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I think it's just human conceit, that which drives us to think we are special, as an individual, as a species, as a planet in the universe, that also makes us n

I think it's just human conceit, that which drives us to think we are special, as an individual, as a species, as a planet in the universe, that also makes us not want to see that animals also feel a range of deeper emotions. You can look at ducks and see a mother making sure all her little children are following her into the lake and are safe. Is it love? Why not? We call love a profound feeling but is it really? Isn't love a function that helps us take care of our young and survive as a species? An alien, who had never encountered our planet before and perhaps thinking they are the intelligent life while the beings on Earth are just 'responding to stimuli' wouldn't see the emotions humans feel. As ducks to humans, humans to these aliens. Ducks and humans alike would appear just to be going through the motions.

meowface 8y ago
Exactly. There's surely a threshold below which emotions can't be paralleled between humans and animals in that way, but it seems mammals are above it.
brink 8y ago
In your view, what constitutes special? What does a species have to do to be special?
burke 8y ago
I agree, our major issue is that we can't get over this intuition that we must be special somehow. This quote from Westworld really gets to the heart of it, for me at least: > There is no threshold at which we become greater than the sum of our parts; no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. We humans like to fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet, we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do—rarely questioning our choices—content, for the most part, to be told what to do next.
- tj-teej 8y ago
  > There is no threshold at which we become greater than the sum of our parts; no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist The idea that consciousness doesn't exist is very interesting, and I'm not poo-pooing it, however the argument that it doesn't exist because you can't identify an inflection point is an example of the grains of sand fallacy. The Grains of Sand fallacy basically claims you can't say "there's no way adding one piece of sand would render a pile of sand un-liftable." This isn't true as I can lift a bag with one grain of sand and can't lift a bag with a billion grains of sand, therefore there has to be a point where I can lift the bag with N grains of sand, and can't lift the bag with N+1 grains. I agree it's hard to identify an inflection point; but that doesn't prove that consciousness isn't real. If we define consciousness as something dead people don't have and an alive person has (or at least SOMEONE once has had), then there has to be an inflection point as people die.
  - burke 8y ago
    Yeah—Ford overstates it for my taste but I think the key realization is that if there's no inflection point at which the magic thing that is "consciousness" arises, our intuitive conception of consciousness-as-such is wrong in a deep way. What I take out of this is not that consciousness doesn't exist, but that generally when people use the word "consciousness", the thing they think they're referring to doesn't exist in nearly as substantial a way as they think it does. We talk about ourselves as special and animals as fancy pattern matchers because we can't intuitively accept that consciousness isn't a binary phenomenon. If we accept that it's an emergent phenomenon with no clear boundary, there are only two possible conclusions: * Panpsychism or dual-aspect monism, where matter is imbued with proto-consciousness; or * "Illusionism" is maybe the best descriptor? Where consciousness exists but not in the way we think it does.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  > we can't get over this intuition that we must be special It seems possible that a group of people who see animals as subhuman would be able to exploit them more completely and may have an evolutionary advantage. Similar to how animals who believe they have their own consciousness separate from a global conscious would fight harder for survival, and therefore have a selective advantage. Doesn't mean either of those things are true, but animals who think that way may breed more. It's also possible that humans who see other groups of humans as subhuman have done better in war times, and have therefore proliferated. I wish more people would consider that we might have ingrained beliefs that are both false and adaptive. I think knowledge is power generally, but lies can be power in specific cases.
drak0n1c 8y ago
Isn't it also "human conceit" to think that other species should always be thought of as having emotions and consciousness? No other animal engages in such. Perhaps it's the other way around from how you put it. All animals by default share the conceit you describe. It is not unique to humanity, and does not deserve the label of "human". The bear does not lament its catch, the whale does not wonder at the inner life of a fish it accidentally swallows. The uniquely human conceit that we engage in is the one we are both engaging in right now. The exercise of putting oneself in another's shoes. By the definition of the word, doesn't that make our species special?
- chris_mc 8y ago
  >No other animal has such a conception. Tell me your secret to understanding the inner minds of animals. Seriously, any pet owner will tell you animals seemingly have feelings. They do things that don't make much sense outside of them showing love, hate, annoyance, etc. It's not scientific, but why would humans be so different from animals when we all came down a similar evolutionary line? You don't see great leaps in physical trait happening, usually, it's a gradual process, so I would assume that feelings gradually developed into what humans have now.
  - walterstucco 8y ago
    Pet owners can also tell you that most of what their pets do makes absolutely no sense If my cats were human, they would both be in jail One of my cats is pure breed, has never lived outside of a house, loves eating plastic, olives and chips but shows no care for fresh meat The other one was a stray cat, she still hides food that she doesn't eat, because that's what she's been doing for the initial part of her life In a way she adapted to live in a house, but she never learned that she's not been living in the streets for the biggest part of her life So yes, they have their personalities, very different from each other They get bored, they enjoy snuggles (until they do not and scratch you for no reason), but can they process their feelings beyond reaction? I'm not really sure they do in a very complex way
- gotrythis 8y ago
  How do you know all the inner thinkings and feelings of these other creatures?
temporallobe 8y ago
Whoa there...getting all philosophical on us! In all seriousness though I think humans have always thought of themselves as a higher form of life because we assume we’re sentient. And only sentient beings can experience physical or emotional pain, right? Even before the idea of sentience, we threw around words like “reasoning”. At some point humans must have rationalized away the notion that animals experience suffering because to this day we still enjoy our hamburgers and continue to leave out pets out in the cold.
- Gpetrium 8y ago
  For most of human history, eating animals was a large portion of the diet, therefore, people were required to limit their empathy or try to rationalize their way towards eating animals (do or die). Today's environment is an abnormality in history (e.g. individuals wanting to be herbivores) created by the excess of food and technological advances we have. Maybe this is the way to go, maybe it isn't, maybe either options are irrelevant anyway.
  - ab5tract 8y ago
    That is just not the case. Hunter gatherer societies have rich narrative traditions around every kind of animal imaginable. You only need desensitization once you are massacring animals on an industrial scale.
    - Gpetrium 8y ago
      What exactly is not the case? Most humans have been dependent on animals for their diet. Even with rich narrative traditions, they would still have to limit their connection to the food, otherwise they would not eat it (similar to some people today). It is abnormal to have easily available food in part due to specialization (butchers, etc) and industrialization. Are people likely to be desensitized by not being part of the process of getting the animal to the table? Possibly, but that is an ad-don to the points I made.
  - ThenAsNow 8y ago
    > Today's environment is an abnormality in history (e.g. individuals wanting to be herbivores) created by the excess of food and technological advances we have. How this is not true of our artificial cities, dwellings, and infrastructure? And what do you mean by "abnormality"? Do you foresee human manipulation of our environment receding toward some less-manipulated baseline? It seems to me that people claiming voluntary herbivorism is "unnatural" (not your word per se) should take a look at everything else around them and realize that human life today is pervasively and inextricably intertwined with the "unnatural", which doesn't seem to cause people to raise any red flags about it. I don't think it's an "abnormality" so much as a development, just as human civilizations continue to develop.
clairity 8y ago
as a somewhat related tangent, i tend to say of dogs (at least) that they're "first-order humans", as they seem to have similar emotions that are somehow more straightforward and predictable, much like a toddler. negotiating life with a dog is at one level of complexity, while negotiating life with other humans is exponentially (figuratively rather than mathematically) more complex. like humans, you can read so much in the micro-movements of a dog's eyes, nose, lips and ears.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  A fun fact related to the subject: experiments have shown that dogs will actively try to make eye contact with humans to get help with a difficult task, while wolves will ignore nearby humans.
  - clairity 8y ago
    dogs are so socially adept. =) while she has anxiety issues at home (probably abused before), my dog is a social butterfly when we're out. she knows who might give her treats and who might be a threat, approaching the former happily and the latter cautiously. she can get shy/awkward dogs to play with her while keeping aggressive dogs from getting too amped up. i still have a lot to learn from her.
- starpilot 8y ago
  Reminds me of this: http://time.com/5412458/are-dogs-smart/ http://time.com/5412458/are-dogs-smart/ "Your Dog Is Probably Dumber Than You Think." Dogs are about as smart as other mammals like cats or pigs. Most anecdotes of dog intelligence are blown out of proportion by doting dog owners, especially those in this thread. Articles about dogs are millennial bait.
mtberatwork 8y ago
> Ducks and humans alike would appear just to be going through the motions. The crux of the human condition is that we are aware of our own mortality. That's a profound awareness which breeds all sorts of irrationalities and fears in humans not found in ducks. If those are just the motions, then I suppose we may have gotten the short end of the stick perhaps?
- svachalek 8y ago
  I'd agree that there are some animals that don't seem to be aware of this, but I can't think of any birds or mammals I'd put into that group off the top of my head. What makes you think this is uniquely human?
  - mtberatwork 8y ago
    Well, I don't see any ducks around here postulating what it means to be mortal. But in all fairness, I think you are most likely referring to the "fight or flight" response mechanism found in living creatures. This is simply an unconscious reaction to stressful stimuli and doesn't signal a higher state of consciousness.
    - nearbuy 8y ago
      I'm not sure what your basis is for either claim. How would a duck that was aware it could die behave any differently than what we observe? What makes you think that fear is a conscious emotion in humans and an unconscious reaction in animals? If you were a member of an alien species briefly observing the Earth 50,000 years ago, you'd probably use a similar argument that humans aren't conscious. Sure, they hunt, they play, and they show fear of danger, but that isn't substantially different from other mammals.
everdev 8y ago
It's exactly this care a mother shows for her offspring and how they communicate and teach/learn that made me convert from a strict meat eater to a strict vegetarian. P.S. I have no judgement or animosity towards those who eat meat. Humans evolved to eat meat and it's a personal choice. But if you choose to, please consider taking an active role in the hunting and harvesting process.
molotovbliss 8y ago
Roadside picnic.
ip26 8y ago
Is it conceit? Or do we just not speak Duck? It's really quite hard to prove things like whether a duck is sentient or not, without talking to one.
swayvil 8y ago
I think it's willful ignorance. Logic (based in conceit or otherwise) is just one of our tools for conditioning our reality into something that we find palatable. Another is willful ignorance. Ignore a thing and it doesn't exist. Easy. Willful ignorance is a basic building block of "reality".
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

meowface 8y ago

Exactly. There's surely a threshold below which emotions can't be paralleled between humans and animals in that way, but it seems mammals are above it.

brink 8y ago

In your view, what constitutes special? What does a species have to do to be special?

burke 8y ago

I agree, our major issue is that we can't get over this intuition that we must be special somehow. This quote from Westworld really gets to the heart of it, for me at least: > There is no threshold at which we become greater than the sum of our parts; no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. We humans like to fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet, we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do—rarely questioning our choices—content, for the most part, to be told what to do next.

tj-teej 8y ago
> There is no threshold at which we become greater than the sum of our parts; no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist The idea that consciousness doesn't exist is very interesting, and I'm not poo-pooing it, however the argument that it doesn't exist because you can't identify an inflection point is an example of the grains of sand fallacy. The Grains of Sand fallacy basically claims you can't say "there's no way adding one piece of sand would render a pile of sand un-liftable." This isn't true as I can lift a bag with one grain of sand and can't lift a bag with a billion grains of sand, therefore there has to be a point where I can lift the bag with N grains of sand, and can't lift the bag with N+1 grains. I agree it's hard to identify an inflection point; but that doesn't prove that consciousness isn't real. If we define consciousness as something dead people don't have and an alive person has (or at least SOMEONE once has had), then there has to be an inflection point as people die.
- burke 8y ago
  Yeah—Ford overstates it for my taste but I think the key realization is that if there's no inflection point at which the magic thing that is "consciousness" arises, our intuitive conception of consciousness-as-such is wrong in a deep way. What I take out of this is not that consciousness doesn't exist, but that generally when people use the word "consciousness", the thing they think they're referring to doesn't exist in nearly as substantial a way as they think it does. We talk about ourselves as special and animals as fancy pattern matchers because we can't intuitively accept that consciousness isn't a binary phenomenon. If we accept that it's an emergent phenomenon with no clear boundary, there are only two possible conclusions: * Panpsychism or dual-aspect monism, where matter is imbued with proto-consciousness; or * "Illusionism" is maybe the best descriptor? Where consciousness exists but not in the way we think it does.
erikpukinskis 8y ago
> we can't get over this intuition that we must be special It seems possible that a group of people who see animals as subhuman would be able to exploit them more completely and may have an evolutionary advantage. Similar to how animals who believe they have their own consciousness separate from a global conscious would fight harder for survival, and therefore have a selective advantage. Doesn't mean either of those things are true, but animals who think that way may breed more. It's also possible that humans who see other groups of humans as subhuman have done better in war times, and have therefore proliferated. I wish more people would consider that we might have ingrained beliefs that are both false and adaptive. I think knowledge is power generally, but lies can be power in specific cases.

drak0n1c 8y ago

Isn't it also "human conceit" to think that other species should always be thought of as having emotions and consciousness? No other animal engages in such. Perhaps it's the other way around from how you put it. All animals by default share the conceit you describe. It is not unique to humanity, and does not deserve the label of "human". The bear does not lament its catch, the whale does not wonder at the inner life of a fish it accidentally swallows. The uniquely human conceit that we engage in is the one we are both engaging in right now. The exercise of putting oneself in another's shoes. By the definition of the word, doesn't that make our species special?

chris_mc 8y ago
>No other animal has such a conception. Tell me your secret to understanding the inner minds of animals. Seriously, any pet owner will tell you animals seemingly have feelings. They do things that don't make much sense outside of them showing love, hate, annoyance, etc. It's not scientific, but why would humans be so different from animals when we all came down a similar evolutionary line? You don't see great leaps in physical trait happening, usually, it's a gradual process, so I would assume that feelings gradually developed into what humans have now.
- walterstucco 8y ago
  Pet owners can also tell you that most of what their pets do makes absolutely no sense If my cats were human, they would both be in jail One of my cats is pure breed, has never lived outside of a house, loves eating plastic, olives and chips but shows no care for fresh meat The other one was a stray cat, she still hides food that she doesn't eat, because that's what she's been doing for the initial part of her life In a way she adapted to live in a house, but she never learned that she's not been living in the streets for the biggest part of her life So yes, they have their personalities, very different from each other They get bored, they enjoy snuggles (until they do not and scratch you for no reason), but can they process their feelings beyond reaction? I'm not really sure they do in a very complex way
gotrythis 8y ago
How do you know all the inner thinkings and feelings of these other creatures?

temporallobe 8y ago

Whoa there...getting all philosophical on us! In all seriousness though I think humans have always thought of themselves as a higher form of life because we assume we’re sentient. And only sentient beings can experience physical or emotional pain, right? Even before the idea of sentience, we threw around words like “reasoning”. At some point humans must have rationalized away the notion that animals experience suffering because to this day we still enjoy our hamburgers and continue to leave out pets out in the cold.

Gpetrium 8y ago
For most of human history, eating animals was a large portion of the diet, therefore, people were required to limit their empathy or try to rationalize their way towards eating animals (do or die). Today's environment is an abnormality in history (e.g. individuals wanting to be herbivores) created by the excess of food and technological advances we have. Maybe this is the way to go, maybe it isn't, maybe either options are irrelevant anyway.
- ab5tract 8y ago
  That is just not the case. Hunter gatherer societies have rich narrative traditions around every kind of animal imaginable. You only need desensitization once you are massacring animals on an industrial scale.
  - Gpetrium 8y ago
    What exactly is not the case? Most humans have been dependent on animals for their diet. Even with rich narrative traditions, they would still have to limit their connection to the food, otherwise they would not eat it (similar to some people today). It is abnormal to have easily available food in part due to specialization (butchers, etc) and industrialization. Are people likely to be desensitized by not being part of the process of getting the animal to the table? Possibly, but that is an ad-don to the points I made.
- ThenAsNow 8y ago
  > Today's environment is an abnormality in history (e.g. individuals wanting to be herbivores) created by the excess of food and technological advances we have. How this is not true of our artificial cities, dwellings, and infrastructure? And what do you mean by "abnormality"? Do you foresee human manipulation of our environment receding toward some less-manipulated baseline? It seems to me that people claiming voluntary herbivorism is "unnatural" (not your word per se) should take a look at everything else around them and realize that human life today is pervasively and inextricably intertwined with the "unnatural", which doesn't seem to cause people to raise any red flags about it. I don't think it's an "abnormality" so much as a development, just as human civilizations continue to develop.

clairity 8y ago

as a somewhat related tangent, i tend to say of dogs (at least) that they're "first-order humans", as they seem to have similar emotions that are somehow more straightforward and predictable, much like a toddler. negotiating life with a dog is at one level of complexity, while negotiating life with other humans is exponentially (figuratively rather than mathematically) more complex. like humans, you can read so much in the micro-movements of a dog's eyes, nose, lips and ears.

crooked-v 8y ago
A fun fact related to the subject: experiments have shown that dogs will actively try to make eye contact with humans to get help with a difficult task, while wolves will ignore nearby humans.
- clairity 8y ago
  dogs are so socially adept. =) while she has anxiety issues at home (probably abused before), my dog is a social butterfly when we're out. she knows who might give her treats and who might be a threat, approaching the former happily and the latter cautiously. she can get shy/awkward dogs to play with her while keeping aggressive dogs from getting too amped up. i still have a lot to learn from her.
starpilot 8y ago
Reminds me of this: http://time.com/5412458/are-dogs-smart/ http://time.com/5412458/are-dogs-smart/ "Your Dog Is Probably Dumber Than You Think." Dogs are about as smart as other mammals like cats or pigs. Most anecdotes of dog intelligence are blown out of proportion by doting dog owners, especially those in this thread. Articles about dogs are millennial bait.

mtberatwork 8y ago

> Ducks and humans alike would appear just to be going through the motions. The crux of the human condition is that we are aware of our own mortality. That's a profound awareness which breeds all sorts of irrationalities and fears in humans not found in ducks. If those are just the motions, then I suppose we may have gotten the short end of the stick perhaps?

svachalek 8y ago
I'd agree that there are some animals that don't seem to be aware of this, but I can't think of any birds or mammals I'd put into that group off the top of my head. What makes you think this is uniquely human?
- mtberatwork 8y ago
  Well, I don't see any ducks around here postulating what it means to be mortal. But in all fairness, I think you are most likely referring to the "fight or flight" response mechanism found in living creatures. This is simply an unconscious reaction to stressful stimuli and doesn't signal a higher state of consciousness.
  - nearbuy 8y ago
    I'm not sure what your basis is for either claim. How would a duck that was aware it could die behave any differently than what we observe? What makes you think that fear is a conscious emotion in humans and an unconscious reaction in animals? If you were a member of an alien species briefly observing the Earth 50,000 years ago, you'd probably use a similar argument that humans aren't conscious. Sure, they hunt, they play, and they show fear of danger, but that isn't substantially different from other mammals.

everdev 8y ago

It's exactly this care a mother shows for her offspring and how they communicate and teach/learn that made me convert from a strict meat eater to a strict vegetarian. P.S. I have no judgement or animosity towards those who eat meat. Humans evolved to eat meat and it's a personal choice. But if you choose to, please consider taking an active role in the hunting and harvesting process.

molotovbliss 8y ago

Roadside picnic.

ip26 8y ago

Is it conceit? Or do we just not speak Duck? It's really quite hard to prove things like whether a duck is sentient or not, without talking to one.

swayvil 8y ago

I think it's willful ignorance. Logic (based in conceit or otherwise) is just one of our tools for conditioning our reality into something that we find palatable. Another is willful ignorance. Ignore a thing and it doesn't exist. Easy. Willful ignorance is a basic building block of "reality".

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]