3 ms·

You seem to be severely confusing absence of evidence with evidence of absence. Do you have anything in particular in mind with the somewhat arbitrary sounding

You seem to be severely confusing absence of evidence with evidence of absence. Do you have anything in particular in mind with the somewhat arbitrary sounding "3 days ord 4"? Otherwise my answer is a definite yes. I have seen cats, dogs, pigs, ferrets, rodents, and corvids perform well thought out, planned, and by all appearencies deliberate and conscious strategies.

mabub24 9y ago
It was a rhetorical question to make a point. You seem to be severely confusing the difference between cogitative and cognitive powers. Animals aren't stupid, but all animals are not humans. We are different in quite particular ways that animals simply are not or so far from us that it is nonsense to imply that gap means we are similar. The "arbitrariness" of "3 or 4 days" is to emphasize that language is the means we have of expressing our cogitative powers. We have language, an ability to express our reasoning. Animals don't. We are introspective, ruminative, hopeful, and fearful, we can be those things because we have the language and the cogitative and conceptual depth to express them. Animals think, and animals are intelligent. They can plan. But that is no reason to assign any amount of the depth of our cogitative powers to animals. Because they can't express that cogitative depth because they lack language.
- jdmichal 9y ago
  You seem to be arbitrarily limiting "language" to a specifically-human definition. Animals can certainly express thoughts and emotions, and there's no reason to suggest that they have any limit on the levels of emotions they feel. If you want to see hope, just wait for an animal to start hoping that you'll feed them in the very near future... And they'll likely communicate the idea very clearly as well. Language so far has only been a barrier in human understanding and acknowledgement of these capabilities in animals. As much as this is an appeal to authority, I'll refer back to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness [0]: "The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young humanand non-human animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus)." [0] http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious... EDIT: I'd like to point out that human language does, as far as we know, have some very unique features which have not been entirely duplicated by any animal. However, that very fact is also what makes it extremely limiting and self-serving as a "barrier of entry". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language
  - mabub24 9y ago
    You have to be careful about describing an animal's emotions, even more-so with assigning language to animals. You brought up leaving a dog without food. It very well might hope you come with food. But the sensation it is feeling is hunger. From its behavior, you understand it is hungry: it whines, runs around, looks for where the food normally comes from (you/owner). But the dog is not saying "I hope I can get food." It's not saying, "If I have one hope in the world, above all other hopes, I hope my food would come." Because it can't say that. That's our language, us, assigning concepts to the dog. I'll put a similar quote, for my argument, from the philosopher PMS Hacker who has written extensively on this topic: "Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to understand our lives and the place of death in life.... The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future. One can remember not only where – as exhibited in an animal’s seeking or homing behaviour – but also when. Non-human animals may prepare for the future – bury food for later consumption, build dams or dig burrows, but only man can plan for the future. If a creature has mastered a language with logical connectives and quantifiers, then and only then is it possible for it to conceive of general truths, to think both of how things are and how they are not, to think both of what exists and of what does not exist, to think conditional thoughts, and with the aid of tensed verbs and modal expressions, counterfactual thoughts." This is from Human Nature: The Categorical Framework, pg.238, published 2007. I had to pull the book out to get the quote right lol.
    - jdmichal 9y ago
      "Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to understand our lives and the place of death in life...." Disagree. There's plenty of documentation of dogs understanding dangerous situations and assisting humans in exiting them. If they only had "fear", this would not be possible. They obviously have enough agency overcome such basic instinct. "The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future." Also disagree. Genie [0] was raised without language. When discovered, she could not use language to describe her experiences. Later, after learning language, she could retroactively describe these situations. That means that her experience was not limited by not having known language. This also includes emotive elements of the experiences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recalling_past_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recall...
kazinator 9y ago
Rather, GP is simply confusing abundance of evidence with absence of evidence.

mabub24 9y ago

It was a rhetorical question to make a point. You seem to be severely confusing the difference between cogitative and cognitive powers. Animals aren't stupid, but all animals are not humans. We are different in quite particular ways that animals simply are not or so far from us that it is nonsense to imply that gap means we are similar. The "arbitrariness" of "3 or 4 days" is to emphasize that language is the means we have of expressing our cogitative powers. We have language, an ability to express our reasoning. Animals don't. We are introspective, ruminative, hopeful, and fearful, we can be those things because we have the language and the cogitative and conceptual depth to express them. Animals think, and animals are intelligent. They can plan. But that is no reason to assign any amount of the depth of our cogitative powers to animals. Because they can't express that cogitative depth because they lack language.

jdmichal 9y ago
You seem to be arbitrarily limiting "language" to a specifically-human definition. Animals can certainly express thoughts and emotions, and there's no reason to suggest that they have any limit on the levels of emotions they feel. If you want to see hope, just wait for an animal to start hoping that you'll feed them in the very near future... And they'll likely communicate the idea very clearly as well. Language so far has only been a barrier in human understanding and acknowledgement of these capabilities in animals. As much as this is an appeal to authority, I'll refer back to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness [0]: "The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young humanand non-human animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus)." [0] http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious... EDIT: I'd like to point out that human language does, as far as we know, have some very unique features which have not been entirely duplicated by any animal. However, that very fact is also what makes it extremely limiting and self-serving as a "barrier of entry". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language
- mabub24 9y ago
  You have to be careful about describing an animal's emotions, even more-so with assigning language to animals. You brought up leaving a dog without food. It very well might hope you come with food. But the sensation it is feeling is hunger. From its behavior, you understand it is hungry: it whines, runs around, looks for where the food normally comes from (you/owner). But the dog is not saying "I hope I can get food." It's not saying, "If I have one hope in the world, above all other hopes, I hope my food would come." Because it can't say that. That's our language, us, assigning concepts to the dog. I'll put a similar quote, for my argument, from the philosopher PMS Hacker who has written extensively on this topic: "Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to understand our lives and the place of death in life.... The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future. One can remember not only where – as exhibited in an animal’s seeking or homing behaviour – but also when. Non-human animals may prepare for the future – bury food for later consumption, build dams or dig burrows, but only man can plan for the future. If a creature has mastered a language with logical connectives and quantifiers, then and only then is it possible for it to conceive of general truths, to think both of how things are and how they are not, to think both of what exists and of what does not exist, to think conditional thoughts, and with the aid of tensed verbs and modal expressions, counterfactual thoughts." This is from Human Nature: The Categorical Framework, pg.238, published 2007. I had to pull the book out to get the quote right lol.
  - jdmichal 9y ago
    "Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to understand our lives and the place of death in life...." Disagree. There's plenty of documentation of dogs understanding dangerous situations and assisting humans in exiting them. If they only had "fear", this would not be possible. They obviously have enough agency overcome such basic instinct. "The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future." Also disagree. Genie [0] was raised without language. When discovered, she could not use language to describe her experiences. Later, after learning language, she could retroactively describe these situations. That means that her experience was not limited by not having known language. This also includes emotive elements of the experiences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recalling_past_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recall...

kazinator 9y ago

Rather, GP is simply confusing abundance of evidence with absence of evidence.