4 ms·

My understanding of the history here is that scientific understanding of the nature of animals was based on folklore, attributing supernatural properties to ani

by klyrs 2y ago

My understanding of the history here is that scientific understanding of the nature of animals was based on folklore, attributing supernatural properties to animals and their behavior. Scientists agreed to throw all that out, and rightfully so, in preference for an evidence-based approach. And what we're seeing today, is that despite a couple centuries of assuming that animals are pure instinct-driven automatons, we have tons of evidence that they are individuals with intelligence, memory, feelings, preferences and even language. Where "they" spans the range from bees to whales. The assumptions of the recent centuries weren't so much anthropocentric, but a rejection of folklore as literal truth. While some are still attached to an anthropocentric worldview, that perspective seems dead among people who study animal behavior.

epgui 2y ago
I have a few nits to pick here... > scientific understanding of the nature of animals was based on folklore Popular, pre- or proto- scientific understanding perhaps, but not scientific understanding per se. > despite a couple centuries of assuming that animals are pure instinct-driven automatons, we have tons of evidence that they are individuals with intelligence, memory, feelings, preferences and even language These things are not mutually exclusive. The words "intelligence", "memory", "feelings", "preferences" and "language" can refer to purely automatic/mechanical processes, even when we're speaking in reference to humans. There's no real reason why we need non-mechanistic magic to explain the human experience. The two ideas are compatible: animals are conscious, and humans are "just" really complex machines. It's all the same stuff, viewed from different lenses. > The assumptions of the recent centuries weren't so much anthropocentric They were, and they still are. Folklore itself is for the most part very anthropocentric.
DangitBobby 2y ago
The human attitude towards our relationship with animals cannot be described as anything other than anthropocentric for the vast majority of people. Whether the origin of that attitude is due to the rejection of certain traditions assuming animals to be sacred or the adoption of traditions treating humans as sacred, it exists, and causes horrific mistreatment of animals on a global scale.
- epgui 2y ago
  > the origin of that attitude I suspect the attitude is the default / most primitive one, because any other attitude requires higher-order cognitive processes that can abstract one's own experiences (which is the only real input one has) with the behaviours of entities that appear to be very different from oneself. In other words, the capacity for empathy is a "positive feature", in the sense that it is absent by default. The ability to make this kind of abstraction is a pretty sophisticated thing, and either requires time to evolve (as an instinct), and/or requires socialization/learning (as a partly or totally-intentional practice).
  - DangitBobby 2y ago
    True. It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to believe you should inherently have dominion over the entire planet and all animals on it. I don't think it's an idea most people would have adopted themselves without being born into a society formed by religions that perpetuate such a belief and it's consequences [1]. As an aside, it's not clear to me how "having dominion" should justify such mistreatment, anyway. 1. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:25-27&version=KJ21 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:25-...
    - epgui 2y ago
      > It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to believe you should inherently have dominion over the entire planet and all animals on it. Is that really "sophisticated", or is that just what happens when an entity outcompetes all others for resource utilization by chance (ie.: in the context of ecology / evolutionary pressure)? This is basically how cancer happens, and yet I wouldn't call cancer cells more sophisticated than healthy ones. I call it dys-regulated.
      - DangitBobby 2y ago
        Yeah, I think it's sophisticated. Our brains are hardwired for empathy, and people are able to mostly ignore their social/emotional programming through a system of beliefs that would be difficult to propagate without language.

by klyrs 2y ago

epgui 2y ago

I have a few nits to pick here... > scientific understanding of the nature of animals was based on folklore Popular, pre- or proto- scientific understanding perhaps, but not scientific understanding per se. > despite a couple centuries of assuming that animals are pure instinct-driven automatons, we have tons of evidence that they are individuals with intelligence, memory, feelings, preferences and even language These things are not mutually exclusive. The words "intelligence", "memory", "feelings", "preferences" and "language" can refer to purely automatic/mechanical processes, even when we're speaking in reference to humans. There's no real reason why we need non-mechanistic magic to explain the human experience. The two ideas are compatible: animals are conscious, and humans are "just" really complex machines. It's all the same stuff, viewed from different lenses. > The assumptions of the recent centuries weren't so much anthropocentric They were, and they still are. Folklore itself is for the most part very anthropocentric.

DangitBobby 2y ago

The human attitude towards our relationship with animals cannot be described as anything other than anthropocentric for the vast majority of people. Whether the origin of that attitude is due to the rejection of certain traditions assuming animals to be sacred or the adoption of traditions treating humans as sacred, it exists, and causes horrific mistreatment of animals on a global scale.

epgui 2y ago
> the origin of that attitude I suspect the attitude is the default / most primitive one, because any other attitude requires higher-order cognitive processes that can abstract one's own experiences (which is the only real input one has) with the behaviours of entities that appear to be very different from oneself. In other words, the capacity for empathy is a "positive feature", in the sense that it is absent by default. The ability to make this kind of abstraction is a pretty sophisticated thing, and either requires time to evolve (as an instinct), and/or requires socialization/learning (as a partly or totally-intentional practice).
- DangitBobby 2y ago
  True. It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to believe you should inherently have dominion over the entire planet and all animals on it. I don't think it's an idea most people would have adopted themselves without being born into a society formed by religions that perpetuate such a belief and it's consequences [1]. As an aside, it's not clear to me how "having dominion" should justify such mistreatment, anyway. 1. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:25-27&version=KJ21 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:25-...
  - epgui 2y ago
    > It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to believe you should inherently have dominion over the entire planet and all animals on it. Is that really "sophisticated", or is that just what happens when an entity outcompetes all others for resource utilization by chance (ie.: in the context of ecology / evolutionary pressure)? This is basically how cancer happens, and yet I wouldn't call cancer cells more sophisticated than healthy ones. I call it dys-regulated.
    - DangitBobby 2y ago
      Yeah, I think it's sophisticated. Our brains are hardwired for empathy, and people are able to mostly ignore their social/emotional programming through a system of beliefs that would be difficult to propagate without language.