Animal Minds (Animals)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 26, 2011, 06:21 (4898 days ago) @ xeno6696


> Your demonstration here is one of degree, not kind. All mammals have synapses, all have neurons. Your argument is only that we have more of the same thing, meaning directly that we are different (on the structural level) only in degree. -Please see my just written response to dhw.
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> The only way we are different in kind is in observed behavior.-It is much more than behavior, and you know that. We are different in conceptualization. We produce art, music, philosophy, etc. none of which is necessary for survival.
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> > > As a caveat, mathematically speaking, each brain you look at is completely different from the next, so technically speaking, there is NO similarity even between the brains of two healthy adult humans (even if they are identical twins). -I don't understand that this point has a place in our argument. We are talking about the average human brain function, not that it has synapses. My dog and I both have tongues, but he doesn't talk with meaning as we do.
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> > That comment is totally beside the point. We are discussing the average human brain against any other mammalian brain. The book I mentioned is not yet out but takes Adler's side. Check into it.
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> I will, but going over my notes from Adler, he was arguing holistically, and he didn't have acess to the more recent studies. Again, you said yourself that chimps are as smart as a 4yr old. Trying to argue kind at that point puts you in hot water.-That is as far as chimps go. I don't see hot water.
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> Dolphins have culture. So do elephants. I think a mistake is in assuming intelligence means cities and industry, tools, and writing. That's applying human standards to creatures that cleary experience the world differently.-Of course they experience it differently. They don't have the capacity to experience it as we do.-Many years ago, here in Houston Shell had a re-inforced concrete skyscraper built, first of its kind, 40-50 stories tall. Previously that type of building was very limited in stories. This is a difference in degree. The different materials constituting this building are just like neurons, synapses, etc. But the difference is that the human brain has had an emergent quality, a consciousness with self-awareness. Animals are sentient to a degree, but have only a smidgen of our consciousness. There is no question in my mind, we differ, not in degree, but in kind because of the enormous degree of difference and the emergent consciousnes.