Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 10, 2016, 21:37 (3029 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I am at a complete loss as to why we are discussing the balance of nature anyway! All we are left with is that God designed the weaverbird's nest, the parasitic wasp and jellyfish, and every other natural wonder so that life could continue, except for those organisms for which life could not continue.-The reason is you doubted the importance of the balance of nature as a food chain supply issue. It supports the energy needs as evolution proceeds to its end point, humans.
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> Ah, so the elephant and the sparrow are only different in degree, and humans and chimps are “truly” different in kind, though you believe they both descended from a common anthropoid ancestor. The only way you can possibly defend this stance is to say that the definition of “kind” is the degree of consciousness. And since humans have a degree of consciousness that is a “vast advance” on that of other organisms, they are different in degree AND kind. -Exactly. no other being has consciousness of the magnitude we have. Adler's reasoning.
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> dhw: I expect we'd all agree that if life had been wiped out before the arrival of humans, there would have been no humans. There would have been no weaverbird's nest either. That doesn't explain why your God had to design the nest.
> DAVID: I don't know when the weaver's nest appeared; could be before any hominins. The theory is the nest is too complex for the birds to do it alone so God helped.
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> dhw: I know that is your theory. And I really can't believe your God would go to so much trouble without any reason. We agree that the nest is not part of “the food chain that leads up through the balance of nature to the human consumption of foods”, and in any case “human existence has nothing to do with the balance of nature.” If you don't know why God had to “help” (private tuition, presumably), might that not be because he didn't?-Again, you are back to God's reasons. I think he wanted humans, based on our arrival with our vast consciousness.-
> dhw:Chance is not an issue between us, so you needn't keep flogging it in discussions with me. Your hypothesis now seems to be that God wanted to create humans, so he designed lots of organisms (99% of which died out) that did lots of weird and wonderful things - all designed by him - so that life could go on through a balance in nature, though that had nothing to do with humans.-I keep flogging chance because the only other alternative is design. Nature's balance doles not have a direct relationship to humans. It supports the process of evolution so humans could evolve.-> dhw: But even if they all died and nothing was left except bacteria, we would still have a balance in nature. I hope you can see that there is no logical pattern in this collection of non sequiturs, but perhaps you will correct it so that it makes sense. Otherwise, I suggest you might as well tell us that whatever happens, happens because that's how God wants it to happen, and we don't understand why.-I can accept your final sentence. I think I see what God wanted, humans. The other issue is, is God logical? Perhaps not by our logic. But you want Him that way.