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"There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties". Or as Nim Chimpsky used to say: "Give orange me give eat ora
by abrenuntio 4y ago
"There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties".
Or as Nim Chimpsky used to say: "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you."
A lot of work remains to be done before we can give a full scientific account of the human mind in relation to the rest of nature. It seems quite narrow minded to me, fanatical even, to deny a priori that such an account, if at all possible, would confirm a transcendental distinction between humans and the rest of nature; or would feature non-material aspects.
- raducu 4y agoThis reminds me of the debate of the origins of the Universe. Some religions maintained that the Universe at some point did not exist. Some scientists up to very recently maintained (perhaps in opposition to religious views) that the Universe always existed. I'm of the view that animals are a lot smarter than we'd regularly think, but that there is indeed something very special about human intelligence. My prediction would be that we won't be able to uplift even a chimpanzee. And that would be an awesome and debate ending experiment -- if human intelligence is nothing special and it's just a few mutations away from a chimpanzee, just patch the chimpanzee genome with the intelligence genes and see what happens.