To be fair… We have created societies, developed uniquely complex languages across the whole world and then managed to learn each other’s languages, we write books and online posts to transmit knowledge through generations, we have managed to take over a good chunk of the earth and destroyed most of the nature in it, and we can develop technology like no other species… We have even gone to space! I do think we are pretty special in many ways. Not everything is good, but we are still special.
Consciousness, though? I suspect that the underlying phenomenon is fundamental. I don’t think that there is an ‘on/off’ switch that gets triggered only after some information processing threshold is exceeded. But maybe it does, we have no way of measuring this. All I can say is that my guess can’t be much better or worse than any other guess.
We’ve got three cats and a dog. The dog is my partner’s first personal pet. He talks a lot about how amazing their personalities and intelligence are now that he’s lived with his own animals for a few years. They definitely think, dream, and understand way more than we give them credit for. Hell, dogs can understand over something like 150-200 words, and we barely use more than that in normal speech. More and more were finding animals have accents, octopus have cities, etc. I just kind of see us as a louder echo of many of these things. Unfortunately one of those things that does set us apart is that we forget we’re part of the same world that they are.
Of course there are things that only humans do, like there are things that only giraffes do. We value stuff like inventions, language and culture precisely because we’re human. A horse wouldn’t appreciate the concept of books because it’s not in their nature. Dogs could possibly think that we’re completely lost because we have no smell. Cats could think that we’re very silly to spend so much time doing pointless things like tapping at a keyboard.
About consciousness, I usually reason from evolutionary good on this: would the species be better at surviving and getting offspring were they conscious? A dog with consciousness would probably outcompete a dog without. A mosquito though? I doubt it.
I was working out how to reply without saying we’re ‘dehumanising’ animals, but apparently even the language we use dismisses other animals in that way.
Human brain is the most complex thing in the universe that we know of so I’d say we’re somewhat special. This however doesn’t change the fact that a rat’s brain ranks pretty high up on that list aswell.
actually, almost all cetacean brains are more complex than human brains by every measure; more neurons, more interconnections, greater size, more convolutions on the surface.
We have a really hard time accepting we are not special and I believe it is cultural.
To be fair… We have created societies, developed uniquely complex languages across the whole world and then managed to learn each other’s languages, we write books and online posts to transmit knowledge through generations, we have managed to take over a good chunk of the earth and destroyed most of the nature in it, and we can develop technology like no other species… We have even gone to space! I do think we are pretty special in many ways. Not everything is good, but we are still special.
Consciousness, though? I suspect that the underlying phenomenon is fundamental. I don’t think that there is an ‘on/off’ switch that gets triggered only after some information processing threshold is exceeded. But maybe it does, we have no way of measuring this. All I can say is that my guess can’t be much better or worse than any other guess.
We’ve got three cats and a dog. The dog is my partner’s first personal pet. He talks a lot about how amazing their personalities and intelligence are now that he’s lived with his own animals for a few years. They definitely think, dream, and understand way more than we give them credit for. Hell, dogs can understand over something like 150-200 words, and we barely use more than that in normal speech. More and more were finding animals have accents, octopus have cities, etc. I just kind of see us as a louder echo of many of these things. Unfortunately one of those things that does set us apart is that we forget we’re part of the same world that they are.
Of course there are things that only humans do, like there are things that only giraffes do. We value stuff like inventions, language and culture precisely because we’re human. A horse wouldn’t appreciate the concept of books because it’s not in their nature. Dogs could possibly think that we’re completely lost because we have no smell. Cats could think that we’re very silly to spend so much time doing pointless things like tapping at a keyboard.
About consciousness, I usually reason from evolutionary good on this: would the species be better at surviving and getting offspring were they conscious? A dog with consciousness would probably outcompete a dog without. A mosquito though? I doubt it.
I was working out how to reply without saying we’re ‘dehumanising’ animals, but apparently even the language we use dismisses other animals in that way.
Telling, isn’t it. ;)
Human brain is the most complex thing in the universe that we know of so I’d say we’re somewhat special. This however doesn’t change the fact that a rat’s brain ranks pretty high up on that list aswell.
Sometimes I wish I was more on the rat brain end, but maybe more the spoiled family dog end.
What about dolphin brains? They’re much larger.
actually, almost all cetacean brains are more complex than human brains by every measure; more neurons, more interconnections, greater size, more convolutions on the surface.