BlackMetalex posted... Look when other animals start making documentaries about us, then you can claim that we're not above them, but until then, I don't see what's so hard to grasp about the fact that while sure, we function the same way as animals and still have instincts, our consciousness is operating on a level above the decision making of other animals.
Vlado apparently takes issue with the fact that most of our biological functionality operates automatically. This includes brain function.
No one is arguing that humans aren't more intelligent.
animals can't build things like video cameras because they don't have the physical requirements to work with materials at a high level or in the case of ocean creatures, don't have access to many resources at all. you dump a random person in the middle of the wild and they'll be living mostly like an animal. we are not inherently super intelligent, we lucked into a lot of it. given the same brain and more animal like hands that aren't skilled enough to build and work with tools, you have just a pretty smart animal, but nothing like what we are
Liquid Wind posted... animals can't build things like video cameras because they don't have the physical requirements to work with materials at a high level or in the case of ocean creatures, don't have access to many resources at all. you dump a random person in the middle of the wild and they'll be living mostly like an animal. we are not inherently super intelligent, we lucked into a lot of it. given the same brain and more animal like hands that aren't skilled enough to build and work with tools, you have just a pretty smart animal, but nothing like what we are
So why don't animals have language then? Or the logical successor to them, grandparents? You don't need hands for that type of tech.
Heck, why haven't most animals invented a barter system or an economy?
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Eh? You Serious? Easy Mode? How Disgusting! Only Elementary School Kids should play on Easy Mode.
we wouldn't have language if we had most other animals' vocal chords and mouths either, you can teach apes sign language and many animals can understand language even if they can't speak it themselves
we are the most intelligent animal on the planet but it's not "infinitely", a lot of what we perceive as the result of intelligence has to do with how our bodies are built physically as much as anything
you can teach apes sign language and many animals can understand language even if they can't speak it themselves
Wasn't the ape sign language thing not really all that convincing? I remember hearing that it was not as incredible as it was originally reported to be.
And please don't say you're thinking of dogs when you say they can understand language. They can associate a stimulus with some action they're supposed to perform, but that is not understanding language.
Liquid Wind posted... we wouldn't have language if we had most other animals' vocal chords and mouths either, you can teach apes sign language and many animals can understand language even if they can't speak it themselves
we are the most intelligent animal on the planet but it's not "infinitely", a lot of what we perceive as the result of intelligence has to do with how our bodies are built physically as much as anything
So are you making the empirical claim that human voices have the greatest range and versitility over every other creature that exists? How confident are you on that?
Also your latter claim is foolish in many ways: Ever considered that many human inventions are molded around how bodies are formed, rather than the other way around?
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Eh? You Serious? Easy Mode? How Disgusting! Only Elementary School Kids should play on Easy Mode.
They can associate a stimulus with some action they're supposed to perform
dogs aren't the smartest animals out there to begin with but even so, their grasp of language is better than simply performing actions based on recognized sounds
again, not that other animals are inherently as intelligent as humans, but we owe a lot of what we've achieved to the makeup of our bodies. building and using tools and language are the two things that best separate humans from other animals and both are just as much a result of our physical skill set as our mental prowess
dogs aren't the smartest animals out there to begin with but even so, their grasp of language is better than simply performing actions based on recognized sounds
You're going to have to explain a bit. What are you suggesting. They understand what words mean in English? They can pick up on the tense of a command?
And I said "stimulus" because you can teach dogs to do things without verbal commands.
Liquid Wind posted... animals can't build things like video cameras because they don't have the physical requirements to work with materials at a high level or in the case of ocean creatures, don't have access to many resources at all. you dump a random person in the middle of the wild and they'll be living mostly like an animal. we are not inherently super intelligent, we lucked into a lot of it. given the same brain and more animal like hands that aren't skilled enough to build and work with tools, you have just a pretty smart animal, but nothing like what we are
Ok, animals can't build video cameras. But animals can surely use video cameras that already exist built by humans.
Kind of like how people have trained apes to use a simple internet system.
And yet, still no documentaries made for apes about humans.
The truth is that humans just learn faster. You can teach a one-year-old to put toys in a box; it takes roughly one hour--that's how fast they can pick up on the concept. You could teach it to a dog and it might take days.
For another example, show a picture of a toy to a kid, they can bring you that toy. Generally speaking dogs can't correlate a 2D picture with a 3D object. (With the exception of one or two unusually smart dogs). The problem gets even harder if the size of the object in the 2D image doesn't match up with the size of the 3D object. (Again, there are a small number of dogs who can do it, but it's very, very rare).
All of this is the bare-minimum required to watch a documentary and associate "That thing on the TV screen is actually an elephant, even though it's 2D and looks small on the TV." Most animals literally can't get that far--can't get to the level of a 3-year-old human pointing at a TV screen and thinking "That's an Elephant."
So yes, other animals won't be making documentaries about us any time soon; even if we made special video-cameras designed just for their appendages. Even if we removed the normal expectations of a documentary (i.e. no narrator). The concept of creating pictures that represent something to educate others of your kind is just way too complex for the level of cognitive development that non-human animals tend to reach.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
You're going to have to explain a bit. What are you suggesting. They understand what words mean in English
yes, not whole sentences generally but I don't see how anyone could have a dog at any point in their life and not know this, they very clearly do pick up words
Liquid Wind posted... You're going to have to explain a bit. What are you suggesting. They understand what words mean in English
yes, not whole sentences generally but I don't see how anyone could have a dog at any point in their life and not know this, they very clearly do pick up words
I don't see how what you're describing is different from what I described. They heard a sound, and associate it with something else. You could use whistle blows instead of English words, or anything else.
It's more like... when they hear your keys jingle and recognize that you're going for a drive and get excited.
The difference between animals and humans is stuff like ambition, faith, etc.
Animals just do whatever their instincts tell them. They don't act very much on illogical emotional concepts. You never see lions running away from the pack to go live their own lives because they don't want to continue the family business of making babies and killing deer or something.
Emotion is way more powerful of a motive for humans, instinct for animals.
-- _foolmo_ 'To be foolmo'd is to be better opinion'd.' - Blairville
And the important part was "understanding words in English." In the context of the language. They recognize sounds. No one's taking that away from them. They don't understand human language.
Who said intelligence was the deciding factor as why we are "above animals" anyway?
We just operate in a completely different way, but that doesn't mean we are a more structured species than any other (like the honey bee, for example).
If you think that being the top predator and consumer is validation that we are "above" animals, I guess you (arguably) won the debate.
If I was any animal, I would be absolutely terrified of human, much like they were with dinosaurs. We are terrorists to the animal kingdom.
This started because Vlado basically suggested that our intelligence means we aren't a sum of very tiny parts operating together in mostly automatic ways.
Vlado is able to control his body at the microscopic level, apparently.
the idea that humans are "above" other animals and not simply another species of animals ourselves is ultimately a religious concept, god created us in his own image so we are "special". justifying it by intelligence is just the next reason down the line now that we've become more secular
the idea that humans are "above" other animals and not simply another species of animals ourselves is ultimately a religious concept, god created us in his own image so we are "special". justifying it by intelligence is just the next reason down the line now that we've become more secular
So if we invent a superintelligent AI which tiles the Solar system with miniature versions of Glenn Beck, it would be no more special than a sea cucumber?
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You're messing with me! You're messing with me, aren't you!? You're making fun of me, aren't you!? Aren't you!? You definitely are! I'll murder you!