6 ms·
This seems obvious to me and I don't understand how one can think otherwise.
by jenadine 2y ago
This seems obvious to me and I don't understand how one can think otherwise.
- uoaei 2y agoObjectification, that's how.
- konart 2y agoSun moves around Earth. This seems obvious to me and I don't understand how one can think otherwise. /s
- diego_sandoval 2y agoSun does move around the earth though. Doesn't it?
- fsckboy 2y agoThe entire sun moves around a point that is outside the sun. this point is on a more or less (Saturn) straight line to Jupiter.
- stavros 2y agoIt doesn't (always). It depends on where the other planets are, and can range from near the center of the sun to outside its surface.
- himinlomax 2y agoIt depends on the frame of reference, so you can correctly say that the sun goes around the earth. You're instead thinking of heliocentrism vs geocentrism, which is about the planets as a whole revolving around the sun. This is a common misguided gotcha question that is hilariously so confidently gotten wrong, just like what is heavier, a kilogram of lead or a kilogram of feathers? The former is heavier and I can prove it with one word.
- mistermann 2y agoThis is such a good point, and the commonality and importance of it are underestimated (or not estimated at all) and underappreciated.
- fsckboy 2y agono, I'm not thinking of that, I'm thinking of the fact that it is quite commonly pointed out that the earth-moon 2-body system rotates around a point 1000 miles below the surface of the earth (the center of the earth being 4000 miles below the surface); and I'm pointing out that if you are going to point that out about the earth-moon, it's even more interesting to point out the more dramatic situation regarding the sun-jupiter 2-body system where the point is outside of the sun.
- temp0826 2y agoMore like a long wobbly curly straw that goes around Sagitarius A*
- ekianjo 2y agoit was obvious that the Earth was flat until not too long ago in Human History.
- 8372049 2y agoNo, the spherical shape of the Earth has been apparent and acknowledged for at least two thousand years. It's the heliocentric view that has been challenged until fairly recently.
- ekianjo 2y agothats patently false. it was known to the educated greeks but it was far from being widespread among the masses who were uneducated and did not know how to read. education was not a thing unless for the scribes which were a super small minority of the population. so for most people it was far from obvious that the Earth was spherical
- bawolff 2y ago"We all agree on the earth’s shape. For surely we always speak of the round ball of the Earth" - Pliny (Natural History, II.64). In year 77. If the earth was commonly spoken of in day to day language as the round ball, than i would assume this meant that even commoners knew that it was round.
- arrowsmith 2y agoNot true: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth
- koenraad 2y agoI had the exact same initial thought. I don’t fully grasp the definition of the term consciousness but I guess for me it boils down to loving.
- ahf8Aithaex7Nai 2y agoHow is that obvious? I'm pretty sure that not even humans have consciousness before they have learned to speak.
- colordrops 2y agoIt sounds like you and GP are talking about two different things when referring to "consciousness".
- ahf8Aithaex7Nai 2y agoYes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40262772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40262772
- jmprspret 2y agoSo if humans are limited by the precondition of language, other creatures must be too?
- ahf8Aithaex7Nai 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40262772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40262772
- TheDudeMan 2y agoJust because memories are not persisted? Or some other reason?
- ahf8Aithaex7Nai 2y agoNot only memories but also specific intentions for action are unlikely to be well retained in the mind over long periods of time without conceptual language. There is an assumption that language did not originate as a means of communication in the first place, but as a tool to enable intentional and coordinated action in the group at a higher level. Sending someone out in search of food when they are not immediately driven by hunger, without them following another impulse after five minutes, is probably hardly possible if they cannot carry the task with them in their head in a linguistically fixed form. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40262772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40262772
- bawolff 2y agoBecause nobody really agrees on what it means to be concious, so depending on what that means to you, either its trivial that a lot of things are concious or its very unclear if even other people are concious.
- yungporko 2y agothere are certainly people that make me wonder
- stavros 2y agoThe issue is that we don't assume consciousness and try to figure out whether some animals don't exhibit it, we assume everything is a robot until we can tell otherwise.
- joak 2y ago"consciousness" is often an alias for soul with a scientific flavor. That's why "machines cannot be conscious" despite the fact that humans obey to the same physical rules. Once you define consciousness it might be easy to implement. If I use the definition "perception of our own thoughts" it's already implemented with ps or activity monitor. The mystery is how this is done biologically and how evolution had led to it. But the implementation with computers is trivial.
- a_cardboard_box 2y ago> humans obey to the same physical rules. We do not know how the universe works on a fundamental level. We don't know if the universe can be simulated by a Turing machine. I think it's clear it can't. 1) I have subjective experience (there is something that it is like to be me). 2) My subjective experience is outside of what math can describe (perhaps math can describe the degree to which I experience each qualia, but that is different from experiencing the qualia themselves). 3) I am able to take this experience and write that I know that there is something beyond mathematical rules that exists. 4) My behaviour (what words I write) is influenced by the existence of something non-mathematical. 5) My behaviour can't be described as a mathematical function of the past.
- anothernewdude 2y agoThe converse seems obvious to me. Perhaps 'seeming obvious' isn't enough to reach conclusions.
- mistermann 2y agoIt is plenty for reaching conclusions, but it is not so great for reaching correct conclusions. Is this not kind of what the point of meditation is for a lot of people, reaching higher planes of consciousness? And my understanding is that a common technique in meditation is to notice when thoughts arise (ie: truth), note them, and let them pass.
- sandspar 2y agoNobody alive has the slightest clue what consciousness really is, including you. Your sense that it's obvious to attribute this opaque phenomena to an opaque species is just voodoo.
- hypertele-Xii 2y agoTransmitting your thoughts telepathically across time and space is also pretty voodoo, yet here you are.
- bsenftner 2y agoAbout time. I did not pursue biological sciences because I assumed and accepted other "lower species" consciousness as an obvious fact, and that got treated with ridicule and derision.
- not_the_fda 2y agoBecause the implications are horrifying. If animals have consciousness then every cow, pig, and chicken farm is a mini Auschwitz.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoWell yes. A friend of mine has recently stopped eating any pig products due to him finding out that pigs enjoy playing video games: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56023720 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56023720
- User23 2y agoEverything that lives dies. And everything that dies is going to be food for something else sooner or later. Nothing is going to change that reality. That pig is going to die. How is dying to feed humans worse than the inevitable alternative of dying to feed some other living thing?
- maccard 2y agothe manner in which they live and die is as important.
- gunapologist99 2y agoThis is true. I move we install video games at pig farms.
- 082349872349872 2y agoAt least I don't think Auschwitz had self-actuated rotating robotic brushes for the inmates to skritch themselves with. The little red contact lenses for the chickens are horrifying though.
- mypastself 2y agoOnly if all those animals are treated poorly. Or at least if they’d be likely to pick non-existence over such existence if they had the choice.
- zvmaz 2y agoMaybe because we have a vested interest in denying that animals have sentience and thus deserve to be treated like organisms that feel pain and sorrow?
- zmgsabst 2y agoWe do that, though. Most people accept that animals experience sensations and take efforts to minimize their suffering, eg, when butchering, hunting, or fishing. We’re deeply concerned when people dont do that and, eg, torture small animals for fun.
- krylon 2y agoAgreed. Over the past couple of years, I have stumbled across numerous indicators that a wide variety of animals have at the very least more complex inner processes and experiences than naturalists of old would have given them credit for. Anyone who has spent any significant amount of time living with a dog or a cat will confirm that their four-legged companions behave very much as if they had emotions analogous to our own. That they remember us individually, have favorite spots to rest, individual personality traits. Ants don't have hobbies, of course, and I doubt they spend their evenings pondering the meaning of life. But viewing them as purely mechanical automata misses a big part of their lives.
- thegrim33 2y agoI don't follow the line of logic at all .. just because something higher up the "consciousness tree" exists, it doesn't mean that other stuff lower than it is also conscious. If that's the case, then every animal on earth is conscious because humans exist and are conscious. How much or how little a human or a dog is conscious has no bearing on how conscious an ant is.