What makes us better? — TiredThinker

Degrees of awareness rather than divisions between. But these degrees relative to our surviving closest evolutionary kin are so astronomical in magnitude that lesser animals' abilities of awareness pale in comparison to our own.

Otherwise, tool making, conceptualization, conveying info via species-specific signs, and so forth, all these are found in a cline.

do we have any qualities that make us special? — TiredThinker

Karl Marx said, "quantitative changes always precede qualitative changes." Perhaps man is only above the animal kingdom by quantitative differences. Bigger brains, but they got brains. Better functioning societies, but they got soicieties. Better sex... maybe. Better food, education, clothing, tools, medicine, religion, culture... they all got that. Not all, but all of our stuff had been go by some amongst the animals.

We need to discover the monolith on Jupiter's 12 moon to go through the qualitative change we so much have earned.

One thing where we have a foot in the door above animals is double-entry accounting and fundamentals of accounting principles. That still needs to be discovered to be freely occurring in nature.

We aren't as clever as we think we are. But we can talk. This is what separates us from the other animals. No other animal can communicate with remotely the same power and flexibility as we can. This is why we can sidestep evolution and progress over generations, overrun the planet, and remake it in our image.

Different from OTHER animals.

egrees of awareness rather than divisions between. But these degrees relative to our surviving closest evolutionary kin are so astronomical in magnitude that lesser animals' abilities of awareness pale in comparison to our own. — javra

How do you know that animals aren't aware?

He didn’t say that. Read.

:100: :100:

The ability to create and use explanatory knowledge gives people a power to transform nature which is ultimately not limited by parochial factors, as all other adaptations are, but only by universal laws. This is the cosmic significance of explanatory knowledge – and hence of people, whom I shall henceforward define as entities that can create explanatory knowledge.

But in any case, understanding is one of the higher functions of the human mind and brain, and a unique one. Many other physical systems, such as animals’ brains, computers and other machines, can assimilate facts and act upon them. But at present we know of nothing that is capable of understanding an explanation – or of wanting one in the first place – other than a human mind. — David Deutsch

We can take measures to reduce our own species’ collective suffering. Other animals have been doomed to not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering

Pigs and humans are different. Bees and alligators are very dissimilar, more than pigs and humans. Chickens and whales are different. Individually and collectively there are differences of magnitude all over the place.

Take a dog and its best friend. The man has a bigger brain, but the dog ha a much better nose. Walking on 4 legs has some advantages over walking on two: my dog rarely slipped on the ice; I, on the other hand had quite a few gravity-driven encounters with ice. I was capable of manipulating my dog's behavior and she was capable of manipulating me. A man and a dog can be very much on the same wavelength. You can play hide and seek with a dog; try that with an alligator.

There is a lot of collective and individual variability and similarity across the board (animals and plants). By reflecting on how animals compare among themselves we can see there is nothing remarkable about humans being different than alligators. We all have found a niche to fill.

Many animals have unique traits; so do humans, some good, some bad. In a way we are like feral pigs: we do our thing, which in the pigs case is tear of the soil looking for edibles. We also tear up the soil -- on a vastly greater scale -- for the same reason. Neither pigs nor humans have much of a self-imposed "automatic stop" point. We just keep going till there are no frontiers left.

Is our intelligence uniquely better or just a magnitude of cognitive qualities greater?

whom I shall henceforward define as entities that can create explanatory knowledge. — 180 Proof

This entity should speak for himself. The explanation entity Deutsch gives for the material universe testifies of a total lack of true understanding. That's why he reduces us to explanatory entities in the first place. To give himself an importance he doesn't deserve and that only can be held up by hiding himself behind empty verbiage.
"entities that can create explanatory knowledge"...with "cosmic significance" even! Entity Deutsch, hold your horses! No doubt he thinks there is only one explanation. His one!

People are born naked and stay naked. They create clothes to wear and stories to tell. Animals have fixed clothes and fixed stories.

:rofl: :zip:

Is our intelligence uniquely better or just a magnitude of cognitive qualities greater? — TiredThinker

Different in kind. Reason is different in kind to anything animals possess. Of course this claim is wildly non PC and will always engender ferocious pushback.

My view is that of course h. Sapiens evolved pretty much as the science tells us, but reached a kind of threshold through the explosion of the massive human forebrain which enabled abilities profoundly different to any possessed by their simian forbears. That ability largely comprises the ability to reflect on and discern meaning. It took 500,000 years for the stone axe to be marginally improved, but h. Sapiens has gone from chasing wildebeest around the savannah to being able to weigh and measure the Universe in the blink of a cosmic eye - a few tens of thousands of years.

How do you know that animals aren't aware? — baker

Hm. I fallibly know that unicelled organisms are aware, as are fungi and plants. Needless to then add, as are all lesser animals. Interesting issue for me is whether individual somatic cells, including neurons, are to some degree aware - and I find no reason to conclude they’re not. In fact, I’ve in my life wondered how far animals like dolphins would have gone technologically had they acquired appendages with opposable thumbs (something that’s not going to happen for sea-dwelling life); as intelligent as they might be, they’re however stuck with the body they have, as are all of us. So, in short, you’ve misread my comment.


Thanks for that.

But do we have any qualities that make us special? — TiredThinker

Well, hahaha, human beings seem to get upset at suggestions we might be robots, and without free will, and consider that a reason to say God can't exist. Personally if I am a robot and don't really have free will, I don't have any complaints about it, to divine beings or otherwise. Generally it's the fact we consider such issues that most differentiates us from animals, besides being more adept with tools than other species, but it is a bit arrogant to say that makes us 'special.' Diffferent, yes. Special, well that's a bit arrogant isn't it?

And let us not forget the four "P's" of marketing, price, product, promotion and place.

One element I think about a lot is theater. There are plenty of different ways that display is important in animal behavior, Humans write scripts for them. They experience them in the tension of knowing they are inventions but wanting more from them. The theater is one of the go-to metaphors for consciousness.

I don't think there's anything inherently special about humans - in another world, some other primate could have just as easily be that funky cognitive monkey that became dominant on the planet.

Ultimately our current progress and position in the natural hierachy is due to our tool sets and amassed knowledge, provided by our complex communication in the form of language. That was made possible by the lifestyle enabled through agriculture, which in the long run happened due to another time-saver; fire.

The question for me is how much luck was involved in those two discoveries/inventions. Was it inevitable due to some natural sense of scientific curiosity? Or were the greatest breakthroughs of mankind a fluke, which in the end gave birth to that very curiosity we do seem to possess?

lesser animals' abilities of awareness pale in comparison to our own — javra

Why do you consider this a matter of awareness, and not of something else?

Is our intelligence uniquely better or just a magnitude of cognitive qualities greater? — TiredThinker

If anything, humans appear to have an enormous need to feel special and to deem themselves above animals.

This way, they can justify the horrific manner in which they so often treat animals.

You can play hide and seek with a dog; try that with an alligator. — Bitter Crank

Your dog most likely wouldn't play hide and seek with a random stranger off the street. Instead, she'd probably behave more like an alligator -- fight or flee.
Why do you think that is?


In studies of animals, the researchers (and their followers) usually forget the role of the specific relationship between the particular animal and the particular human that are being observed.

My cats come when I call them. They wouldn't come if some stranger were to call them.

So often in studies of animals, non-selective obedience is regarded as the mark of intelligence. The question we should be asking why people think that non-selective obedience is the mark of intelligence.

In studies of animals, the researchers (and their followers) usually forget the role of the specific relationship between the particular animal and the particular human that are being observed. — baker

Good point, IF there is a relationship between the observer and the observed. Even in formal lab situations (with dogs, at least) it is hard to imagine that experimenters would have zero relationship whatsoever with the subjects.

Have you heard of the movie "Stray", a documentary about stray dogs in Istanbul. "The trio are the focus of new documentary “Stray” which depicts daily life in Istanbul through the eyes of three dogs that roam its streets, searching for food, wandering along the Bosphorus and stumbling upon a women's rights march" among other things. They interact with people IF there appears to be something in it for them. Otherwise, they are just part of the traffic, and they don't seem prone to aggressive behaviors.

lesser animals' abilities of awareness pale in comparison to our own — javra

Why do you consider this a matter of awareness, and not of something else? — baker

I take it that greater intelligence, for example, endows an animal with greater awareness regarding what is and could be. Conversely, in the absence of any awareness, no degree or type of intelligence could manifest.

We were found by a higher race of lifeform much like parasites infected the human species causing us to be what we call self-aware or self-conscious and has brought forth what we call technology

Souls

We are similar and dissimilar from most animals. But do we have any qualities that make us special? We might argue it's our intelligence and at least some ability to defy any instincts we might have. But we assess our intelligence and abilities ourselves, and not against anything more objective. What makes us better? — TiredThinker

Special and dissimilar are two different things. All animals are dissimilar from one another. In that respect humans are not dissimilar or special compared to other animals. "Special" is a value term that has no objective reality outside of one' own head. Something is special based on some value that has been projected onto it - like humans' differences being valued more than other animals. I'm sure the elephant thinks it's trunk is more special than the internet or smart phones.

So we don't have any qualities that make us special in an objective sense, only a subjective human perspective of our own qualities that we find necessary to live as humans compared to trying to live while possessing the qualities of other animals. So of course humans are going to think that they are special. Humans have thought that since they started existing (Earth is the center of the universe, created in the image of god, etc.)

What if we find other (intelligent) animals (aliens) on other planets. How special would humans be then?

I hope we can find more intelligent beings. That might answer the question better than anything so far.