6 ms·

Do Elephants Have Souls?

26 points by zafka 3y ago

dvh 3y ago
[flagged]
- Joker_vD 3y ago
  No, neither humans nor animals do.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- boringuser2 3y ago
  It's a title very loosely using the word "soul" for shock value. They don't actually believe in Christianity. Words like "soul" and "creativity" are pointless anyhow -- human AI has stomped every one of those bounds, why not nature's AI?
  - akprasad 3y ago
    The piece defines its use of "soul" quite clearly: > But there is a fourth sense in which when we talk about [a soul], we all mean more or less the same thing: what it means for someone to bare it, for music to have it, for eyes to be the window to it, for it to be uplifted or depraved. Even if, religiously, we know by revelation that other people possess them for eternity, we only engage with or know anything about them at a quotidian level by way of the same cues and interactions that a more this-worldly view would take as their sum total: bright eyes, a dejected slump, a sudden manic inspiration or a confession of regret.
  - sophacles 3y ago
    The concept of a soul is not limited to Christianity.
    - boringuser2 3y ago
      So? Do you expect people the entire world over to have a Rolodex of fairytales that used to be told in your country?
      - sophacles 3y ago
        > Do you expect people the entire world over to have a Rolodex of fairytales that used to be told in your country? Well no, I don't expect that of most people. I do however expect those who claim to refute an idea to show slightly less than complete and utter ignorance of the idea they claim to refute. I wouldn't trust a fool who tried to tell me water wasn't wet because sand in the desert is made of silicon. Likewise I won't trust someone who can't turn on a computer to tell me why my code is broken. > So? Well, it's basically the same as above - I can tell you are quite sure of yourself. However I can't reach the same level of surety about anything you say about souls, since you clearly don't even have a basic understanding of the concept. You may even be right, but I prefer to form my opinions from a place of knowledge rather than ignorance (no matter how aggressively confident that ignorance is). I was just trying to help you make your point somewhat intelligible to other people who dislike arguments from ignorance.
        boringuser2 3y ago
        Having an extensive knowledge of fake stories from a variety of countries means you have an extensive knowledge of absolutely nothing. Foreign religions deserve equally as much derision as domestic religions. How absolutely silly the things they believe are. You'd have an actual point if you were talking about real philosophy, but you aren't. If you want to discuss the topic outside the realm of ignorance, you discuss it from a philosophical lens. Also, the idea that you propose, that merely knowing useless things makes you learned or an intellectual, isn't just silly, it's disgusting.
        sophacles 3y ago
        I think you are confusing what I was saying with something else. It's general knowledge that the concept of a soul is a common the world over. There have been quite a few philosphers that have delved deeply into the topic, many of them foundational to philosphy and deeply impactful on science. > You'd have an actual point if you were talking about real philosophy, but you aren't. You mean like Kant or maybe Descartes? I think you suspect I'm trying to argue for some religion or another or even just a general pro-religion stance. I'm not - I'm merely pointing out your statement showed ignorant dismissal of a concept that's pretty big and has an impact on most cultures. Asking the question "does an elephant have a soul?" does not imply a religious treatise - souls are conceptually what sets humans apart from animals (in many, many traditions) and asking the question "does $x have a soul?" is often asking (as in this case) "Are humans really that special?". Presumably the authors in this articl are expting their audience be any one of several billion people from places where that metaphor is a cultural trope that everyone knows. > Words like "soul" and "creativity" are pointless anyhow -- human AI has stomped every one of those bounds, why not nature's AI? Sounds like you might have some thoughts on "Are humans really that special?". If you want to be taken seriously, knowing about the multiple viewpoints, and being able to refute those actual points is helpful. If you want to come across as a buffoon and jerk, then just make sweeping statements against a strawman, and show ignorance of the concept you're discussing. > Foreign religions deserve equally as much derision as domestic religions I don't know what foreign or domestic religion is. An awful lot of religions are practiced in many countries, so I don't follow what you're saying there. As for derision of religion... nah. Seems like a lot of futile effort. Why put everyone (on all sides) in a bad mood all the time by picking fights over it when no one's beliefs (or lack thereof) will change because some insults were hurled around?
  - dingnuts 3y ago
    You're joking, right? I haven't seen a single piece of compelling AI art, and I've seen a lot of it. It all has the soul and creativity of stock photography. The only generated images I've seen that had some sort of meaning were AI images so carefully chosen or manipulated that the meaning was as attributable to the AI as the meaning behind Starry Night is attributable to Van Gogh's paintbrush
    - boringuser2 3y ago
      AI art wins competitions assessed by professional art critics.
SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
yes, all mammals have.
- throwup238 3y ago
  Personally I believe anything that tastes delicious probably has a soul. All those poor avocados...
- shapenamer 3y ago
  interesting, do all dogs go to heaven?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - timeon 3y ago
    Christians and atheists agree that dogs do not go to heaven.
    - giraffe_lady 3y ago
      however; > Now, this might seem a trivial thing to mention, considering the gravity of the subject, but I truly don’t feel it is. We were very pious children from pious households in a fairly pious town, and this affected our behavior considerably. Once, we baptized a litter of cats. > It occurred to one of the girls to swaddle them up in a doll’s dress — there was only one dress, which was just as well since the cats could hardly tolerate a moment in it and would have to have been unsaddled as soon as they were christened in any case. I myself moistened their brows, repeating the full Trinitarian formula. > Their grim old crooked-tailed mother found us baptizing away by the creek and began carrying her babies off by the napes of their necks… We lost track of which was which, but we were fairly sure that some of the creatures had been borne away still in the darkness of paganism, and that worried us a great deal. > I still remember how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand. Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays the mind. For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them. It still seems to me to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing… It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is one of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.
vouaobrasil 3y ago
As a professional wildlife photographer and someone who observes animals on an almost daily basis, I think if humans have anything called a soul, so does an animal, that we aren't anything special, and that animals deserve the same regard as humans. It moreover seems hard to reconcile the idea that there needs to be some minimal level of intelligence to gain a level of awareness. In fact, several philosophers have thought this way also and have coined the term panpsychism to denote the idea that all entities of the universe have some level of sensing and awareness and that it is most concentrated in life forms.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Does COVID-19 have a 'soul'?
  - pokeymcsnatch 3y ago
    The illness doesn't but the virus might.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      For the virus, the actions of people in the real world suggests otherwise.
  - ikari_pl 3y ago
    like the virus in Evangelion, yes.
  - z500 3y ago
    Considering viruses are basically just spring loaded injectors, I guess about as much of a soul as a rock ready to fall over in a strong wind.
  - SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
    According to panpsychism, yes. as do electrons.
- timeon 3y ago
neogodless 3y ago
The article uses this definition: an inner realm of awareness, selfhood, and possibility The dictionary has some similar phrasing: the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe a person's total self So depending on your definition, you could (or could not) apply it outside of humans. Or it's something you believe in or don't believe in. If it's self awareness, or just a definition we wrap around what causes a living being to do things, then yes, it's something you can say an elephant has. Obviously if you say it's "a person's total self", then you only apply it to people. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soul https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soul
nmeofthestate 3y ago
[flagged]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
protastus 3y ago
I'm always happy to see views of human exceptionalism getting torn down. Animals show behaviors that are very close to human, often identical modulo anatomical differences. Animals lack a language that we can understand, and therefore can't defend themselves against claims that their behavior doesn't hold up to arbitrary standards of emotion, intelligence, etc. All sentient beings deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. The vast majority of humanity is not on logical or ethical solid ground here, and remains in denial.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > All sentient beings deserve to be treated with respect and dignity There is merit in arguing that sapience, i.e. functional self awareness and a general capacity to learn, merits a higher standard of respect and dignity than mere sentience. (As do non-sentient objects, like mountains, though at a lower standard than sentients.)
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
I’d argue that mourning is the mark of a soul. When a creature mourns, it’s perpetuating the dead soul’s individual existence through the act of remembrance. (Would note that even solitary creatures, as parents, have been found to mourn, while several social creatures, e.g. ants, seem to not.)
wsintra2022 3y ago
Do humans have souls? I certainly do, not so sure about you though.. All that aside, I think this opens up too much interpretation. Why would it matter if an elephant has a soul, poachers will still poach, and the pope won’t do a damned thing! Didn’t finish the article, it is about an hour’s reading..
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > Do humans have souls? I certainly do, Many p-zombies say that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- worldsayshi 3y ago
  We can observe that we have behaviors caused by thoughts and awareness and unless we have an reasonable alternative explanation to why others have similar behaviors it seems like a reasonable conclusion that others have similar thoughts and awareness.
jgwil2 3y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828113 Also, should be noted the article is from (2013).
b450 3y ago
I've only read partway, but some of these stories of elephant behavior are very touching. It's clear that elephants have very rich social and emotional lives. Given how similar elephants are to humans (long-lived, highly cooperative mammals capable of fine-motor manipulation), it makes you wonder how close elephants were to the kind of evolutionary breakthrough humans had (I'd offer the crude speculation that apes' vocalization-related anatomy was the edge that caused human cultural evolution to outpace that of elephants). The author seems to be setting up a lot of human-animal binaries (humans choose, animals act on instinct) in order to ultimately cast doubt on them. I'm sure I'm not alone in finding these binaries quite implausible to begin with, and therefore finding those parts of the piece a bit tedious. But I am moved by these vignettes illustrating just how relatable elephants and humans are to each other.
freedude 3y ago
Animals do not have a soul. Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”" It is a great article describing Anthropomorphism though.
- wetmore 3y ago
  How does that line imply animals have no soul?
hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
Hmm. I'm pretty sure I have a soul. Other people may or may not have souls, I have no real way to confirm this. Elephants may or may not have souls as well. I can say with some confidence that P(other humans have souls) > P(elephants have souls). That's about all I can conclude from this limited vantage point.
- foogazi 3y ago
  What definition of soul are you using ? > pretty sure > some confidence What does this mean ?
pfdietz 3y ago
Does anything have a soul?
sublinear 3y ago
Betteridge's law of headlines says no

26 points by zafka 3y ago

dvh 3y ago

[flagged]

Joker_vD 3y ago
No, neither humans nor animals do.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
boringuser2 3y ago
It's a title very loosely using the word "soul" for shock value. They don't actually believe in Christianity. Words like "soul" and "creativity" are pointless anyhow -- human AI has stomped every one of those bounds, why not nature's AI?
- akprasad 3y ago
  The piece defines its use of "soul" quite clearly: > But there is a fourth sense in which when we talk about [a soul], we all mean more or less the same thing: what it means for someone to bare it, for music to have it, for eyes to be the window to it, for it to be uplifted or depraved. Even if, religiously, we know by revelation that other people possess them for eternity, we only engage with or know anything about them at a quotidian level by way of the same cues and interactions that a more this-worldly view would take as their sum total: bright eyes, a dejected slump, a sudden manic inspiration or a confession of regret.
- sophacles 3y ago
  The concept of a soul is not limited to Christianity.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    So? Do you expect people the entire world over to have a Rolodex of fairytales that used to be told in your country?
    - sophacles 3y ago
      > Do you expect people the entire world over to have a Rolodex of fairytales that used to be told in your country? Well no, I don't expect that of most people. I do however expect those who claim to refute an idea to show slightly less than complete and utter ignorance of the idea they claim to refute. I wouldn't trust a fool who tried to tell me water wasn't wet because sand in the desert is made of silicon. Likewise I won't trust someone who can't turn on a computer to tell me why my code is broken. > So? Well, it's basically the same as above - I can tell you are quite sure of yourself. However I can't reach the same level of surety about anything you say about souls, since you clearly don't even have a basic understanding of the concept. You may even be right, but I prefer to form my opinions from a place of knowledge rather than ignorance (no matter how aggressively confident that ignorance is). I was just trying to help you make your point somewhat intelligible to other people who dislike arguments from ignorance.
      - boringuser2 3y ago
        Having an extensive knowledge of fake stories from a variety of countries means you have an extensive knowledge of absolutely nothing. Foreign religions deserve equally as much derision as domestic religions. How absolutely silly the things they believe are. You'd have an actual point if you were talking about real philosophy, but you aren't. If you want to discuss the topic outside the realm of ignorance, you discuss it from a philosophical lens. Also, the idea that you propose, that merely knowing useless things makes you learned or an intellectual, isn't just silly, it's disgusting.
        sophacles 3y ago
        I think you are confusing what I was saying with something else. It's general knowledge that the concept of a soul is a common the world over. There have been quite a few philosphers that have delved deeply into the topic, many of them foundational to philosphy and deeply impactful on science. > You'd have an actual point if you were talking about real philosophy, but you aren't. You mean like Kant or maybe Descartes? I think you suspect I'm trying to argue for some religion or another or even just a general pro-religion stance. I'm not - I'm merely pointing out your statement showed ignorant dismissal of a concept that's pretty big and has an impact on most cultures. Asking the question "does an elephant have a soul?" does not imply a religious treatise - souls are conceptually what sets humans apart from animals (in many, many traditions) and asking the question "does $x have a soul?" is often asking (as in this case) "Are humans really that special?". Presumably the authors in this articl are expting their audience be any one of several billion people from places where that metaphor is a cultural trope that everyone knows. > Words like "soul" and "creativity" are pointless anyhow -- human AI has stomped every one of those bounds, why not nature's AI? Sounds like you might have some thoughts on "Are humans really that special?". If you want to be taken seriously, knowing about the multiple viewpoints, and being able to refute those actual points is helpful. If you want to come across as a buffoon and jerk, then just make sweeping statements against a strawman, and show ignorance of the concept you're discussing. > Foreign religions deserve equally as much derision as domestic religions I don't know what foreign or domestic religion is. An awful lot of religions are practiced in many countries, so I don't follow what you're saying there. As for derision of religion... nah. Seems like a lot of futile effort. Why put everyone (on all sides) in a bad mood all the time by picking fights over it when no one's beliefs (or lack thereof) will change because some insults were hurled around?
- dingnuts 3y ago
  You're joking, right? I haven't seen a single piece of compelling AI art, and I've seen a lot of it. It all has the soul and creativity of stock photography. The only generated images I've seen that had some sort of meaning were AI images so carefully chosen or manipulated that the meaning was as attributable to the AI as the meaning behind Starry Night is attributable to Van Gogh's paintbrush
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    AI art wins competitions assessed by professional art critics.

SomeoneFromCA 3y ago

yes, all mammals have.

throwup238 3y ago
Personally I believe anything that tastes delicious probably has a soul. All those poor avocados...
shapenamer 3y ago
interesting, do all dogs go to heaven?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- timeon 3y ago
  Christians and atheists agree that dogs do not go to heaven.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    however; > Now, this might seem a trivial thing to mention, considering the gravity of the subject, but I truly don’t feel it is. We were very pious children from pious households in a fairly pious town, and this affected our behavior considerably. Once, we baptized a litter of cats. > It occurred to one of the girls to swaddle them up in a doll’s dress — there was only one dress, which was just as well since the cats could hardly tolerate a moment in it and would have to have been unsaddled as soon as they were christened in any case. I myself moistened their brows, repeating the full Trinitarian formula. > Their grim old crooked-tailed mother found us baptizing away by the creek and began carrying her babies off by the napes of their necks… We lost track of which was which, but we were fairly sure that some of the creatures had been borne away still in the darkness of paganism, and that worried us a great deal. > I still remember how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand. Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays the mind. For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them. It still seems to me to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing… It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is one of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.

vouaobrasil 3y ago

As a professional wildlife photographer and someone who observes animals on an almost daily basis, I think if humans have anything called a soul, so does an animal, that we aren't anything special, and that animals deserve the same regard as humans. It moreover seems hard to reconcile the idea that there needs to be some minimal level of intelligence to gain a level of awareness. In fact, several philosophers have thought this way also and have coined the term panpsychism to denote the idea that all entities of the universe have some level of sensing and awareness and that it is most concentrated in life forms.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
Does COVID-19 have a 'soul'?
- pokeymcsnatch 3y ago
  The illness doesn't but the virus might.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    For the virus, the actions of people in the real world suggests otherwise.
- ikari_pl 3y ago
  like the virus in Evangelion, yes.
- z500 3y ago
  Considering viruses are basically just spring loaded injectors, I guess about as much of a soul as a rock ready to fall over in a strong wind.
- SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
  According to panpsychism, yes. as do electrons.
timeon 3y ago

neogodless 3y ago

The article uses this definition: an inner realm of awareness, selfhood, and possibility The dictionary has some similar phrasing: the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe a person's total self So depending on your definition, you could (or could not) apply it outside of humans. Or it's something you believe in or don't believe in. If it's self awareness, or just a definition we wrap around what causes a living being to do things, then yes, it's something you can say an elephant has. Obviously if you say it's "a person's total self", then you only apply it to people. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soul https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soul

nmeofthestate 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

protastus 3y ago

I'm always happy to see views of human exceptionalism getting torn down. Animals show behaviors that are very close to human, often identical modulo anatomical differences. Animals lack a language that we can understand, and therefore can't defend themselves against claims that their behavior doesn't hold up to arbitrary standards of emotion, intelligence, etc. All sentient beings deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. The vast majority of humanity is not on logical or ethical solid ground here, and remains in denial.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> All sentient beings deserve to be treated with respect and dignity There is merit in arguing that sapience, i.e. functional self awareness and a general capacity to learn, merits a higher standard of respect and dignity than mere sentience. (As do non-sentient objects, like mountains, though at a lower standard than sentients.)

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

I’d argue that mourning is the mark of a soul. When a creature mourns, it’s perpetuating the dead soul’s individual existence through the act of remembrance. (Would note that even solitary creatures, as parents, have been found to mourn, while several social creatures, e.g. ants, seem to not.)

wsintra2022 3y ago

Do humans have souls? I certainly do, not so sure about you though.. All that aside, I think this opens up too much interpretation. Why would it matter if an elephant has a soul, poachers will still poach, and the pope won’t do a damned thing! Didn’t finish the article, it is about an hour’s reading..

pfdietz 3y ago
> Do humans have souls? I certainly do, Many p-zombies say that.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
worldsayshi 3y ago
We can observe that we have behaviors caused by thoughts and awareness and unless we have an reasonable alternative explanation to why others have similar behaviors it seems like a reasonable conclusion that others have similar thoughts and awareness.

jgwil2 3y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828113 Also, should be noted the article is from (2013).

b450 3y ago

I've only read partway, but some of these stories of elephant behavior are very touching. It's clear that elephants have very rich social and emotional lives. Given how similar elephants are to humans (long-lived, highly cooperative mammals capable of fine-motor manipulation), it makes you wonder how close elephants were to the kind of evolutionary breakthrough humans had (I'd offer the crude speculation that apes' vocalization-related anatomy was the edge that caused human cultural evolution to outpace that of elephants). The author seems to be setting up a lot of human-animal binaries (humans choose, animals act on instinct) in order to ultimately cast doubt on them. I'm sure I'm not alone in finding these binaries quite implausible to begin with, and therefore finding those parts of the piece a bit tedious. But I am moved by these vignettes illustrating just how relatable elephants and humans are to each other.

freedude 3y ago

Animals do not have a soul. Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”" It is a great article describing Anthropomorphism though.

wetmore 3y ago
How does that line imply animals have no soul?

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago

Hmm. I'm pretty sure I have a soul. Other people may or may not have souls, I have no real way to confirm this. Elephants may or may not have souls as well. I can say with some confidence that P(other humans have souls) > P(elephants have souls). That's about all I can conclude from this limited vantage point.

foogazi 3y ago
What definition of soul are you using ? > pretty sure > some confidence What does this mean ?

pfdietz 3y ago

Does anything have a soul?

sublinear 3y ago

Betteridge's law of headlines says no