This may or may not count as a "good reason" for breaking the more general "no killing" rule.

I don't know of any society that has not had a "no killing each other (without good reason)" rule. Even people like the Vikings (or the Mafia) had or have rules against that sort of thing. No Viking would be willing to go out raiding (in their view, a "good reason" for breaking the no-killing rule) if they thought their neighbours would pillage their homes while they were away. If you walked into a Mafia base and robbed/killed some of the people, the rest wouldn't just say "This guy is a robber and a murderer, just like us - what a great guy!".

No society that permitted random murder of its members could survive. It would either destroy itself, decide something else would be better, or be overthrown from within (or conquered from without) by people who agreed not to kill each other (but were prepared to work together to fight against the Random Murderers).

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-16, 03:14 PM

Not at all. We're one variety of animal among many; with the advantage of large brains capable of considering long-term consequences, which allows us to do things other animals cannot. We also have an unusually high capacity for empathy, which when used and developed very often has the effect of improving our lives and the lives of others. These are entirely biological functions, but they are biological functions that are in scale and combination uniquely human, which gives us as a species unique capabilities and potential. The fact that our potential and capability is unique to us is itself not unique to us however; chickens also have unique potential and capability, as do centipedes, wolf spiders, antelope and so on.

However being human, we need to be concerned with human actions. Which we judge by the plethora of human moralities, all of which are almost certainly rooted in human biology and then interpreted though circumstance and history. All of which are real things (or many real things, since we aren't all clones living out identical lives). Now I'd argue that it is in keeping with the traditions of human morality that have benefited the species greatly in the past to not run willy-nilly over the rest of the natural world, and that respecting its autonomy is a human virtue, and also to a large extent congruent with a long-term understanding of our self-interest. None of this requires some version of human morality to be universal, sacred or anything else, but instead is entirely consistent with an understanding of morality as conditional on human biology et cetera. Which in my view does nothing to reduce the importance of humanity, our morals or anything else.

Arguing that if humans are animals our morality is 'just' a trick of our social order or otherwise dispensable is like arguing that humans are 'just' mammals, and therefore free to our breath for two hours and go diving for giant squid, because the sperm whale is 'just' a mammal too. It ignores what we are and our particular place in nature for a Denethor-like insistence on either having the one extreme of utter and unapproachable uniqueness or the other of complete exchangability and uniformity on the other.

I'm not sure what we're arguing, that it's not just language difference. Man's uniqueness and moral supremacy is indeed rooted in his biology and the particular type of mind associated with that. What this amounts to is a species that has its own reason to exist: self-conscious existence for the sake of survival and creativity. Man is therefore his own measure of all things. We do not derive our morality from a chicken or centipede, but from ourselves and our own potentiality. So, that gives us a basis for morality and deciding that humans on the whole are worth more than non-humans, by virtue of what makes humans humans. And that's identical to calling man sacred.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-16, 03:19 PM

I don't want to be killed by my neighbour (or anyone else for that matter). Almost everyone else thinks the same way. I'm pretty sure you don't.

Most people don't want to kill their neighbour either*.

Hence, people generally agree not to kill each other*, and to "deal with"** those who do.

* Without good reason.
** This may or may not count as a "good reason" for breaking the more general "no killing" rule.

I don't know of any society that has not had a "no killing each other (without good reason)" rule. Even people like the Vikings (or the Mafia) had or have rules against that sort of thing. No Viking would be willing to go out raiding (in their view, a "good reason" for breaking the no-killing rule) if they thought their neighbours would pillage their homes while they were away. If you walked into a Mafia base and robbed/killed some of the people, the rest wouldn't just say "This guy is a robber and a murderer, just like us - what a great guy!".

No society that permitted random murder of its members could survive. It would either destroy itself, decide something else would be better, or be overthrown from within (or conquered from without) by people who agreed not to kill each other (but were prepared to work together to fight against the Random Murderers).

It's still an accident of history that non-murder-tolerating societies out-compete others. That just means the clever murderers have to be more clever (or more reckless). That doesn't speak to the essence of a man that makes him worth anything, specifically worth more than other animals. See my response to warty goblin, above.

noparlpf

2015-03-16, 03:31 PM

It's still an accident of history that non-murder-tolerating societies out-compete others. That just means the clever murderers have to be more clever (or more reckless). That doesn't speak to the essence of a man that makes him worth anything, specifically worth more than other animals. See my response to warty goblin, above.

It's not really a fluke, though. A settlement of two hundred people is going to have more resources and structures than a settlement of, say, three people (say, a mated pair and one offspring). If one person can provide food for four, then three of them can work on other tasks like building better shelters, raising/teaching children, or experimenting with medicine. And you can only have a settlement of two hundred people if they're all reasonably certain that they won't be killed over minor arguments.
And with more resources and more specialised knowledge, they're more likely to survive to breeding age and be healthy enough to produce healthy offspring. Non-murdering people are therefore going to proliferate more overall than wantonly-murdering people.

What could make humans different from (most) other animals, in my opinion, is the ability to communicate complex abstract ideas and work out solutions to disputes (e.g. over food, territory, mates) in a way other than exercising physical force. That hasn't worked out very well so far (I don't think there's been a span of one year with no wars like, ever). But it's hypothetically possible.

warty goblin

2015-03-16, 03:55 PM

I'm not sure what we're arguing, that it's not just language difference. Man's uniqueness and moral supremacy is indeed rooted in his biology and the particular type of mind associated with that. What this amounts to is a species that has its own reason to exist: self-conscious existence for the sake of survival and creativity. Man is therefore his own measure of all things. We do not derive our morality from a chicken or centipede, but from ourselves and our own potentiality. So, that gives us a basis for morality and deciding that humans on the whole are worth more than non-humans, by virtue of what makes humans humans. And that's identical to calling man sacred.
Yes and no. Mostly no. We have no more or less reason to exist than any other species; like all the rest we're a particular outcome of natural selection. We measure all things in human terms because we are human, but this is neither unique nor based on our moral supremacy; because we do not have any moral supremacy. I would say instead that humans are worth more to humans than non-humans, because we're the ones doing the judging. There's no 'on the whole' about it; this is a conclusion baked into us by dint of natural selection, is dependent on the entity doing the judging being human, and requires no appeal to human creativity or special value or anything else. We like humans more than non-humans because we're humans. Get between a mother bear and her cubs, and she'll likely maul you; because to her the lives of her cubs are worth more than you are. Yet I don't think you are arguing that bear cubs are sacred. Ergo humans are not sacred either.

For a slightly different example, consider a space alien. Let's suppose that it comes from a planet that ranges from the tropical to the desert, but has no arctic or equivalent habitat. In its view polar bears and seals may be simply the most remarkable things on our planet; because it's never met anything remotely like them before. We on the other hand are a random ape that got smart; but the alien already knew that could happen since its species was smart and creative enough to travel between stars. We would be less interesting, less remarkable, and less valuable to this alien than a polar bear - particularly given the differences in abundance - even though it's at least as smart and creative as we are.

veti

2015-03-16, 05:25 PM

It's still an accident of history that non-murder-tolerating societies out-compete others. That just means the clever murderers have to be more clever (or more reckless). That doesn't speak to the essence of a man that makes him worth anything, specifically worth more than other animals. See my response to warty goblin, above.

The most recent XKCD (http://xkcd.com/1499/) is remarkably pertinent to this point.

No, it's not "an accident" that society doesn't tolerate murder. Societies evolve traits that are advantageous to maintaining the society, much as biological species evolve traits that are advantageous to maintaining the species. A rule against murder, however defined, is pretty much a necessary starting point for any kind of society at all.

This "essence of a man that makes him worth ... more than other animals", as goblin says, is simply the fact that it's humans who are doing the judging. Another animal wouldn't come to the same conclusion, and we have no moral basis for concluding that, for instance, goblin's Mother Bear who just mauled you was doing something "wrong".

To be sure you have a reasonable basis for not wanting her to do that. But what would be the obligation on a dispassionate observer who watched the whole thing? If they were human, they'd probably (probably) side with you. But I think that "probably" would become less certain if, for instance, you'd actually been deliberately threatening the cubs - which implies that it's less about "humanity being sacred" than about "knowing, from our own understanding of humans, that the bear was overreacting". It's that "understanding", which we more or less automatically extend to all humans (and only humans), that makes us treat them "specially".

Eldan

2015-03-16, 05:57 PM

If "not killing others of your kind" is morality, then most animals have that. I'd say that most animals only rarely kill others of their own kind.

Kislath

2015-03-16, 06:19 PM

Coidzor

2015-03-16, 10:03 PM

If "not killing others of your kind" is morality, then most animals have that. I'd say that most animals only rarely kill others of their own kind.

Hell, most animals don't kill senselessly either, IIRC, although there are some that do, like some tigers and lynxes and house cats and zoo-bred tigers that get the opportunity to kill or that get released into the wild somehow.

Generally there's some reason for killing, or at least more of one than raw petulance or boredom.

SiuiS

2015-03-16, 11:01 PM

2. Experiments have already found that certain monkeys have a very strong sense of fairness, so we know the foundations of morality are not an exclusively human thing.

Exactly.

3. Just because morality is subjective and evolved doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Subjective is not the same as arbitrary, and indeed the fact it's evolved (in both the biological and social sense) means it's almost certainly not arbitrary and rather serves some very important purposes. Beauty and love are subjective products of evolution too, but few but the most hard-line abstract-thinking nihilists and pragmatists would claim those are arbitrary and meaningless.

Just the opposite, right? Our base conditions were insufficient so we developed morality so things would be better. That makes it more valuable and germane to sentience, not less.

Is roach-squishing murder or not?

Is ending the life of a non-human life form a socially unacceptable method of ending the life of a human? No. What does that have to do with anything?

Please actually use terms that mean what you want. Murder is an entirely legal construct, not a native one. What makes something murder as opposed to killing is the agreed upon context. It is relational, and that's okay.

If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred.

Your statement is utterly laughable. Saying "we could act like animals, or like humans" is asinine and only makes any sense to people who already believe humans must somehow be above animals. It is not an argument which proves anything, it is a loaded term which functions to establish the legitimacy of a prejudice.

We can behave like animals! Animals like the bonobo or chimpanzee which develop social methods of handling conflict instead of violence. Which cooperate to raise their clan in a healthy mental environment. Which can have third parties provide outside arbitration and decide what is fair past the inherent biases of the two parties involved.

You are saying "agree with me or I'll take my ball and go home".

Different moralities impact people's lives differently, and therefore make real differences in people's lives. It is fallacious to suppose that simply because something fails to be universally or transcendentally true it cannot be locally and conditionally true.

Just so.

Mx.Silver

2015-03-17, 09:02 AM

We can talk AND we have the power to use tools.

A few other creatures can talk with an actual spoken language, like dolphins for example, and a few can use tools like crows and apes, but only we humans can do both.
Several species of primates seem to have at least some claim to language, as least as far as we can observe. Some dolphin species have also been observed using tools.
Parrots also seem to be capable of both, in at least a few species.

If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred.
Technically, if humans are animals then by definition we're already 'behaving like animals' regardless of what specifically we do.
Unless you mean 'behaving like non-human animals' in which case that also wouldn't be implied consider that rather a lot of species of non-animals also don't behave like each other.

noparlpf

2015-03-17, 11:39 AM

So I just typed this post out like an animal? Whoa. Mind. Blown. :smalltongue:

SiuiS

2015-03-17, 02:56 PM

Well, you know. Monkeys and typewriters.

Wardog

2015-03-17, 04:40 PM

Man is therefore his own measure of all things. We do not derive our morality from a chicken or centipede, but from ourselves and our own potentiality. So, that gives us a basis for morality and deciding that humans on the whole are worth more than non-humans, by virtue of what makes humans humans. And that's identical to calling man sacred.

Not by any definition of "sacred" I am aware of.

Definition of sacred in English:
adjective
1Connected with God or a god or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration:
‘sacred rites’
‘the site at Eleusis is sacred to Demeter’

1.1Religious rather than secular:
‘sacred music’

1.2(Of writing or text) embodying the laws or doctrines of a religion:
‘a sacred Hindu text’

1.3Regarded with great respect and reverence by a particular religion, group, or individual:
‘cows are sacred and the eating of beef is taboo’

1.4Regarded as too valuable to be interfered with; sacrosanct:
‘to a police officer nothing is sacred’
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sacred

Jeff the Green

2015-03-17, 05:36 PM

Not by any definition of "sacred" I am aware of.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sacred

By 1.3 you could argue that humans are sacred to humanism, but a) that's not a term most humanists would prefer and b) I'm not entirely sure Donnadogsoth is aiming at humanism. If so it has a much larger human superiority complex than I'm used to in modern humanism.

Lheticus

2015-03-17, 06:05 PM

I'd just like to say quickly that I clearly did NOT know what kind of worm can I was opening with this topic. XD

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-17, 08:13 PM

Not by any definition of "sacred" I am aware of.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sacred

Re: definition 4: In what way will you allow Nature to interfere with our destiny?

noparlpf

2015-03-17, 08:15 PM

When y'all bring up words like "sacred" or "destiny" it gets pretty hard to answer without breaking forum rules. I don't think this is going to go anywhere productive from here...

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-17, 08:19 PM

Technically, if humans are animals then by definition we're already 'behaving like animals' regardless of what specifically we do. Unless you mean 'behaving like non-human animals' in which case that also wouldn't be implied consider that rather a lot of species of non-animals also don't behave like each other.

I'm not speaking to technical definitions that flatly declares man an animal. Technically elephants have language and canaries sing but that doesn't mean that what they do is a component of increasing their potential relative population density, which is what language and classical symphonies are doing with humans. That's the quality of distinction I'm speaking to.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-17, 08:38 PM

Is ending the life of a non-human life form a socially unacceptable method of ending the life of a human? No. What does that have to do with anything?

So it's not murder. It's not the killing of an innocent being, the consequence for which should be grave to reflect the dignity and worth of the one killed. In other words, roaches ain't human. Only humans are subject to being murdered.

But now, say you kill my roach—my pet roach that I raised from an egg and feed breadcrumbs everyday. It's suddenly worth something more, it partakes of my dignity and value, and stomping it becomes a more serious matter because it is my property. But the value always flows from humans. Nature has no value outside of man. Not a reason to go around blowing natural landscapes up like corporate Taliban, because Nature has a value to us, in the state that is is in—it contains beauty in its original state, and it behooves us to preserve that beauty unless it is needed to advance the species through development, mining, etc. (speaking towards Space exploration).

If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred.

Your statement is utterly laughable. Saying "we could act like animals, or like humans" is asinine and only makes any sense to people who already believe humans must somehow be above animals. It is not an argument which proves anything, it is a loaded term which functions to establish the legitimacy of a prejudice.

We can behave like animals! Animals like the bonobo or chimpanzee which develop social methods of handling conflict instead of violence. Which cooperate to raise their clan in a healthy mental environment. Which can have third parties provide outside arbitration and decide what is fair past the inherent biases of the two parties involved.

You are saying "agree with me or I'll take my ball and go home".

I'm not sure what you mean here. Nature is a great teacher. We can surely learn from bonobos and rabbits and lyre birds, and take delight in it all. But we, at the end of the day, must realise that ideas rule the human world, that ideas are the Doom of Man, and we must be ruled by one capital idea or other. Here, I am gesturing in the direction of the idea that man is the measure of all things, that we have no other moral compass that is relevant to the deepest desires in our hearts, than the compass of our own design, in terms of man as a creative being, capable of wilfully increasing his potential relative population density. Contributing to that is acting like a human, most properly speaking; contributing against that is to besmirch the office and behave, I'll amend, worse than an animal.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-17, 09:00 PM

The most recent XKCD (http://xkcd.com/1499/) is remarkably pertinent to this point.

No, it's not "an accident" that society doesn't tolerate murder. Societies evolve traits that are advantageous to maintaining the society, much as biological species evolve traits that are advantageous to maintaining the species. A rule against murder, however defined, is pretty much a necessary starting point for any kind of society at all.

It's an accident in the sense that the fact we have an evolutionary universe itself is an accident. Like how the reason there are only five Platonic solids is an accident. It's how reality happened to shake out.

...we have no moral basis for concluding that, for instance, goblin's Mother Bear who just mauled you was doing something "wrong".

No, of course it's not being immoral. Animals are amoral. It requires free will to be moral or immoral.

To be sure you have a reasonable basis for not wanting [the bear] to do that. But what would be the obligation on a dispassionate observer who watched the whole thing? If they were human, they'd probably (probably) side with you. But I think that "probably" would become less certain if, for instance, you'd actually been deliberately threatening the cubs - which implies that it's less about "humanity being sacred" than about "knowing, from our own understanding of humans, that the bear was overreacting". It's that "understanding", which we more or less automatically extend to all humans (and only humans), that makes us treat them "specially".

If you mean understanding of our free will, that grants us a moral nature, then I agree. If we recognise we are the only source of morality in accordance with our nature, then we have become, in seed, what we need to be, what that nature commands.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-17, 09:28 PM

Yes and no. Mostly no. We have no more or less reason to exist than any other species; like all the rest we're a particular outcome of natural selection. We measure all things in human terms because we are human, but this is neither unique nor based on our moral supremacy; because we do not have any moral supremacy. I would say instead that humans are worth more to humans than non-humans, because we're the ones doing the judging. There's no 'on the whole' about it; this is a conclusion baked into us by dint of natural selection, is dependent on the entity doing the judging being human, and requires no appeal to human creativity or special value or anything else. We like humans more than non-humans because we're humans. Get between a mother bear and her cubs, and she'll likely maul you; because to her the lives of her cubs are worth more than you are. Yet I don't think you are arguing that bear cubs are sacred. Ergo humans are not sacred either.

For a slightly different example, consider a space alien. Let's suppose that it comes from a planet that ranges from the tropical to the desert, but has no arctic or equivalent habitat. In its view polar bears and seals may be simply the most remarkable things on our planet; because it's never met anything remotely like them before. We on the other hand are a random ape that got smart; but the alien already knew that could happen since its species was smart and creative enough to travel between stars. We would be less interesting, less remarkable, and less valuable to this alien than a polar bear - particularly given the differences in abundance - even though it's at least as smart and creative as we are.

The hypothetical aliens would be acting immorally if they valued bears more than us, by virtue of said aliens' minds, capable obviously of the same increase of potential population density--power over nature--as we. They would be denying our commonality as sapient species. It would be inclining towards murder.

Let's consider another: can you give any example where the life of an innocent human is, in principle, worth less than any non-human life form or nonliving thing? I say "innocent" because I'm not arguing in favour of criminals who have depressed their own worth to humanity by their chosen actions, I mean someone who is a human of no crime, such as a child or thereabouts. If you can find no such example, I give you the sacred species. Bears' opinions do not matter because bears do not form opinions in this manner; if they did, they would be one of us.

noparlpf

2015-03-17, 09:50 PM

Here, I am gesturing in the direction of the idea that man is the measure of all things, that we have no other moral compass that is relevant to the deepest desires in our hearts, than the compass of our own design, in terms of man as a creative being, capable of willfully increasing his potential relative population density. Contributing to that is acting like a human, most properly speaking; contributing against that is to besmirch the office and behave, I'll amend, worse than an animal.

I don't have anything to do with increasing potential human population density or whatever. If anything I do more to increase potential non-human population density. (Vet student; absolutely zero plans to procreate.)

Let's consider another: can you give any example where the life of an innocent human is, in principle, worth less than any non-human life form or nonliving thing? I say "innocent" because I'm not arguing in favour of criminals who have depressed their own worth to humanity by their chosen actions, I mean someone who is a human of no crime, such as a child or thereabouts. If you can find no such example, I give you the sacred species. Bears' opinions do not matter because bears do not form opinions in this manner; if they did, they would be one of us.

Like, all the time. If I'm on a sinking ship and I see an unfamiliar human kid and an unfamiliar bear cub I'm gonna pull the bear cub onto my lifeboat first.

warty goblin

2015-03-17, 09:55 PM

The hypothetical aliens would be acting immorally if they valued bears more than us, by virtue of said aliens' minds, capable obviously of the same increase of potential population density--power over nature--as we. They would be denying our commonality as sapient species. It would be inclining towards murder.

Or it decides it can best increase its population density and exercise control over nature by killing all but a couple of us, keeping the survivors in zoos as curios, and turning Earth into luxury condos for aliens. With giant freezers where the polar bears can roam. Seems quite in keeping with this strange philosophy of moral worth through screwing like rabbits that you're proposing; after all space filled with us is not filled by aliens, and apparently controlling nature to fill space with lots of one's own species is now the one true path of destiny.

Is it me, or did the goalposts suddenly sprout legs and move?

Let's consider another: can you give any example where the life of an innocent human is, in principle, worth less than any non-human life form or nonliving thing? I say "innocent" because I'm not arguing in favour of criminals who have depressed their own worth to humanity by their chosen actions, I mean someone who is a human of no crime, such as a child or thereabouts. If you can find no such example, I give you the sacred species. Bears' opinions do not matter because bears do not form opinions in this manner; if they did, they would be one of us.
edit: on reflection I can't answer this within the board's politics rules at all.

Murska

2015-03-17, 10:31 PM

Let's consider another: can you give any example where the life of an innocent human is, in principle, worth less than any non-human life form or nonliving thing? I say "innocent" because I'm not arguing in favour of criminals who have depressed their own worth to humanity by their chosen actions, I mean someone who is a human of no crime, such as a child or thereabouts. If you can find no such example, I give you the sacred species. Bears' opinions do not matter because bears do not form opinions in this manner; if they did, they would be one of us.

Well, for an example, I would definitely allow a single innocent human to die before sacrificing every dog on Earth.

But the value always flows from humans. Nature has no value outside of man.

This would be because it's us humans speaking of our values. Obviously our values are based on things we value, that's a tautology. Other minds value different things.

The hypothetical aliens would be acting immorally if they valued bears more than us, by virtue of said aliens' minds, capable obviously of the same increase of potential population density--power over nature--as we. They would be denying our commonality as sapient species. It would be inclining towards murder.

According to our morals, yes. According to theirs, no. Morality_Humans is different from Morality_Aliens, and neither is more objectively correct.

OP: There are a lot of obvious differences between humans and other animals. We have different biology, a variety of different attributes and so on. Just like all animals are different from each other. 'Human' is a concept meant to act as a term for an object with a whole bunch of characteristics such as 'two legs', 'two arms', 'two eyes', 'walks upright', 'can talk' and so on. We also accept many objects as humans that don't have all of these characteristics, such as an one-armed, peg-legged mute pirate with an eyepatch who's stuck in a wheelchair. There are some more fundamental things we associate with the concept, though there's plenty of debate as to what exactly they are. I'm going to throw out the word 'consciousness', poorly defined as it is. Probably most people would agree that to be human, one must have DNA that's very close to human average (when compared to other species). Of course, if a human mind is uploaded into a machine, many people, myself included, would agree that it is still a human. Some people wouldn't agree that people from particular parts of the world are human, or people who follow a particular ideology. One important attribute would be a mind constructed in a certain way, but then I (and most others) don't know enough about brains and mental architecture to make more than a hazy guess at what specified a 'human' mind from any other possible mind.

In fact, the concept of a 'human' becomes difficult to precisely define when you start looking at it more closely instead of just intuitively boxing things into 'humans' and 'non-humans'. For everyday use it's easy - I can look at a glass or a phone and instantly sort them into the non-human pile, and I can see my friend on the street and recognize that he is, in fact, a human. But it's not a precisely defined concept so when you get into edge cases, mostly through transhumanism, it becomes hard to use and we should not cling to it when we don't need it. Who cares whether an uploaded human is still a human, when it is abundantly clear that they are a person? Is it important to know whether a largely networked AGI is a person, when it obviously has moral worth? Words are meant to convey information, not to hide our confusion.

Dexam

2015-03-18, 03:47 AM

It's all a classification error. To steal blatantly from Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen in The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, we are not Homo Sapiens, the Wise Man; we are Pan Narrans, the Storytelling Chimpanzee. What marks us as different from other animals is not only the ability to tell stories, but to also tell stories about stories.

Another factor is our extelligence, our ability to pass our cultural capital on to future generations. Lessons, stories, songs and poems, drawings and sculpture, writings, recordings of sound and images, the Internet; our extelligence far surpasses any other species that we're aware of.

Killer Angel

2015-03-18, 07:12 AM

Well, for an example, I would definitely allow a single innocent human to die before sacrificing every dog on Earth.

I'm also sure that some dog owners, value the life of their own dog, more than the life of many unknown humans.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-18, 08:08 AM

I don't have anything to do with increasing potential human population density or whatever. If anything I do more to increase potential non-human population density. (Vet student; absolutely zero plans to procreate.)

The medical arts as a whole contribute to increasing human power over nature, so you're in there if obliquely.

Like, all the time. If I'm on a sinking ship and I see an unfamiliar human kid and an unfamiliar bear cub I'm gonna pull the bear cub onto my lifeboat first.

Which would be astonishing immoral, but I suppose that's the spirit of the age.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-18, 08:12 AM

Or it decides it can best increase its population density and exercise control over nature by killing all but a couple of us, keeping the survivors in zoos as curios, and turning Earth into luxury condos for aliens. With giant freezers where the polar bears can roam. Seems quite in keeping with this strange philosophy of moral worth through screwing like rabbits that you're proposing; after all space filled with us is not filled by aliens, and apparently controlling nature to fill space with lots of one's own species is now the one true path of destiny.

Is it me, or did the goalposts suddenly sprout legs and move?

You misunderstand. The aliens and we are one. We form one single entity whose destinies are linked. For them to destroy us for the sake of advancing their power to exist is to contradict their own nature. And it's not about actual population density, it's about potential as in power over nature. If we have 10 billion people on planet, we should be striving for power to have 20 billion, as a buffer zone against the hostile universe.

warty goblin

2015-03-18, 08:51 AM

You misunderstand. The aliens and we are one. We form one single entity whose destinies are linked. For them to destroy us for the sake of advancing their power to exist is to contradict their own nature.

This is a very strange assumption. And it has to be an assumption, because it follows from nothing observable in nature. It's also a very strong assumption; which so far as I can tell only serves to make the universe be nice to us. This is not an assumption I see any reason to make, and an enormous number of reasons not to. Starting with refuge in uniqueness not being a good argument for anything, and ending with the fact that humans don't even act this way much of the time.

There's absolutely no reason for an alien to regard us as alien-equivalent in value because we have cities and so forth. To the contrary, that makes us more likely to be seen as rivals; competitors for the same ecological niche as tool-users at the top of the food chain. All the more reason to get nova-bombing now, and ask questions later, in case those hairless apes get ideas. Plus it allows a much higher theoretical population cap for the aliens; just another safeguard against an unfeeling universe.

And let's be honest for a second here; the worst possible piece of news you could get about space aliens is that they're fundamentally human in nature. Better get ready for some good old fashioned inter-tribal warfare, and we're the unfortunate schmucks who brought a gun to an asteroid fight.

And it's not about actual population density, it's about potential as in power over nature. If we have 10 billion people on planet, we should be striving for power to have 20 billion, as a buffer zone against the hostile universe.
Here we are at potential as a moral good again. Seems very strange to me, saying the fact that you could in theory do something makes you better. I've always figured you make yourself better by doing good things, not merely by being capable of doing them.

Lheticus

2015-03-18, 09:05 AM

This is a very strange assumption. And it has to be an assumption, because it follows from nothing observable in nature. It's also a very strong assumption; which so far as I can tell only serves to make the universe be nice to us. This is not an assumption I see any reason to make, and an enormous number of reasons not to. Starting with refuge in uniqueness not being a good argument for anything, and ending with the fact that humans don't even act this way much of the time.

There's absolutely no reason for an alien to regard us as alien-equivalent in value because we have cities and so forth. To the contrary, that makes us more likely to be seen as rivals; competitors for the same ecological niche as tool-users at the top of the food chain. All the more reason to get nova-bombing now, and ask questions later, in case those hairless apes get ideas. Plus it allows a much higher theoretical population cap for the aliens; just another safeguard against an unfeeling universe.

And let's be honest for a second here; the worst possible piece of news you could get about space aliens is that they're fundamentally human in nature. Better get ready for some good old fashioned inter-tribal warfare, and we're the unfortunate schmucks who brought a gun to an asteroid fight.

Here we are at potential as a moral good again. Seems very strange to me, saying the fact that you could in theory do something makes you better. I've always figured you make yourself better by doing good things, not merely by being capable of doing them.

I've been trying to ignore this since I've got all I really wanted out of this thread, but this really seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Aliens aren't really a suitable example for any argument for or against human superiority because we know nothing of life on other planets save for conjecture. It is just as conjectural to assume a race of aliens would wipe us out as it is to assume that they would not--everything about aliens is a "known unknown". For the sake of what little sanity I have I ask that the both of you make less ridiculous arguments.

veti

2015-03-18, 03:35 PM

You misunderstand. The aliens and we are one. We form one single entity whose destinies are linked. For them to destroy us for the sake of advancing their power to exist is to contradict their own nature. And it's not about actual population density, it's about potential as in power over nature. If we have 10 billion people on planet, we should be striving for power to have 20 billion, as a buffer zone against the hostile universe.

"Destiny" seems to me a very problematic idea to introduce to this argument. What does it mean? What does it mean to these aliens, of whom we know absolutely nothing except that they've apparently cracked interstellar travel while we still have no real plans to visit other bodies in our own system? How can you make such a broad assertion about "their own nature" without knowing anything about it?

And this "potential population" theory of morality also seems - eccentric. I get the "buffer" argument, but all our experience to date suggests that population expands to fill the space available for it. Which implies that if we purposely create a buffer, it will fill up, and then we'll be right back where we started. It's like a pack rat moving into a bigger house - it's a temporary palliative, but in the long run it's just going to make for a much bigger problem.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-18, 05:41 PM

You misunderstand. The aliens and we are one. We form one single entity whose destinies are linked. For them to destroy us for the sake of advancing their power to exist is to contradict their own nature.

This is a very strange assumption. And it has to be an assumption, because it follows from nothing observable in nature. It's also a very strong assumption; which so far as I can tell only serves to make the universe be nice to us. This is not an assumption I see any reason to make, and an enormous number of reasons not to. Starting with refuge in uniqueness not being a good argument for anything, and ending with the fact that humans don't even act this way much of the time.

There's absolutely no reason for an alien to regard us as alien-equivalent in value because we have cities and so forth. To the contrary, that makes us more likely to be seen as rivals; competitors for the same ecological niche as tool-users at the top of the food chain. All the more reason to get nova-bombing now, and ask questions later, in case those hairless apes get ideas. Plus it allows a much higher theoretical population cap for the aliens; just another safeguard against an unfeeling universe.

And let's be honest for a second here; the worst possible piece of news you could get about space aliens is that they're fundamentally human in nature. Better get ready for some good old fashioned inter-tribal warfare, and we're the unfortunate schmucks who brought a gun to an asteroid fight.

We're speaking on different levels here. You're talking about base human interaction, and that that baseness may well apply to aliens. We'd hope not, but we don't know for sure what they'd be like. That's the lower level. But on the higher level, if they're here, they must have ideas, and if they're discovering ideas, then, at the highest level of their consciousness, they must be like us. And in that sense we are identically sacred and properly comrades.

And it's not about actual population density, it's about potential as in power over nature. If we have 10 billion people on planet, we should be striving for power to have 20 billion, as a buffer zone against the hostile universe.

Here we are at potential as a moral good again. Seems very strange to me, saying the fact that you could in theory do something makes you better. I've always figured you make yourself better by doing good things, not merely by being capable of doing them.

Again, two levels are here. One is the level of what we could do, fire alarms, personal defense handguns, physical fitness; two is the level of what we do do: plant tulips, work to produce value, interact socially. Potential population density is a measure of wealth, both used and stored. Better to save for a rainy day then be caught short.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-18, 07:46 PM

You misunderstand. The aliens and we are one. We form one single entity whose destinies are linked. For them to destroy us for the sake of advancing their power to exist is to contradict their own nature. And it's not about actual population density, it's about potential as in power over nature. If we have 10 billion people on planet, we should be striving for power to have 20 billion, as a buffer zone against the hostile universe.

"Destiny" seems to me a very problematic idea to introduce to this argument. What does it mean? What does it mean to these aliens, of whom we know absolutely nothing except that they've apparently cracked interstellar travel while we still have no real plans to visit other bodies in our own system? How can you make such a broad assertion about "their own nature" without knowing anything about it?

Destiny refers to the goal of our highest ambition.

If aliens have cracked FTL, they must have done so through ideas. Some alien or other discovered how to do it using science. Their minds may be superficially different from ours, but at the highest level of scientific hypothesis their discovery ability will match ours. If it didn't, they would have no access to the ideas needed to build an economy capable of developing the technique of interstellar travel. I suppose one could advance ideas of magic...?

And this "potential population" theory of morality also seems - eccentric. I get the "buffer" argument, but all our experience to date suggests that population expands to fill the space available for it. Which implies that if we purposely create a buffer, it will fill up, and then we'll be right back where we started. It's like a pack rat moving into a bigger house - it's a temporary palliative, but in the long run it's just going to make for a much bigger problem.

Population in the West isn't expanding, it's contracting. More wealth, higher living standards, better education, declining religious mandates, and better (or more seductive) things to do than mindlessly breed will ensure we don't pack the last square yard of Earth with people.

Aedilred

2015-03-18, 10:15 PM

Population in the West isn't expanding, it's contracting. More wealth, higher living standards, better education, declining religious mandates, and better (or more seductive) things to do than mindlessly breed will ensure we don't pack the last square yard of Earth with people.

This isn't entirely true. Population growth is decelerating (globally) but growth is still ongoing, even in the west. Very few countries have declining populations and almost none of them are in what was traditionally viewed as "the West" (most are former "Second World" countries).

Population growth still tends to be driven from the bottom up, and "expand to fill all available space" still seems to be a guiding principle, if "space" is defined generously in terms of resources and enrivonmental support capacity rather than raw square footage. If more "space" became readily available, I'd be surprised if growth didn't pick up again.

veti

2015-03-18, 11:14 PM

Destiny refers to the goal of our highest ambition.

I'm sorry, but that seems to be replacing one undefined term with another. What makes one ambition "higher" than another? What even is an "ambition", as it applies to an entire species?

If aliens have cracked FTL, they must have done so through ideas. Some alien or other discovered how to do it using science. Their minds may be superficially different from ours, but at the highest level of scientific hypothesis their discovery ability will match ours.

Or - and of course this is unknown, but I can't see any reason to rule it out and every reason to rule it in - their "highest level" (again with the "height" metaphor?) of scientific hypothesis will be as far "above" ours, as ours is above that of the mosquito. The idea that they will recognise and greet us as kindred spirits seems to me the height of wishful thinking.

Population in the West isn't expanding, it's contracting. More wealth, higher living standards, better education, declining religious mandates, and better (or more seductive) things to do than mindlessly breed will ensure we don't pack the last square yard of Earth with people.

Not true, or at best a huge oversimplification. Pick a Western country and check its population change over the past 20 years. Most have increased markedly.

SiuiS

2015-03-19, 12:58 AM

I'm also sure that some dog owners, value the life of their own dog, more than the life of many unknown humans.

Hell, I will straight up murder any number of unknown humans to save my dog.

Let's all take a moment to reflect, though? When you are asking questions that can only be answered by the other person violating forum rules, you're playing dirty pool. Try reconsidering how to make your point. We don't want this to become a passive aggressive screw fest. If you can't win a debate on merit of your point, don't have it.

Skeppio

2015-03-19, 02:26 AM

Hell, I will straight up murder any number of unknown humans to save my dog.

Please, please, please, please tell me you're kidding or exaggerating. :smalleek:

noparlpf

2015-03-19, 02:51 AM

Please, please, please, please tell me you're kidding or exaggerating. :smalleek:

Well, it depends on how big a number of humans and how well armed they are...but my animals are my children.

Coidzor

2015-03-19, 03:36 AM

Please, please, please, please tell me you're kidding or exaggerating. :smalleek:

It's not the traditional origin of a feud, but shooting someone's dog is a great way to prolong such a situation.

warty goblin

2015-03-19, 11:17 AM

We're speaking on different levels here. You're talking about base human interaction, and that that baseness may well apply to aliens. We'd hope not, but we don't know for sure what they'd be like. That's the lower level. But on the higher level, if they're here, they must have ideas, and if they're discovering ideas, then, at the highest level of their consciousness, they must be like us. And in that sense we are identically sacred and properly comrades.

This requires the further strange assumption that all things that have ideas work the same in a very strong way. Which again I see no reason to make. It's certainly possible that the universe ends up this way, but I don't think it follows simply or easily; and your assertions are nowhere near strong enough evidence.

Again, two levels are here. One is the level of what we could do, fire alarms, personal defense handguns, physical fitness; two is the level of what we do do: plant tulips, work to produce value, interact socially. Potential population density is a measure of wealth, both used and stored. Better to save for a rainy day then be caught short.

Apparently my cynical upbringing has rotted my brain, because I have frankly no idea what's going on here. Working out and planting tulips are both things that I actually do, so I don't see why one of those is a 'could do' and one is a 'do do.' Or why apparently fire alarms don't produce value, but planting tulips do?

Besides which population density is a crappy measure of wealth. Your average refugee camp is very densely populated, yet also quite poor. Your average country estate is very rich, but extremely diffuse when it comes to population. If you're interested in wealth, measure wealth.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-19, 01:37 PM

This isn't entirely true. Population growth is decelerating (globally) but growth is still ongoing, even in the west. Very few countries have declining populations and almost none of them are in what was traditionally viewed as "the West" (most are former "Second World" countries).

Wrong. The West is entering a phase of suicidal birthrates. In many of Western countries population increases are due to immigration. Check out this Forbes article from 2012:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2012/10/16/warning-bell-for-developed-countries-declining-birth-rates/

Population growth still tends to be driven from the bottom up, and "expand to fill all available space" still seems to be a guiding principle, if "space" is defined generously in terms of resources and enrivonmental support capacity rather than raw square footage. If more "space" became readily available, I'd be surprised if growth didn't pick up again.

Perhaps you're right that proper economic conditions spur population growth, which isn't a problem.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-19, 01:51 PM

Destiny refers to the goal of our highest ambition.
I'm sorry, but that seems to be replacing one undefined term with another. What makes one ambition "higher" than another? What even is an "ambition", as it applies to an entire species?

By higher I mean nobler (acting in love towards mankind) and grander in scope, speaking to developing the universe itself, most specifically in the moderate future the development and control of the solar system, by for example launching the Russian-proposed Strategic Defense of Earth grid against incoming comets and asteroids. It's ambition because it's something everyone can participate in even in peripheral ways and in spirit, like a war.

If aliens have cracked FTL, they must have done so through ideas. Some alien or other discovered how to do it using science. Their minds may be superficially different from ours, but at the highest level of scientific hypothesis their discovery ability will match ours.
Or - and of course this is unknown, but I can't see any reason to rule it out and every reason to rule it in - their "highest level" (again with the "height" metaphor?) of scientific hypothesis will be as far "above" ours, as ours is above that of the mosquito. The idea that they will recognise and greet us as kindred spirits seems to me the height of wishful thinking.

Height here refers to the level of thought, from mere perception (animals) to hypothesis, higher hypothesis, and the hypothesis of the higher hypothesis. I know of these things but do not know them as a scientist would know them, but I get the gist: at the highest level we act as geniuses to find ideas of natural law. Unless we were to propose “super laws” or “magic” or whatever, the hypothetical aliens would be doing as we do, however more or less efficiently. And again, of course, they may prove as evil and unthinking as we are and so could become our enemies.

Population in the West isn't expanding, it's contracting. More wealth, higher living standards, better education, declining religious mandates, and better (or more seductive) things to do than mindlessly breed will ensure we don't pack the last square yard of Earth with people.
Not true, or at best a huge oversimplification. Pick a Western country and check its population change over the past 20 years. Most have increased markedly.

See my link given to Aedilred, above.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-19, 02:05 PM

We're speaking on different levels here. You're talking about base human interaction, and that that baseness may well apply to aliens. We'd hope not, but we don't know for sure what they'd be like. That's the lower level. But on the higher level, if they're here, they must have ideas, and if they're discovering ideas, then, at the highest level of their consciousness, they must be like us. And in that sense we are identically sacred and properly comrades.
This requires the further strange assumption that all things that have ideas work the same in a very strong way. Which again I see no reason to make. It's certainly possible that the universe ends up this way, but I don't think it follows simply or easily; and your assertions are nowhere near strong enough evidence.

I didn't say aliens must work the same in a very strong way, I said at the very highest level of their thought processes they must think like us or else they wouldn't have discovered the same ideas that we discover. Anything else is an appeal to magic.

Again, two levels are here. One is the level of what we could do, fire alarms, personal defense handguns, physical fitness; two is the level of what we do do: plant tulips, work to produce value, interact socially. Potential population density is a measure of wealth, both used and stored. Better to save for a rainy day then be caught short.
Apparently my cynical upbringing has rotted my brain, because I have frankly no idea what's going on here. Working out and planting tulips are both things that I actually do, so I don't see why one of those is a 'could do' and one is a 'do do.' Or why apparently fire alarms don't produce value, but planting tulips do?

Physical fitness, unless played for its own sake, is a preparation for something, that's all I meant. You're not necessarily doing anything with your enhanced fitness or increased strength but it's there if you need it. As I said, “save for a rainy day.”

Besides which population density is a crappy measure of wealth. Your average refugee camp is very densely populated, yet also quite poor. Your average country estate is very rich, but extremely diffuse when it comes to population. If you're interested in wealth, measure wealth.

I said, “potential relative population density,” not “population density.” The former measures power to exist, which is the highest measurement of wealth.

Murska

2015-03-19, 02:18 PM

SiuiS

2015-03-19, 02:19 PM

Please, please, please, please tell me you're kidding or exaggerating. :smalleek:

I am exaggerating, but I value animals and humans at the same level. This means I consider animals deserving of the same rights as humans. It also means I consider humans deserving of the same treatment as animals.

If humans have one of my loved ones at their mercy, regardless of leg count, I will use the continuum of force to stop them from hurting my loved one. This means I will say "stop", then I will yell "stop!", then I will move forward and also declare "stop or I will stop you" and finally I will use physical force to stop them. This gets complicated by the humans' responses. If they try to hurt me I will defended myself. If they run, they're fine. If they vindictively damage my loved one then I will respond Unfavorably to that.

This is the same response I use on animals, by the way. If a wild dog gets aggressive I will scare it off. It it calls my bluff I will incentivize it to leave. If it's going to routinely return to harass me or mine I will find a permanent solution – wall, animal control, trap and impound, speak to owner (if less wild than I thought), or the unfortunate necessity.

This is leaving alone that animals, children, elderly and infirm folk are berserk buttons for me. Any population group at your mercy that is being abused stirs my blood. That is unjust. That will be seen to.

warty goblin

2015-03-19, 02:28 PM

veti

2015-03-19, 03:52 PM

By higher I mean nobler (acting in love towards mankind) and grander in scope, speaking to developing the universe itself, most specifically in the moderate future the development and control of the solar system, by for example launching the Russian-proposed Strategic Defense of Earth grid against incoming comets and asteroids. It's ambition because it's something everyone can participate in even in peripheral ways and in spirit, like a war.

OK. The point I'm getting at here is that each new term you introduce ("destiny", "higher", "nobler", "grander") is inherently weighted towards attaching more value to certain things - essentially, for no other reason than that you think they should have more value attached to them. If someone asks you "Why should I do something?", and you reply "Because it's your Destiny" - that translates precisely to "because I think you should", and it's about as convincing. It's simply not a logical argument.

Height here refers to the level of thought, from mere perception (animals) to hypothesis, higher hypothesis, and the hypothesis of the higher hypothesis. I know of these things but do not know them as a scientist would know them, but I get the gist: at the highest level we act as geniuses to find ideas of natural law. Unless we were to propose “super laws” or “magic” or whatever, the hypothetical aliens would be doing as we do, however more or less efficiently. And again, of course, they may prove as evil and unthinking as we are and so could become our enemies.

Same remark about "height" applies here. We humans have always used this metaphor to label ourselves as superior to animals - we even talk about "higher animals", by which we mean those that are "more like us". But this is a purely human perspective. There is nothing objective about this use of the word "height", nothing measurable or demonstrable - it's purely metaphorical, and purely subjective. There is no reason to suppose that any other species even on our own planet would share this perception, much less that E.T. would. Maybe - just as a thought experiment - the aliens would say that "supporting and nourishing other forms of life on your planet" is the highest and most noble goal, and hold up the honeybee and the dung beetle as the apex of Earth lifeforms.

They'd have a point, IMO.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-19, 07:57 PM

OK. The point I'm getting at here is that each new term you introduce ("destiny", "higher", "nobler", "grander") is inherently weighted towards attaching more value to certain things - essentially, for no other reason than that you think they should have more value attached to them. If someone asks you "Why should I do something?", and you reply "Because it's your Destiny" - that translates precisely to "because I think you should", and it's about as convincing. It's simply not a logical argument.

You should do it because it is the route to a most sophisticated kind of happiness. Think of marrying someone you're in love with, or are falling in love with, but before you do you hesitate and think, "I like my life here, playing videogames and driving around single, I could be content with this, I don't need marriage." But the marriage offers a better form of happiness, higher, nobler, grander, however you want to put it, it cries out for a such a description because it is better.

Same remark about "height" applies here. We humans have always used this metaphor to label ourselves as superior to animals - we even talk about "higher animals", by which we mean those that are "more like us". But this is a purely human perspective. There is nothing objective about this use of the word "height", nothing measurable or demonstrable - it's purely metaphorical, and purely subjective. There is no reason to suppose that any other species even on our own planet would share this perception, much less that E.T. would. Maybe - just as a thought experiment - the aliens would say that "supporting and nourishing other forms of life on your planet" is the highest and most noble goal, and hold up the honeybee and the dung beetle as the apex of Earth lifeforms.

They'd have a point, IMO.

"Height" suggests our proximity to the heavens, the concept of adult versus child, and martial advantage. These are good reasons to use the word "height" and "higher" to refer to greater sophistication.

Such honeybee-loving aliens would still be contradicting their own nature as economic, scientific beings who could only reach our planet using such economy and science. So such an alien culture would be degenerate, however flowery and gentle it was, it would be as genocidal as our civilisation currently threatens to become (in no small part due to the general antihumanism and human==animal-ism that occludes our proper star).

Don't get me wrong, I love bees, but I ain't sacrificing a human to save a bee.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-19, 08:04 PM

I didn't say aliens must work the same in a very strong way, I said at the very highest level of their thought processes they must think like us or else they wouldn't have discovered the same ideas that we discover. Anything else is an appeal to magic.

I would argue that insisting anything capable of scientific discovery must think like us at any level at all is an extremely strong assumption. I'm not arguing that there's another set of physical laws out there, only that our path to understanding (and what understanding looks like itself) is in no way guaranteed to be the only possible path.

The path may differ; the end result does not.

A crow understands displacement sufficiently to use it to solve problems. I'm pretty sure I don't think like a crow, but I'm a lot closer to a crow in every way than I'm likely to be to ET.

We have no idea how close ET's will be to our way of thinking.

I said, “potential relative population density,” not “population density.” The former measures power to exist, which is the highest measurement of wealth.

Potential measured how and relative to what?

Potential measured in terms of power output, infrastructure, productivity, and energy flux density. The last means the amount of energy that can be pumped through a square centimetre. The example is a dull knife versus a sharp knife. The sharp knife cuts better, because the user is putting more energy through a smaller surface area. Thus, a measure of sophistication.

Relative toward the land type; we might be able to sustain 100 people per square kilometre in a desert, or 1000 in an area of natural forests.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-19, 08:06 PM

I am exaggerating, but I value animals and humans at the same level. This means I consider animals deserving of the same rights as humans. It also means I consider humans deserving of the same treatment as animals.

If humans have one of my loved ones at their mercy, regardless of leg count, I will use the continuum of force to stop them from hurting my loved one. This means I will say "stop", then I will yell "stop!", then I will move forward and also declare "stop or I will stop you" and finally I will use physical force to stop them. This gets complicated by the humans' responses. If they try to hurt me I will defended myself. If they run, they're fine. If they vindictively damage my loved one then I will respond Unfavorably to that.

This is the same response I use on animals, by the way. If a wild dog gets aggressive I will scare it off. It it calls my bluff I will incentivize it to leave. If it's going to routinely return to harass me or mine I will find a permanent solution – wall, animal control, trap and impound, speak to owner (if less wild than I thought), or the unfortunate necessity.

This is leaving alone that animals, children, elderly and infirm folk are berserk buttons for me. Any population group at your mercy that is being abused stirs my blood. That is unjust. That will be seen to.

While this is a commendable sentiment, one I used to share, I must ask, do you value insects and humans at the same level? Would a field of dead locusts equate to a field of dead humans, to you?

SiuiS

2015-03-19, 08:06 PM

Donnadogsoth, you should edit your new responses into old posts instead of double posting.

*

Anyway. This has clearly become primarily flamebait, which quickly saps my interest as there's no dialogue, just monologues. Y'all have fun. :)

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-19, 08:13 PM

Donnadogsoth, you should edit your new responses into old posts instead of double posting.

Anyway. This has clearly become primarily flamebait, which quickly saps my interest as there's no dialogue, just monologues. Y'all have fun. :)

I don't get what you're telling me, but have a nice day.

veti

2015-03-19, 09:34 PM

You should do it because it is the route to a most sophisticated kind of happiness.

"Sophisticated" - another synonym for "thing I approve of". And even "happiness" is not universally accepted as a measure of moral worth - not everyone is a utilitarian.

"Height" suggests our proximity to the heavens, the concept of adult versus child, and martial advantage. These are good reasons to use the word "height" and "higher" to refer to greater sophistication.

Proximity to the sky is good? Try telling that to a frilled shark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frilled_shark).

Adults are better than children? OK, I can see a case for that, but I'm not so sure you can credibly associate it with a moral meaning of "better". Children are generally held up as the benchmark of innocence, whereas adult is often used to mean the opposite (think "adult movies").

Martial advantage? Well, another thing that gives "martial advantage" is "fighting dirty", e.g. the willingness to kill noncombatants indiscriminately. Again, I have problems seeing this used to suggest "moral superiority".

I'm not trying to say that "height" is wrong, just pointing out that it's yet another term that seems to be chosen for no other purpose than to bypass rational discussion about what actually makes one thing "better than" another. I'd love to see you try to express your case in pure logic, without relying on morally loaded language.

Such honeybee-loving aliens would still be contradicting their own nature as economic, scientific beings who could only reach our planet using such economy and science.

Not necessarily. Maybe they developed their technological civilisation without ever driving another species to extinction or destroying its habitat - I see no reason to believe that's impossible - or even particularly hard, if anyone actually thought about the danger and put an appropriate priority on it at each stage of our economic growth. Again, you seem to be making quite baseless assumptions about these aliens' history and culture.

Murska

2015-03-20, 02:03 AM

You should do it because it is the route to a most sophisticated kind of happiness. Think of marrying someone you're in love with, or are falling in love with, but before you do you hesitate and think, "I like my life here, playing videogames and driving around single, I could be content with this, I don't need marriage." But the marriage offers a better form of happiness, higher, nobler, grander, however you want to put it, it cries out for a such a description because it is better.

Such honeybee-loving aliens would still be contradicting their own nature as economic, scientific beings who could only reach our planet using such economy and science. So such an alien culture would be degenerate, however flowery and gentle it was, it would be as genocidal as our civilisation currently threatens to become (in no small part due to the general antihumanism and human==animal-ism that occludes our proper star).

In your subjective opinion.

Aedilred

2015-03-20, 03:24 AM

Wrong. The West is entering a phase of suicidal birthrates. In many of Western countries population increases are due to immigration. Check out this Forbes article from 2012:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2012/10/16/warning-bell-for-developed-countries-declining-birth-rates/

Population growth from immigration is still population growth. It doesn't matter where the population ultimately comes from; the effect is the same.

Murska

2015-03-20, 07:28 AM

Population growth from immigration is still population growth. It doesn't matter where the population ultimately comes from; the effect is the same.

However, the gist of the argument was that people make less babies in developed countries.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-20, 09:36 AM

"Sophisticated" - another synonym for "thing I approve of". And even "happiness" is not universally accepted as a measure of moral worth - not everyone is a utilitarian.

If you're taking away all synonyms for "better" you're going to take away "better" itself and dissolve all into relativism.

Proximity to the sky is good? Try telling that to a frilled shark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frilled_shark).

Adults are better than children? OK, I can see a case for that, but I'm not so sure you can credibly associate it with a moral meaning of "better". Children are generally held up as the benchmark of innocence, whereas adult is often used to mean the opposite (think "adult movies").

Martial advantage? Well, another thing that gives "martial advantage" is "fighting dirty", e.g. the willingness to kill noncombatants indiscriminately. Again, I have problems seeing this used to suggest "moral superiority".

I'm not trying to say that "height" is wrong, just pointing out that it's yet another term that seems to be chosen for no other purpose than to bypass rational discussion about what actually makes one thing "better than" another. I'd love to see you try to express your case in pure logic, without relying on morally loaded language.

If you don't grasp what I'm talking about already, and instead are going to micro-analyse metaphors like "martial advantage" or "adult versus child" then you have me at a loss.

Do you accept that we can do things which are more or less in keeping with our nature and thus more or less contributing to our happiness?

Do you accept that happiness can be founded on pleasure, and on approbation (ie, moral approval)?

If so, do you grasp that there could a form of happiness that is "more happier" than others?

Not necessarily. Maybe they developed their technological civilisation without ever driving another species to extinction or destroying its habitat - I see no reason to believe that's impossible - or even particularly hard, if anyone actually thought about the danger and put an appropriate priority on it at each stage of our economic growth. Again, you seem to be making quite baseless assumptions about these aliens' history and culture.

They would still do so on the basis that their sapient civilisation is worth more than non sapient forms. That, as I suggested to SiuiS before s/he bailed, a field of dead locusts is not morally equivalent to a field of dead humans. But even then I think you're appealing to magic. Aliens would need an economy, which means they would have to develop their planet, which means improving it by altering habitats, developing agriculture, industry, geoengineering, and spaceflight. A tree-hugging, wild-asparagus hunting, bugs-are-just-as-good-as-me kind of Green civilisation would never become a civilisation, because they might step on a worm. If we found their remains in the future we might find evidence of a mass suicide so that their planet would remain unsullied by their actions.

Flickerdart

2015-03-20, 09:39 AM

Population growth from immigration is still population growth. It doesn't matter where the population ultimately comes from; the effect is the same.
Well, sort of - immigrants are reducing the population somewhere else. If you're talking about the West as a whole, a Canadian immigrant arriving in the US doesn't change the total.

However, the gist of the argument was that people make less babies in developed countries.
Fewer babies; less is for non-discrete quantities (such as water or angst).

Murska

2015-03-20, 10:20 AM

Fewer babies; less is for non-discrete quantities (such as water or angst).

Thanks.

If you're taking away all synonyms for "better" you're going to take away "better" itself and dissolve all into relativism.

The point is that morality and all value statements are relative.

Do you accept that we can do things which are more or less in keeping with our nature and thus more or less contributing to our happiness?

Do you accept that happiness can be founded on pleasure, and on approbation (ie, moral approval)?

If so, do you grasp that there could a form of happiness that is "more happier" than others?

1: "Some things make us happier than others." Yes. Our nature is poorly defined here. Some people enjoy things other people don't.

2: Parsing this, I would guess (though I'm not an accomplished fun theorist) that happiness includes pleasure, yes. Moral approval I'm not sure about. And pleasure is also a varied field of different experiences.

3: There are varying levels of happiness, yes. I'm not sure there are varying kinds of happiness, this would to me seem to indicate varying kinds of pleasure instead.

4: Why is 'happiness' good?

They would still do so on the basis that their sapient civilisation is worth more than non sapient forms. That, as I suggested to SiuiS before s/he bailed, a field of dead locusts is not morally equivalent to a field of dead humans. But even then I think you're appealing to magic. Aliens would need an economy, which means they would have to develop their planet, which means improving it by altering habitats, developing agriculture, industry, geoengineering, and spaceflight. A tree-hugging, wild-asparagus hunting, bugs-are-just-as-good-as-me kind of Green civilisation would never become a civilisation, because they might step on a worm. If we found their remains in the future we might find evidence of a mass suicide so that their planet would remain unsullied by their actions.

You're making the assumption that it is not possible for minds to develop that would have a differing value system. It might well be true, I don't know, though I find it unlikely given the unimaginably vast search space of possible minds involved. But there's no proof and little evidence either way, so it's not very fruitful to discuss.

Aedilred

2015-03-20, 11:09 AM

However, the gist of the argument was that people make less babies in developed countries.

Well, sort of - immigrants are reducing the population somewhere else. If you're talking about the West as a whole, a Canadian immigrant arriving in the US doesn't change the total.

It's not necessarily reducing the population anywhere else. Population growth is not being entirely fuelled by emigration from the handful of countries with declining populations. It will possibly be sapping the growth of the populations from which the immigrants arrive (assuming an increased birthrate doesn't compensate) but it's not driving that population down.

In any case, as veti says, it's a very narrow and simplistic way of looking at the situation, because it's not a closed system. Even if birthrates in the West decline, more people arrive from elsewhere and the population there continues to rise.

Ignoring all the political and moral arguments and ramifications of doing so, if western standards of living were exported everywhere, that might serve to put a brake on population growth, but western lifestyles also take a lot more resources to sustain, and would thus reduce the amount of space available, so in relative terms the effect would be much the same as an equivalent growth in population. In fact it's highly doubtful that the world could sustain the seven billion people the world currently contains at that level, to say nothing of the further few billions that are projected to be added over the next half-century.

Of course, the fact that western birthrates are already declining could in itself be taken as a validation of the essentially Malthusian position on which veti's original statement appears to have been based.

Murska

2015-03-20, 11:57 AM

It shouldn't be a complicated topic to discuss.

The hypothesis was presented that humanity will expand to fill available space. An alternative hypothesis was presented, with supporting evidence (not proof) in the form of declining birth rates, that population would instead even out to some relatively steady number given sufficient time and good enough living conditions. There's not enough data to say either way at the moment, nor is it particularly relevant.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-21, 12:57 PM

The point is that morality and all value statements are relative.

And that's the bill of goods you and increasingly many other people have been sold. More's the pity.

1: "Some things make us happier than others." Yes. Our nature is poorly defined here. Some people enjoy things other people don't.

Nevertheless it is in our nature to breathe. There might be a freak or two out there who genuinely hate breathing, and take steps, but in general human nature includes breathing. So there is a nature there, to which we can add creativity as a general statement; human nature is creative, even if some people don't feel or act creative, that is the species' nature.

2: Parsing this, I would guess (though I'm not an accomplished fun theorist) that happiness includes pleasure, yes. Moral approval I'm not sure about. And pleasure is also a varied field of different experiences.

Again, nevertheless, you would applaud someone saving a person's life from a raging flooded river, more than you would that same person eating a hamburger?

3: There are varying levels of happiness, yes. I'm not sure there are varying kinds of happiness, this would to me seem to indicate varying kinds of pleasure instead.

Then view it in term of magnitude.

4: Why is 'happiness' good?

It isn't. It's only morally desirable when it is in keeping with approbationary human nature. The serial killer's happiness is not good, but the scientist's is.

You're making the assumption that it is not possible for minds to develop that would have a differing value system. It might well be true, I don't know, though I find it unlikely given the unimaginably vast search space of possible minds involved. But there's no proof and little evidence either way, so it's not very fruitful to discuss.

From the start of this segue I've said aliens could have any value system whatever, but that has nothing to do with their highest level of consciousness, which would be identical to our own. Again, unless you want to hit me with “magic”.

Murska

2015-03-21, 01:20 PM

Nevertheless it is in our nature to breathe. There might be a freak or two out there who genuinely hate breathing, and take steps, but in general human nature includes breathing. So there is a nature there, to which we can add creativity as a general statement; human nature is creative, even if some people don't feel or act creative, that is the species' nature.

So, the value systems of individuals integrated over the entire species would be our species' nature. Sure, why not. That's a pretty good way to define morality, keeping in mind that this still means it is both variable (as the majority opinion of the entire humanity does change over time) and subjective (as a matter of course).

Again, nevertheless, you would applaud someone saving a person's life from a raging flooded river, more than you would that same person eating a hamburger?

Yes. People not dying is valuable to me, while people eating hamburgers is of lesser value, unless that hamburger just happens to be the thing that saves that individual from starving to death. From my subjective point of view, the former action is of higher utility to me than the latter.

It isn't. It's only morally desirable when it is in keeping with approbationary human nature. The serial killer's happiness is not good, but the scientist's is.

Out of curiosity, what if a magical spell was cast upon humanity to turn 51% of us into psychopaths? Then the current 'nature' of the human species would point towards morality_psychopath instead of the previous morality_human. Morality_human would not disappear or anything, but it would be a minority morality.

From the start of this segue I've said aliens could have any value system whatever, but that has nothing to do with their highest level of consciousness, which would be identical to our own. Again, unless you want to hit me with “magic”.

Let's leave aside the fact that you've not provided any proof for the statement 'aliens cannot discover scientific principles without fundamentally thinking in a similar way as humans'. Isn't values what the whole discussion is about? If the aliens value the death of all humans, then by morality_aliens killing humans is morally_alien good, even while it is morally_human evil.

McStabbington

2015-03-21, 07:17 PM

Of course, the fact that western birthrates are already declining could in itself be taken as a validation of the essentially Malthusian position on which veti's original statement appears to have been based.

Just to interject, but the relationship between population density and population growth is incredibly weak. India's population density dwarfs that of the United States, yet it's population growth is nevertheless substantially higher. In point of fact, if simple available acreage was the causal factor for population growth, then Russia should have the fastest-growing population in a landslide. What it has, however, is a population that has been in outright decline in absolute numbers for an entire generation.

The factors that most seem to have a causal relationship with population growth are the rates of economic productivity and technolgical advancement in a society. There are a lot of just-so sociological theories to explain this, but whatever the reason, the more technologically sophisticated and economically productive the society, the lower the rate of population growth. Most population projections I've seen for the planet show the Earth maxing out at a global population of roughly 9.5 billion around 2050 to 2070 and then slowly declining from that peak.

Now of course, predicting anything sixty years in the future is fraught with danger, as events have a way of suddenly and radically reshaping societies in unpredictable ways (if you don't believe me, just imagine how badly anyone who tried to estimate the sixty year growth projections of the United States in 1940 had to have messed up). But we have had roughly 150 years to analyze the effect industrialization has on population growth, and while each state has it's own rateoff decline in growth and stabilization point, every state that industrializes rapidly diminishes in population growth at roughly the same time. The trend line is both uniform and unmistakable. And few states fail to industrialize.

Aedilred

2015-03-21, 07:35 PM

Just to interject, but the relationship between population density and population growth is incredibly weak. India's population density dwarfs that of the United States, yet it's population growth is nevertheless substantially higher. In point of fact, if simple available acreage was the causal factor for population growth, then Russia should have the fastest-growing population in a landslide. What it has, however, is a population that has been in outright decline in absolute numbers for an entire generation.
I should clarify (as I alluded to earlier) that in that instance I was treating "space" in what seemed to be the intended spirit: i.e. as a shorthand for "available resources" of which available acreage is one but a relatively unimportant constituent. The means of subsistence, as Malthus originally phrased it, since that's where the argument is ultimately coming from, I think.

Obviously, population density as a lone measure is an extraordinarily crude way of measuring that and any hypothesis built on it alone would be rightfully thrown out.

McStabbington

2015-03-21, 09:52 PM

I should clarify (as I alluded to earlier) that in that instance I was treating "space" in what seemed to be the intended spirit: i.e. as a shorthand for "available resources" of which available acreage is one but a relatively unimportant constituent. The means of subsistence, as Malthus originally phrased it, since that's where the argument is ultimately coming from, I think.

Obviously, population density as a lone measure is an extraordinarily crude way of measuring that and any hypothesis built on it alone would be rightfully thrown out.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but I specifically did not refer to Malthus in my previous post because Malthus is treated alternatively as a joke or as a cautionary tale depending on whether you're talking sociology or intellectual history, to the point that actually calling someone a Malthusian is usually considered an insult in the academic community.

Malthus' original idea, namely that population growth increased by the cube while arable land for them to farm was increasing by the square (which, incidentally is the opposite of what you seem to be arguing now that I think about it), was true in its time and as far as his data went. But they were quickly proven false by subsequent events. For one thing, the Green Revolution radically increased the productivity of a hectare of arable farm land. For another, the Industrial Revolution coincided with a massive decrease in population growth. Put the two together, and the foundational parts of Malthus' theory are suddenly no longer true, while at the same time the Social Darwinists are using Malthus' arguments for all sorts of social engineering projects that in retrospect are incredibly ugly, like forcible sterilization and Poor Laws.

For the purposes of this discussion, however, it is enough to note that available resources does not seem to seriously affect growth rates. Malthus originally was right because population was growing much faster than available resources. He became wrong specifically because live birth rates tumbled in the Western nations at the exact moment that available resources spiked. Which should tell you that there's no causal relationship.

veti

2015-03-22, 04:47 PM

Nevertheless it is in our nature to breathe. There might be a freak or two out there who genuinely hate breathing, and take steps, but in general human nature includes breathing. So there is a nature there, to which we can add creativity as a general statement; human nature is creative, even if some people don't feel or act creative, that is the species' nature.

Err... your logic is not like our Earth logic. Humans need to breathe, or they'll very shortly stop being what we generally call "humans". In addition, some humans are creative. Other humans are psychopathic. Still others are addicted to alcohol. Which of these should we add as "general satements"?

The answer I'm expecting is one that can be parsed as "the ones I approve of".

It isn't. It's only morally desirable when it is in keeping with approbationary human nature. The serial killer's happiness is not good, but the scientist's is.

"Approbationary" human nature? "Human nature that I approve of"?

Don't you see that if your quest to claim that morality is more than subjective is going to get anywhere, you need to stop couching it in terms that constantly reinforce that subjectivity?

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but I specifically did not refer to Malthus in my previous post because Malthus is treated alternatively as a joke or as a cautionary tale depending on whether you're talking sociology or intellectual history, to the point that actually calling someone a Malthusian is usually considered an insult in the academic community.

Yeah, Malthus gets a bad rep - mostly because he rather rashly couched his predictions in scientific and mathematical terms, when he didn't really have enough data to do that. I cut him some slack because "economics", as a science, was somewhere between newborn and infant at the time...

For the purposes of this discussion, however, it is enough to note that available resources does not seem to seriously affect growth rates. Malthus originally was right because population was growing much faster than available resources. He became wrong specifically because live birth rates tumbled in the Western nations at the exact moment that available resources spiked. Which should tell you that there's no causal relationship.

"Birth rates" and "growth rates" are not the same thing. The population of England grew at a fairly steady rate of about 15% per decade compound throughout the 19th century. (That is to say, growth was geometric, exactly as Malthus predicted.) It didn't really drop to its modern order-of-magnitude until the First World War (which itself can easily be interpreted as "exactly the kind of 'check' that Malthus predicted").

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-23, 01:28 PM

Err... your logic is not like our Earth logic. Humans need to breathe, or they'll very shortly stop being what we generally call "humans". In addition, some humans are creative. Other humans are psychopathic. Still others are addicted to alcohol. Which of these should we add as "general satements"?

The answer I'm expecting is one that can be parsed as "the ones I approve of".

Humans are not generally psychopathic, alcoholic, or creative in an artistic/scientific sense, but all humans are capable of creativity, concentrated in their youth and less so as they age, as a rule. And if creating life is creativity then most people are creative on that count. Since it's creativity that defines our ability to successfully survive as a species, it's fitting that a creative life is the happiest. Does that count as "ones I approve of" to you? Or is it just true? Whether I approve or not, it's true.

"Approbationary" human nature? "Human nature that I approve of"?

No, human nature that the individual's conscience approves of, said conscience being consanguineous with the nature of the species' needs to successfully survive.

Don't you see that if your quest to claim that morality is more than subjective is going to get anywhere, you need to stop couching it in terms that constantly reinforce that subjectivity?

Shall we refer to more or less happiness, and say that a creative life offers more happiness rather than a destructive one? I mean on the whole; perhaps there are adrenalin junkies who are living it up causing havoc, but few would hold them up as characteristic of the species.

Murska

2015-03-23, 05:37 PM

In general, creative people are more likely to be depressed and suicidal. Doesn't sound happy to me.

Lheticus

2015-03-23, 07:07 PM

In general, creative people are more likely to be depressed and suicidal. Doesn't sound happy to me.

Happiness is overrated anyway. :P

Ifni

2015-03-24, 02:48 AM

Humans are not generally psychopathic, alcoholic, or creative in an artistic/scientific sense, but all humans are capable of creativity, concentrated in their youth and less so as they age, as a rule. And if creating life is creativity then most people are creative on that count. Since it's creativity that defines our ability to successfully survive as a species, it's fitting that a creative life is the happiest. Does that count as "ones I approve of" to you? Or is it just true? Whether I approve or not, it's true.

If you're now defining "creativity" to include reproduction, I'm not sure how you can identify this as any kind of separating factor between humans and other species - I mean, even on a continuum, humans are pretty far from the most creative species if producing offspring counts. And while "does it advance the survival of the species" seems initially like a fairly objective metric, it's also quite unclear, and similar thinking can and has led to some spectacularly immoral actions, so it doesn't seem like a great principle for moral guidance.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-24, 03:42 PM

Nevertheless it is in our nature to breathe. There might be a freak or two out there who genuinely hate breathing, and take steps, but in general human nature includes breathing. So there is a nature there, to which we can add creativity as a general statement; human nature is creative, even if some people don't feel or act creative, that is the species' nature.

So, the value systems of individuals integrated over the entire species would be our species' nature. Sure, why not. That's a pretty good way to define morality, keeping in mind that this still means it is both variable (as the majority opinion of the entire humanity does change over time) and subjective (as a matter of course).

A point of agreement? However, not just individual value systems, healthy value systems, meaning value systems that contribute to the successful survival of the species.

Again, nevertheless, you would applaud someone saving a person's life from a raging flooded river, more than you would that same person eating a hamburger?
Yes. People not dying is valuable to me, while people eating hamburgers is of lesser value, unless that hamburger just happens to be the thing that saves that individual from starving to death. From my subjective point of view, the former action is of higher utility to me than the latter.

I believe you've answered my question in the affirmative, subject to your starvation qualification.

It isn't. It's only morally desirable when it is in keeping with approbationary human nature. The serial killer's happiness is not good, but the scientist's is.
Out of curiosity, what if a magical spell was cast upon humanity to turn 51% of us into psychopaths? Then the current 'nature' of the human species would point towards morality_psychopath instead of the previous morality_human. Morality_human would not disappear or anything, but it would be a minority morality.

If 99% of the population of humans lost a leg, that would make monopedalism normal, but not natural and healthy. The natural and healthy condition of man is with his four complete limbs. Similarly with his brain, the natural and healthy condition of his brain is to have empathy towards others. Both of these conditions—four complete limbs, empathy—contribute to the successful survival of the species and therefore are part of a Type of form, the human form, which serves that purpose.

From the start of this segue I've said aliens could have any value system whatever, but that has nothing to do with their highest level of consciousness, which would be identical to our own. Again, unless you want to hit me with “magic”.
Let's leave aside the fact that you've not provided any proof for the statement 'aliens cannot discover scientific principles without fundamentally thinking in a similar way as humans'. Isn't values what the whole discussion is about? If the aliens value the death of all humans, then by morality_aliens killing humans is morally_alien good, even while it is morally_human evil.

Doesn't matter. The murder of humans/aliens is against the successful survival of human/alien kind, and therefore immoral.

Aedilred

2015-03-24, 03:49 PM

Yeah, Malthus gets a bad rep - mostly because he rather rashly couched his predictions in scientific and mathematical terms, when he didn't really have enough data to do that. I cut him some slack because "economics", as a science, was somewhere between newborn and infant at the time...

"Birth rates" and "growth rates" are not the same thing. The population of England grew at a fairly steady rate of about 15% per decade compound throughout the 19th century. (That is to say, growth was geometric, exactly as Malthus predicted.) It didn't really drop to its modern order-of-magnitude until the First World War (which itself can easily be interpreted as "exactly the kind of 'check' that Malthus predicted").
Indeed.

Doesn't matter. The murder of humans/aliens is against the successful survival of human/alien kind, and therefore immoral.
But wasn't the point that aliens could consider the killing of humans to be good (and if humans are in competition with aliens, murder of humans could increase the survival chances of the alien species, especially given humans' record in this regard) - and therefore in some value systems murder of humans could be moral?

You can make an argument that murder of your own species is always immoral (although it's more debatable than some posts have suggested) but there is no reason to extend that presumption on a cross-species basis.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-24, 04:03 PM

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-24, 04:08 PM

But wasn't the point that aliens could consider the killing of humans to be good (and if humans are in competition with aliens, murder of humans could increase the survival chances of the alien species, especially given humans' record in this regard) - and therefore in some value systems murder of humans could be moral?

You can make an argument that murder of your own species is always immoral (although it's more debatable than some posts have suggested) but there is no reason to extend that presumption on a cross-species basis.

Aliens, like humans, can consider whatever they like, but that doesn't make it correct. Greeks considered it good at times to kill Trojans, did they not? But intraspecies war and murder remained an evil that humanity as a whole must overcome. So with cross-species war and murder. There may be specific good reasons to kill, as in a war of defense, or the like, but in essence the two species remain one with a common (if mutually sovereign) destiny.

Murska

2015-03-24, 07:35 PM

Aedilred

2015-03-24, 08:16 PM

Aliens, like humans, can consider whatever they like, but that doesn't make it correct. Greeks considered it good at times to kill Trojans, did they not? But intraspecies war and murder remained an evil that humanity as a whole must overcome. So with cross-species war and murder. There may be specific good reasons to kill, as in a war of defense, or the like, but in essence the two species remain one with a common (if mutually sovereign) destiny.

This would follow if morality was objective and absolute but doesn't follow in your purported reasoning:

The murder of humans/aliens is against the successful survival of human/alien kind, and therefore immoral.
The murder of humans is not necessarily against the successful survival of alienkind, therefore it can't be argued as immoral on that basis.

Presumptions which apply to intraspecies behaviour don't necessarily map to cross-species relations. If it did, we'd be locking up anyone who eats meat as a murderer.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-25, 09:25 AM

A point of agreement? However, not just individual value systems, healthy value systems, meaning value systems that contribute to the successful survival of the species.

So even if, as is true, humans in general tend to hold some values that do not contribute to the survival of the species, these values are not part of human nature?

Correct. Humans may believe untruths, or hold corrupt values, which are not part of human nature in the sense of contributing to survival, but are the consequence of being degraded to bestial status through poor upbringing.

If 99% of the population of humans lost a leg, that would make monopedalism normal, but not natural and healthy. The natural and healthy condition of man is with his four complete limbs. Similarly with his brain, the natural and healthy condition of his brain is to have empathy towards others. Both of these conditions—four complete limbs, empathy—contribute to the successful survival of the species and therefore are part of a Type of form, the human form, which serves that purpose.

What if human genetics were altered so that 99% of new humans born grow up to only have 3 limbs? That would, according to the most obvious condition for 'natural', make it natural. On the other hand, is it an unhealthy condition for humans to lack some beneficial mutation - to only have four limbs and not five, as it may be? The human form is nowhere near optimal for the survival of the species. That's not even a goal that evolution optimizes towards, so there is no progress towards such a goal - evolution only works towards increasing inclusive genetic fitness.

Mutating humans to have only 3 limbs would be a crime. I'll grant that if conditions were to change, such as a migration to Space, then it's conceivable we might internalise our tools, such as having bionic organs, limbs, or an altered genetic code. Pacemakers, nutrition, and stem cells can contribute to individual survival as much as space suits and rocket ships. So the real optimiser is our minds, which is the source of all artificial optimisations, whether internal or external.

Doesn't matter. The murder of humans/aliens is against the successful survival of human/alien kind, and therefore immoral.
You mean, immoral_human. Perfectly moral_alien, because they do not view survival of human/alienkind to be valuable. Besides, survival of our species is not even my own highest terminal value - I can envision situations where I would rather have humanity die out than face some other fate. As an example, if the alternative was to transform the entire universe into computronium on which human minds in eternal torment are simulated.

No, I mean immoral period, for the reason I've already given. Alien immorality doesn't enter in it; their “values” are as irrelevant as the psychopath's.

Humans in eternal torment aren't exactly surviving as a species, are they? I mean, what good is the existence of someone in eternal torment? So in that sense “survival” is already nullified as the life of the mind is gone, and there would be no reason not to terminate the species.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-25, 09:34 AM

Aliens, like humans, can consider whatever they like, but that doesn't make it correct. Greeks considered it good at times to kill Trojans, did they not? But intraspecies war and murder remained an evil that humanity as a whole must overcome. So with cross-species war and murder. There may be specific good reasons to kill, as in a war of defense, or the like, but in essence the two species remain one with a common (if mutually sovereign) destiny.

This would follow if morality was objective and absolute but doesn't follow in your purported reasoning:

How so?

The murder of humans/aliens is against the successful survival of human/alien kind, and therefore immoral.

The murder of humans is not necessarily against the successful survival of alienkind, therefore it can't be argued as immoral on that basis.

Presumptions which apply to intraspecies behaviour don't necessarily map to cross-species relations. If it did, we'd be locking up anyone who eats meat as a murderer.

Beasts are not men, because beasts lack apprehension of natural law. If aliens apprehended natural law, they would be men, and if not, beasts. If the former, they would be made in the image of the same universal creativity we are, and therefore our successful survivals would be linked. If not, they would be beasts and their values and morality would be irrelevant.

Iruka

2015-03-25, 09:55 AM

@Donnadogsoth
You can reply to several posters in a single post by using that ["+] button at the lower right corner of their posts.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-25, 10:11 AM

@Donnadogsoth
You can reply to several posters in a single post by using that ["+] button at the lower right corner of their posts.

Thanks for the tip.

Murska

2015-03-25, 10:44 AM

Correct. Humans may believe untruths, or hold corrupt values, which are not part of human nature in the sense of contributing to survival, but are the consequence of being degraded to bestial status through poor upbringing.

Your usage of 'natural' has been the main contributor to confusion here, then. Just say 'values contributing to survival', if that's what it means. I've mostly heard 'natural' to be used for things such as 'inborn', 'unaltered', 'historical' and so on.

Mutating humans to have only 3 limbs would be a crime. I'll grant that if conditions were to change, such as a migration to Space, then it's conceivable we might internalise our tools, such as having bionic organs, limbs, or an altered genetic code. Pacemakers, nutrition, and stem cells can contribute to individual survival as much as space suits and rocket ships. So the real optimiser is our minds, which is the source of all artificial optimisations, whether internal or external.

I don't see how this answers anything. We might as well modify our genetics to have different minds, either better optimized or worse, and return to the same question I posed. In fact, we could just as well create an artificial mind which would then optimize us according to its criteria.

No, I mean immoral period, for the reason I've already given. Alien immorality doesn't enter in it; their “values” are as irrelevant as the psychopath's.

This makes no sense. Why would their values be in any way more or less relevant than yours? The argument for the psychopath's values being less relevant was that there are less psychopaths than ordinary people. But there might as well be more aliens than humans. I don't see how that matters. And to mind the example you brought up earlier, about how it was 'evil' for the Greeks to kill Trojans despite the Greeks believing themselves to be just, that's only true according to your morality either. Where are you getting these 'objective values' that you 'objectively' rank to be the only relevant ones? When the only route you can gain information from is your own mind, which is by definition subjective? If you were a psychopath, you would wholeheartedly, entirely believe your values to be the correct, relevant ones and for everyone else to be wrong. How do you distinguish that from your current conviction? After all, being wrong feels just like being right.

Humans in eternal torment aren't exactly surviving as a species, are they? I mean, what good is the existence of someone in eternal torment? So in that sense “survival” is already nullified as the life of the mind is gone, and there would be no reason not to terminate the species.

Even if you suddenly redefine survival, dodging the question is not exactly useful. I would rather have humanity perish than, say, have humanity in a state of simulated bliss and happiness take over the entire universe either. Or, say, have the entire universe be utilized to compute perfectly ordinary human lives except with no drive to create or advance.

Before you come up with reasons to state that none of these possibilities count as survival either, please think for a moment on whether you are tackling the most harsh and honest interpretation of my question that you can come up with, and even if so, please define survival clearly so I can tackle that instead of a nebulous cloud of possible definitions.

Aedilred

2015-03-25, 11:42 AM

It seems Donnadogsoth's argument is essentially founded in the idea that the point of separation between man and animals is a recognition and understanding of natural law:

Beasts are not men, because beasts lack apprehension of natural law...

And that's fine, as far as it goes. The problem which arises when that argument is developed further is that natural law is itself a subjective philosophical construct and not an objective truth. It would be entirely possible for an alien species, similarly intelligent, advanced and civilised to ourselves (or even moreso) to have developed a different conception of natural law based on different conditions on their homeworld, while still recognising the principle of natural law itself. This would lead to a different understanding of morality, with some acts we consider immoral to be moral for them, and vice versa.

Now, you could argue that if they haven't come to the same conclusions about natural law as we have, then they've got it wrong, and thus are animals. But if asserted undifferentiatedly, that then becomes circular: man's conclusions are right, so any differing conclusions are wrong; man's conclusions are right because he is man. Man's separation from animals starts to look rather arbitrary.

Without taking into account that there might be equally valid interpretations of natural law that cause a different and equally valid moral system to develop, and/or that there might be facts and circumstances as yet unknown to us that would cause us to modify our conception of natural law (and therefore morality), which might be available to other species (and vice versa), the whole idea as presented kind of falls apart.

It can be salvaged by the insertion of a higher power of some kind (as could be inferred from "image of universal creativity") but that would be outside the scope of discussion on this forum.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-25, 04:25 PM

It seems Donnadogsoth's argument is essentially founded in the idea that the point of separation between man and animals is a recognition and understanding of natural law:

And that's fine, as far as it goes. The problem which arises when that argument is developed further is that natural law is itself a subjective philosophical construct and not an objective truth. It would be entirely possible for an alien species, similarly intelligent, advanced and civilised to ourselves (or even moreso) to have developed a different conception of natural law based on different conditions on their homeworld, while still recognising the principle of natural law itself. This would lead to a different understanding of morality, with some acts we consider immoral to be moral for them, and vice versa.

Now, you could argue that if they haven't come to the same conclusions about natural law as we have, then they've got it wrong, and thus are animals. But if asserted undifferentiatedly, that then becomes circular: man's conclusions are right, so any differing conclusions are wrong; man's conclusions are right because he is man. Man's separation from animals starts to look rather arbitrary.

Without taking into account that there might be equally valid interpretations of natural law that cause a different and equally valid moral system to develop, and/or that there might be facts and circumstances as yet unknown to us that would cause us to modify our conception of natural law (and therefore morality), which might be available to other species (and vice versa), the whole idea as presented kind of falls apart.

It can be salvaged by the insertion of a higher power of some kind (as could be inferred from "image of universal creativity") but that would be outside the scope of discussion on this forum.

I disagree with the premise that there could be alternative "interpretations" of natural law. Either the aliens can discover natural laws or they can't. They might have discovered different laws than we have, they might have different cultures and values than we, but in the end either they are natural law-discoverers or they are not. If so, they are we; if not, they are beasts.

veti

2015-03-25, 04:35 PM

I disagree with the premise that there could be alternative "interpretations" of natural law. Either the aliens can discover natural laws or they can't. They might have discovered different laws than we have, they might have different cultures and values than we, but in the end either they are natural law-discoverers or they are not. If so, they are we; if not, they are beasts.

There not only could be, but manifestly are, many "alternative interpretations" of natural law.

Different societies in our own world already have quite different interpretations of natural law. Unfortunately mentioning specific examples would drag us into RW politics, but seriously - pick some diverse countries, look at their laws, and consider the assumptions behind them. And that's just considering "right now". Looking back through history, you can find many more interpretations. Aristotle, for instance, invoked "natural law" to justify slavery.

You can, of course, argue that all interpretations that differ from yours are just "wrong". But then you're basically asserting yourself as the ultimate judge of all morality, and there's no obvious reason why anyone else should accept your authority in that role.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-25, 04:47 PM

Correct. Humans may believe untruths, or hold corrupt values, which are not part of human nature in the sense of contributing to survival, but are the consequence of being degraded to bestial status through poor upbringing.

Your usage of 'natural' has been the main contributor to confusion here, then. Just say 'values contributing to survival', if that's what it means. I've mostly heard 'natural' to be used for things such as 'inborn', 'unaltered', 'historical' and so on.

I mean, as should be obvious, human nature as that nature that makes humans human in distinction from beasts. It's not a difficult usage.

Mutating humans to have only 3 limbs would be a crime. I'll grant that if conditions were to change, such as a migration to Space, then it's conceivable we might internalise our tools, such as having bionic organs, limbs, or an altered genetic code. Pacemakers, nutrition, and stem cells can contribute to individual survival as much as space suits and rocket ships. So the real optimiser is our minds, which is the source of all artificial optimisations, whether internal or external.

I don't see how this answers anything. We might as well modify our genetics to have different minds, either better optimized or worse, and return to the same question I posed. In fact, we could just as well create an artificial mind which would then optimize us according to its criteria.

The question revolves around the human mind and its ability to discover universal principles or natural laws. It is not inconceivable the mind is suboptimal for this task and can be improved. We can already improve it through education. Genetic or neural modifications would need to be handled carefully, but could be applied--but the end result will still be judged on whether it improves or degrades our ability to discover natural law.

No, I mean immoral period, for the reason I've already given. Alien immorality doesn't enter in it; their “values” are as irrelevant as the psychopath's.

This makes no sense. Why would their values be in any way more or less relevant than yours? The argument for the psychopath's values being less relevant was that there are less psychopaths than ordinary people. But there might as well be more aliens than humans. I don't see how that matters. And to mind the example you brought up earlier, about how it was 'evil' for the Greeks to kill Trojans despite the Greeks believing themselves to be just, that's only true according to your morality either. Where are you getting these 'objective values' that you 'objectively' rank to be the only relevant ones? When the only route you can gain information from is your own mind, which is by definition subjective? If you were a psychopath, you would wholeheartedly, entirely believe your values to be the correct, relevant ones and for everyone else to be wrong. How do you distinguish that from your current conviction? After all, being wrong feels just like being right.

If I were a beast I would think like a beast. As I am a man I must think like a man. As it happens, “thinking like a man” means thinking in terms of natural law. Everything follows from that distinction.

Humans in eternal torment aren't exactly surviving as a species, are they? I mean, what good is the existence of someone in eternal torment? So in that sense “survival” is already nullified as the life of the mind is gone, and there would be no reason not to terminate the species.

Even if you suddenly redefine survival, dodging the question is not exactly useful. I would rather have humanity perish than, say, have humanity in a state of simulated bliss and happiness take over the entire universe either. Or, say, have the entire universe be utilized to compute perfectly ordinary human lives except with no drive to create or advance.

Before you come up with reasons to state that none of these possibilities count as survival either, please think for a moment on whether you are tackling the most harsh and honest interpretation of my question that you can come up with, and even if so, please define survival clearly so I can tackle that instead of a nebulous cloud of possible definitions.

Why would you deny humanity eternal bliss? Could it be because it would be surrendering control over man's destiny to another power? Survival isn't just meatbags being kept warm, it's the life of the mind to solve the inevitable encroaching problems of survival—successful survival into the far future. Barfing away our psychic capital into a slop bucket of heaven or hell serves no useful purpose and even denies us the happiness of freedom, in favour of idleness, agony, or beastly bliss. Hopefully this definition agrees with you.

Murska

2015-03-25, 09:48 PM

I mean, as should be obvious, human nature as that nature that makes humans human in distinction from beasts. It's not a difficult usage.

I would disagree, given that there is no consensus on what that distinction is and not even any basic principles that could form the start of such an agreement.

The question revolves around the human mind and its ability to discover universal principles or natural laws. It is not inconceivable the mind is suboptimal for this task and can be improved. We can already improve it through education. Genetic or neural modifications would need to be handled carefully, but could be applied--but the end result will still be judged on whether it improves or degrades our ability to discover natural law.

Who does the judging, then? Natural law is such a confused and ill-defined concept in this discussion anyway, sometimes being used to refer to subjective things like morality, other times talking about actual laws of physics.

If I were a beast I would think like a beast. As I am a man I must think like a man. As it happens, “thinking like a man” means thinking in terms of natural law. Everything follows from that distinction.

What does this mean?

Why would you deny humanity eternal bliss? Could it be because it would be surrendering control over man's destiny to another power? Survival isn't just meatbags being kept warm, it's the life of the mind to solve the inevitable encroaching problems of survival—successful survival into the far future. Barfing away our psychic capital into a slop bucket of heaven or hell serves no useful purpose and even denies us the happiness of freedom, in favour of idleness, agony, or beastly bliss. Hopefully this definition agrees with you.

A world of eternal, unchanging bliss is uninteresting to me, even if it were guaranteed that we would survive for all eternity. I am sure if someone were to plug me in the happiness machine I would then not wish to leave, but I am equally sure I would rather not be plugged in if I were given the choice beforehand. If humanity had solved every problem and created an eternal paradise for themselves, I would at least strongly consider the moral right of potential future life to walk the same path, discover the same wonders, make new, exciting mistakes and succeed or fail in spectacular ways, over our own right to sit on the top of our mountain, unchanging forever.

BaronOfHell

2015-03-26, 06:14 AM

Assume human is special compared to all other animals. Assume all other animals are removed. Now humans aren't special anymore.. Not sure what good that did?

I don't get the point. Everyone is unique, doesn't matter if you're an ant or a human.. Each living thing have an entirely unique experience.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-26, 09:51 AM

There not only could be, but manifestly are, many "alternative interpretations" of natural law.

Different societies in our own world already have quite different interpretations of natural law. Unfortunately mentioning specific examples would drag us into RW politics, but seriously - pick some diverse countries, look at their laws, and consider the assumptions behind them. And that's just considering "right now". Looking back through history, you can find many more interpretations. Aristotle, for instance, invoked "natural law" to justify slavery.

You can, of course, argue that all interpretations that differ from yours are just "wrong". But then you're basically asserting yourself as the ultimate judge of all morality, and there's no obvious reason why anyone else should accept your authority in that role.

No, no, no. I'm not referring to arbitrary human legal structures raised on the plinth of self-described natural law, I'm referring to scientific and related principles such as the principle of the general welfare. In those regards natural law is universal.

Donnadogsoth

2015-03-26, 10:22 AM

I mean, as should be obvious, human nature as that nature that makes humans human in distinction from beasts. It's not a difficult usage.

I would disagree, given that there is no consensus on what that distinction is and not even any basic principles that could form the start of such an agreement.

Try not worrying about consensus and worry about principle.

The question revolves around the human mind and its ability to discover universal principles or natural laws. It is not inconceivable the mind is suboptimal for this task and can be improved. We can already improve it through education. Genetic or neural modifications would need to be handled carefully, but could be applied--but the end result will still be judged on whether it improves or degrades our ability to discover natural law.
Who does the judging, then? Natural law is such a confused and ill-defined concept in this discussion anyway, sometimes being used to refer to subjective things like morality, other times talking about actual laws of physics.
Those who know these laws, obviously.

If I were a beast I would think like a beast. As I am a man I must think like a man. As it happens, “thinking like a man” means thinking in terms of natural law. Everything follows from that distinction.
What does this mean?

It means man is a creature of principle.

A world of eternal, unchanging bliss is uninteresting to me, even if it were guaranteed that we would survive for all eternity. I am sure if someone were to plug me in the happiness machine I would then not wish to leave, but I am equally sure I would rather not be plugged in if I were given the choice beforehand. If humanity had solved every problem and created an eternal paradise for themselves, I would at least strongly consider the moral right of potential future life to walk the same path, discover the same wonders, make new, exciting mistakes and succeed or fail in spectacular ways, over our own right to sit on the top of our mountain, unchanging forever.

Then you'll be happy with the concept that absolute Truth, and therefore Survival, is unattainable, only increasingly less imperfect approximations to the Truth. We will never be on top of the mountain.

Wardog

2015-03-27, 03:47 AM

I can't help feeling that this thread, for the past several pages, is turning (or has turned) into a religion and/or politics discussion by proxy.

If we can get back to Lheticus' original questions:

Over several instances of casually researching the subject, I've seen it said that what makes us truly different from other species on planet Earth is not sentience or self-awareness, and upon looking into the term "sapience" I find that it's actually well on the human side of the line, rather than being itself the line.

If you accept, like I do, the premise that there truly IS something that truly separates us from the rest of the animal species that can be expressed in words, then please help me express it.

That isn't acceptable to me as a "point of separation"--not something that we have MORE of than other animals, but something that we have that other animals DON'T have is what I'm looking for.

I think, unfortunately, at the moment we can only say "we don't know (yet)".

Humans evolved from apes, and our closest ancestors are chimps and bonobos. But we split off from them 5 to 6 million years ago, so we have a 5-6My (or depending on how you look at it, 10-12My) gap in which something changed to make us "men" (to use Donnadogsoth's term). But with such a large gap, it's going to be very difficult to work out what the specific point of separation was - if there even was one single point of separation.

If all the other Homo and pre-Homo species were still alive, we might be able to look at them all and see some fundamental change in personality or intellect that, say, H. erectus lacked but Neanderthals, "Hobbits", and modern humans possesses (or which H. s. sapiens alone possess). But with only old bones to go by, I doubt that we can tell. (I suppose we could try recreating our ancestors (http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2306), Jurassic-Park style, but that has all sorts of ethical issues, even assuming it could work).

The other alternative might be to try to create an artificial human, or other AI that could count as a "person". If we can do that, then that would presumably show what is actually needed to be a "man" (natural or artificial). And if, after a few hundred years of trying, it turns out to be impossible, that would probably say something about our nature as well. But at the moment, we don't have the means to either prove or disprove the possibility of artificial (or alien) "men", so I think the OP is currently unanswerable.

Aedilred

2015-03-27, 10:26 AM

No, no, no. I'm not referring to arbitrary human legal structures raised on the plinth of self-described natural law, I'm referring to scientific and related principles such as the principle of the general welfare. In those regards natural law is universal.
Unfortunately (for this approach) it remains a philosophical theory - a compelling one, no doubt, but one nonetheless - and not one scientifically provable. General welfare is not a scientific principle: any argument that could be made for it is rooted in philosophy and therefore people can come to different conclusions about it which in the absence of an objective measure against which to judge them may be equally valid.

It is pleasant to imagine that there is a singular set of core beliefs on which all humans necessarily agree. Unfortunately history tends to demonstrate that is not the case.

I can't help feeling that this thread, for the past several pages, is turning (or has turned) into a religion and/or politics discussion by proxy.
It does seem to be skating perilously close to that line. I think I'll take my leave of it...