"Better" than? and in what way?What makes us better? — TiredThinker
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. — javra
lesser animals' abilities of awareness pale in comparison to our own
Do you see humans as "the measure of all things", that humans are the ones who decide what is and could be, and humans get to decide this for all other beings? — baker
And again:
lesser animals' abilities of awareness pale in comparison to our own
On what do you base this claim? — baker
According to Diogenes Laërtius, when Plato gave the tongue-in-cheek definition of man as "featherless bipeds," Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, "Behold! I've brought you a man," and so the Academy added "with broad flat nails" to the definition. — Wikipedia
I suppose when one e.g. can ask that question.When does a difference in degrees become a difference in type? — Agent Smith
Do you see humans as "the measure of all things", that humans are the ones who decide what is and could be, and humans get to decide this for all other beings?
— baker
No. Definitely not. — javra
Technology aside, human awareness is able to understand and analyze its own meta-cognition, issues of meta-ethics, the ontological nature of the cosmos, advanced probability theory, and so forth. No other living being currently known to us exhibits any indication of holding an awareness that is so capable.
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. — Wayfarer
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