4 ms·

Not all animals are equal. While some have their own thoughts and dreams, most don't.

steve_adams_86 3y ago
Do we have solid evidence or proof of that? Even fish appear to have excellent memories in some cases, ability to recognize individuals of other aquatic species, and they have exceptional environmental awareness. With I was a kid, just about everyone was certain that fish were no different from worms or fruit flies.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  Do we have solid evidence and proof that not all animals are equal? Yeah. Memory can be separate from self-awareness, and that's the thing we need to try and be aware of.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    It's feasible to have thoughts and dreams and also no sense of "I" within them.
    - steve_adams_86 3y ago
      Not only feasible but equally valuable. It’s simply how humans orient their thoughts, and we have no evidence that this has intrinsic value over a being which doesn’t do this.
      - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        You're making an awful lot of assumptions that contradict our scientific understanding of animals. A being without self-awareness would only have thoughts that are basically instinct, i.e. 'need food', and those thoughts are in no way equally valuable to more complex thoughts.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        steve_adams_86 3y ago
        I’m not positive that’s true though. There’s so much we think about the world that seems to only be an extension of how we experience the world, but can’t be verified at all. Such as the idea that without an “I” as we experience it, there is no meaningful awareness. I’m open to animals having experiences which are different from mine yet still worth something, and generally worth preserving in the way we typically believe we should with, say, a cat or a dog.
        PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        > I’m not positive that’s true though. Is this possible because you are just speculating out of interest, and not as familiar with current research as you could be? > Such as the idea that without an “I” as we experience it, there is no meaningful awareness. This is akin to Russel's teapot IMO.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      Yes and no. Without self-awareness, those thoughts are just instinctual desires, e.g. 'need food'. Without self-awareness there won't be much going on in any dreams either.
- yungporko 3y ago
  anyone who has ever had a pet goldfish knows that they're more aware than people give them credit for. they recognise their food containers and get visibly excited when it's feeding time.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    I used to spearfish and stopped, then began recording videos of fish. The difference in their behaviour was dramatic. A genus of fish where I live called the Greenling (I’ve seen kelp, rock, and painted greenling) is very curious in my experience, which spans around 5 years of shooting them and 2 years of recording them. With the speargun out and hunting mode on, they were unfortunately still curious, but far more apprehensive. They’d leave their perches on the rocks earlier to get away or try to hide in camouflage, not moving a muscle. I’d often pick them off of their rocks when they stayed still. However, with a camera, hunting mode off, they will swim circles around me, leave their perches and move around more, rarely staying completely still. They don’t perceive me as an immediate threat, and some (especially kelp greenling) really want to get close and check me out. They will follow me up after dives, check out the sand I’m tossing up, or just reorient casually to watch me. When a greenling wants to escape, it knows its environment extremely well and it will race strategically to a spot where it doesn’t think you can access it. It doesn’t go for the nearest spot; it goes for a hidey hole that contextually makes sense. They almost never wind up under a rock where I can get them. The same goes for other fish. They go to specific deep hides they’ve already charted out, even if it means going a little further. I believe this because I hunted the same spots over and over, sometimes camped on specific spots for a week and diving for hours per day. I came to discover that certain hotspots had very particular safe zones that the fish were well aware of. If a fish took off towards certain features, I’d essentially give up the pursuit; they’d wind up way too deep in a recess to shoot or retrieve. I wasted so much time trying to find them before I figured out that they’re way better at hiding than I imagined. I don’t think it’s possible for fish to be this good at knowing their environment and how to hide without being somewhat clever. They have mental maps, they know what’s trying to get them (not necessarily a speargun specifically, but an animal that requires a deep hide to escape from), and they evaluate when and how to escape contextually. I’ve watched seals go after greenling and their strategy differs quite a bit. They will simply squeeze under a rock and wait. The seals will rub their noses into the cracks and crevasses, check stuff out, then you can swim around shortly after and the greenling are still out and about. They understood the danger and hid accordingly, then came back out once the seals left. Learning this is why I stopped shooting them. Fish aren’t just meat torpedos with special sensors in their heads. They seem sentient to me.

Do we have solid evidence or proof of that? Even fish appear to have excellent memories in some cases, ability to recognize individuals of other aquatic species, and they have exceptional environmental awareness. With I was a kid, just about everyone was certain that fish were no different from worms or fruit flies.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago
Do we have solid evidence and proof that not all animals are equal? Yeah. Memory can be separate from self-awareness, and that's the thing we need to try and be aware of.
- uoaei 3y ago
  It's feasible to have thoughts and dreams and also no sense of "I" within them.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    Not only feasible but equally valuable. It’s simply how humans orient their thoughts, and we have no evidence that this has intrinsic value over a being which doesn’t do this.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      You're making an awful lot of assumptions that contradict our scientific understanding of animals. A being without self-awareness would only have thoughts that are basically instinct, i.e. 'need food', and those thoughts are in no way equally valuable to more complex thoughts.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - steve_adams_86 3y ago
        I’m not positive that’s true though. There’s so much we think about the world that seems to only be an extension of how we experience the world, but can’t be verified at all. Such as the idea that without an “I” as we experience it, there is no meaningful awareness. I’m open to animals having experiences which are different from mine yet still worth something, and generally worth preserving in the way we typically believe we should with, say, a cat or a dog.
        PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        > I’m not positive that’s true though. Is this possible because you are just speculating out of interest, and not as familiar with current research as you could be? > Such as the idea that without an “I” as we experience it, there is no meaningful awareness. This is akin to Russel's teapot IMO.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    Yes and no. Without self-awareness, those thoughts are just instinctual desires, e.g. 'need food'. Without self-awareness there won't be much going on in any dreams either.
yungporko 3y ago
anyone who has ever had a pet goldfish knows that they're more aware than people give them credit for. they recognise their food containers and get visibly excited when it's feeding time.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  I used to spearfish and stopped, then began recording videos of fish. The difference in their behaviour was dramatic. A genus of fish where I live called the Greenling (I’ve seen kelp, rock, and painted greenling) is very curious in my experience, which spans around 5 years of shooting them and 2 years of recording them. With the speargun out and hunting mode on, they were unfortunately still curious, but far more apprehensive. They’d leave their perches on the rocks earlier to get away or try to hide in camouflage, not moving a muscle. I’d often pick them off of their rocks when they stayed still. However, with a camera, hunting mode off, they will swim circles around me, leave their perches and move around more, rarely staying completely still. They don’t perceive me as an immediate threat, and some (especially kelp greenling) really want to get close and check me out. They will follow me up after dives, check out the sand I’m tossing up, or just reorient casually to watch me. When a greenling wants to escape, it knows its environment extremely well and it will race strategically to a spot where it doesn’t think you can access it. It doesn’t go for the nearest spot; it goes for a hidey hole that contextually makes sense. They almost never wind up under a rock where I can get them. The same goes for other fish. They go to specific deep hides they’ve already charted out, even if it means going a little further. I believe this because I hunted the same spots over and over, sometimes camped on specific spots for a week and diving for hours per day. I came to discover that certain hotspots had very particular safe zones that the fish were well aware of. If a fish took off towards certain features, I’d essentially give up the pursuit; they’d wind up way too deep in a recess to shoot or retrieve. I wasted so much time trying to find them before I figured out that they’re way better at hiding than I imagined. I don’t think it’s possible for fish to be this good at knowing their environment and how to hide without being somewhat clever. They have mental maps, they know what’s trying to get them (not necessarily a speargun specifically, but an animal that requires a deep hide to escape from), and they evaluate when and how to escape contextually. I’ve watched seals go after greenling and their strategy differs quite a bit. They will simply squeeze under a rock and wait. The seals will rub their noses into the cracks and crevasses, check stuff out, then you can swim around shortly after and the greenling are still out and about. They understood the danger and hid accordingly, then came back out once the seals left. Learning this is why I stopped shooting them. Fish aren’t just meat torpedos with special sensors in their heads. They seem sentient to me.