Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 10, 2013, 19:49 (4031 days ago) @ dhw

PART TWO
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> dhw: TOVEY: In a nutshell: the view that self-awareness is a uniquely human trait is a scientifically respectable one.
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> dhw: It boils down to whether you think self-awareness is utterly lacking in every other species, which it has to be to qualify as "unique". If you think your dog yelping when kicked doesn't know he's in pain, won't remember you kicked him, and won't cower away from you tomorrow, then you think your dog has no self-awareness. He's not going to write articles about primary and higher order consciousness ... because although he has a DEGREE of self-awareness, it's nothing like as great as ours. But "nothing like as great" doesn't make "higher-order consciousness" UNIQUE to humans. Only the degree is unique.-I think that is a totally specious argument. You know darn well that feeling pain is not the type of self-awareness we should be discussing. The term self-awareness as used in philosophic discussion is tuned to only those higher mental capacities that we alone have. That was Adler's level of discussion.-
> dhw: TOVEY: I would like to preface my remarks on higher-order consciousness with a disclaimer. Researchers in the field of animal cognition are continually making new discoveries. It is impossible to foretell with any confidence what scientists will have to say about higher-order consciousness in animals, fifty years from now. What we can say is that judging from the evidence presently available to us, higher-order consciousness is likely to be confined to only a few species of mammals, and perhaps corvids (crows and their relatives) as well. It may even be unique to human beings.
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> dhw: Perhaps he should have issued his disclaimer "preface" before attacking Sullivan and the twelve prominent neuroscientists for their "scientific failings". They MAY even be right. To add insult to his self-inflicted injury, he even agrees that higher order consciousness is likely to be present in mammals and corvids, so human uniqueness ... essential to "human exceptionalism" ... is only an unlikely maybe. -What Torley is debating honestly, in my opinion, are levels of awareness that may in corvids involve that ability to do some future (for us) simple planning. Corvids are not at the level of self-analysis of their own actions. That is what you are not willing to think about, or recognize, because your position is so tenuous. 
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> dhw: Tovey quotes a remarkable set of figures based on the number of cortical neurons and synapses as a guide to consciousness:
> I have no idea what this is meant to prove, but such figures look to me like gradations, or degrees, not difference in kind.-I had no idea what that really proved either.-> 
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> dhw; Even if we disregard the birds and animals that practise monogamy, and the millions of humans that practise polygamy, the theory that the need for monogamy was the spur for God to endow our ancestors with immaterial rational souls suggests to me that Dr Tovey has an agenda that even you, David, might find hard to swallow.-I should have warned you Dr Torley is a very committed Christian. He is quoted in my book in another context. I am sure he has a slant and this is what I do: I keep sorting out information on all sides, but I've reached my conclusions coming from an agnostic position. I had no idea in the beginnng where my reading would leave me.