Sentience

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:38 am

O.K., time for a discussion on something other than polotics and religion. Humans seem to think we are the only intelligent species around. So the question is, how would we determine that another species is intelligent enough that we would accord them all the due process we humans have. Would this organism have to appear on our door step in a space craft to prove his worth? Or are there criteria that can be met that would induct them into our codec of rights?

Will Robinson · Post by **Will Robinson** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:52 am

Are they good in bed?

roid · Post by **roid** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 7:20 am

dolphinsex.org Will?

i'd really really REALLY REALLY like to see more work done in the field of animal inteligence. we've seen chimps who can sign(language), dolphins who can do more. hell, even a parrot that is learning howto read.

by due process, you mean in a situation where an animal breaks one of our laws? hmm.

as for rights - this topic already seems to be quite hot, or at least heating up. i recall seeing a documentary about dolphin meat in Japan, it was made to make the viewer feel uneasy and it sure worked (it was horrible)! how can we so blasÃ© be mass killing these highly intelligent animals for their meat?

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:03 am

Roid, one of the more interesting aspects of humans that sets them apart is the use of tools. In the case of gorillas and chimps there is ample evidence of tool use among these primates. So the question is at what level does a animal have to progress before it is considered sentience. Certain tribes in africa consider the Ituri Forest pygmy as nothing more than animals akin to monkeys. As such they get eaten.
Koko the gorilla has demonstrated after learning sign language, that she is capable of complex thoughts and has the ability to string words togeather to form new contectual sentences. I'm just wondering at what point we will drop the term "human rights" and replace it with "sentient rights".

Testiculese · Post by **Testiculese** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:29 am

lol @ Will

Unfortunately religion will come into play because it says that animals are essentially nothing, and most people are duped into believing that. For those who are rational, I suppose it would be based on some thinking skills tests, and/or tools usage, as mentioned above. None will make it as high up as ourselves, including primates, because they still lack 'structured' thinking (best word I can think of at the moment). Primates have gotten so far as to be able to hear a word, and pick out the letters (in order) to spell it, which is no small feat in itself, but only a few words can be done, and only after hundreds and hundreds of repetitions, and half the test subjects can't get it right. All animals, including (far too) many humans, have a long way to go.

edit: Koko has stringed words? Well, that's promising..but now get her to do it on a typewriter

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:40 am

LMAO @ Will[edit] Robinson[/edit]!

will_kill · Post by **will_kill** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:54 am

woodchip wrote:Roid, one of the more interesting aspects of humans that sets them apart is the use of tools. In the case of gorillas and chimps there is ample evidence of tool use among these primates. So the question is at what level does a animal have to progress before it is considered sentience. Certain tribes in africa consider the Ituri Forest pygmy as nothing more than animals akin to monkeys. As such they get eaten.
Koko the gorilla has demonstrated after learning sign language, that she is capable of complex thoughts and has the ability to string words togeather to form new contectual sentences. I'm just wondering at what point we will drop the term "human rights" and replace it with "sentient rights".

hmmm....the war for sentient rights has begun....a looooooong time ago, when we adapted to a higher consciousness during the begining of the evolutionary process. think about it...we just hav'nt reached that stage of advancement yet.

will_kill · Post by **will_kill** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:55 am

Iceman wrote:LMAO @ Will!

wuts so dam funny

edit: oh..u musta' been loling @ Will Robinson ('scuse pleez)
[spoiler]I was like how the hell did he laugh at me b4 I even posted[/spoiler]

Flabby Chick · Post by **Flabby Chick** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:58 am

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/fea ... ure1.shtml

I saw David attenboroughs Wildlife on One: Dolphins - Deep Thinkers last week and once again i was gob smacked by what they can learn.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/ ... 14,00.html

I'm not quite sure how to answer this type of question though, because i'm not so sure how "intelligent" we are, or what kind of yardstick we should use. Ants are intelligent? Look what perfect social systems they have. Humans are intelligent 'cause we can do loads of maths problems, but we're pretty stupid when it comes to feeding half the species. We're getting good at producing Lothars and Drakonas but we're blowing them up. Do you understand what i mean?

Of course you have to believe in G-d as well!!!

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:47 am

Intelligence is one thing...

...wisdom is another.

Flabby Chick · Post by **Flabby Chick** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 12:56 pm

dissent wrote:...wisdom is another.

Intelligence......The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.

Yup! As well as others we can do that.

Wisdom....the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting;

Not human traits.

(according to dictionary dot com and Flabbyness)

roid · Post by **roid** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:58 am

Flabby Chick wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/fea ... ure1.shtml

I saw David attenboroughs Wildlife on One: Dolphins - Deep Thinkers last week and once again i was gob smacked by what they can learn.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/ ... 14,00.html

I'm not quite sure how to answer this type of question though, because i'm not so sure how "intelligent" we are, or what kind of yardstick we should use. Ants are intelligent? Look what perfect social systems they have. Humans are intelligent 'cause we can do loads of maths problems, but we're pretty stupid when it comes to feeding half the species. We're getting good at producing Lothars and Drakonas but we're blowing them up. Do you understand what i mean?

Of course you have to believe in G-d as well!!!

(they often use parts of the same experiment for various documentarys) have you seen the part where they tell the dolphin to bring OBJECT A to OBJECT B - but OBJECT B isn't in the pool? without hesitation the dolphin grabs OBJECT A and touches it to the "NO" touch paddle on the side of the pool. this paddle was only ever used in other yes/no experiments, and was simply in the pool coz the trainers hadn't bothered taking it out.
that action really blew my mind away, the dolphin made up it's own (competely logical to boot) langauge syntax!

also the bit how they told 2 dolphins to do any trick they wanted - but it had to be syncronised. the dolphins would swim off and interact for a few seconds before doing the trick, presumably organising amongst themselves - using language - what trick they would do. they always got it right too.

Flabby Chick · Post by **Flabby Chick** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 3:48 am

Yea i saw that too. I liked the test they did when they hid an object behind a wall and asked the dolphin to identify it. Using echo location they got it right every time. I know that's not intelligence but it was pretty cool.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 6:49 am

Here's a article from BBC about gorilla tool use, even has some pics:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4296606.stm

Will Robinson · Post by **Will Robinson** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 1:08 pm

Maybe the correct answer is any species capable of corruption and deciet is allowed in the club

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 1:13 pm

I think hanging around all those 'coons is turning Woody into a PETA nut.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 3:19 pm

We know human nature, and we can therefore say with some certainty that no animal on earth is going to earn the term "sentient" or have human rights extended to it, any time in the next hundred years. For us to do so would make us monsters before the fact: killing and eating sentient beings isn't very nice!

Of much more interest to me, and more appropriate to this topic is how the first sentient computer will be treated.

This exact subject has been examined in some depth at this page:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0 ... rintable=1

It is a very lengthy mock trial, held in real conditions, and the legal statutes, and trial dialog are well worth the read.

In my view, if something walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck then, by goodness, it **IS** a duck!

It's possible to argue all day long about whether animal X is worthy of human status, but it can be broken down to a much simpler concept:

If an entity has sufficient wherewithal to request that it be treated like a human, and seeks human rights, then we had better bloody well let it have human rights. A pissed off, and sulking AI is *not* going to be very useful to mankind!

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 7:32 pm

Will Robinson wrote:Maybe the correct answer is any species capable of corruption and deciet is allowed in the club

heh, monkeys are capable of that.

Scene:
monkey ventures out to find some food. He does. But it is not much food and he is hungry - so he doesn't want to share it with others. Problem is, he is genetically hardwired to make a certain call when he finds food. What does he do? He uses his paws to keep his mouth shut.

roid · Post by **roid** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 9:31 pm

what kinda monkeys were they Pandora?

Mobius wrote:For us to do so would make us monsters before the fact: killing and eating sentient beings isn't very nice!

THEY STARTED IT!

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 10:10 pm

can't really recall. But I think it was in this book, and they had a strong focus on Bonobos.

just found the above anectode reallly amazing. Just think about it ... to act like he did, the monkey must have mastered a lot of things:
- he must have anticipated his own future behavior
- he must have anticipated how the other monkeys would react to his future behavior
- and most importantly, he had to figure out a way to beat his own instincts.

Bonobos have the reputation to be the most 'human' apes anyways. They have prostitution, homosexuality, and resolve tensions in the group by having sex (although the descriptions sounded more like orgies, actually).

roid · Post by **roid** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 10:17 pm

bonobos have a matriarchal society yes? i think these are the monkeys a friend has been ranting to me about.

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 11:32 pm

Mobius wrote: would make us monsters before the fact: killing and eating sentient beings isn't very nice!

Well, why would it. Numerous human cultures have still eaten the beasts they killed even while granting the creatures at least some spiritual power and vitality. They didn't just grind it up into burgers and slap 'em on the grill without a second thought.

I have to admit it would be a little creepy if they spoke back to me, though.

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 5:40 am

roid wrote:bonobos have a matriarchal society yes? i think these are the monkeys a friend has been ranting to me about.

Yes, probably. See here for a quick overview about Bonobos and their culture.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 6:58 am

Chimps have also recently been documented to commit war. A group from one group went out and killed a member of another group of chimps. Whether it was a territorial thing or a ritual killing is unclear. In any event chimps (bonobos) seem to have an awful lot of human characteristics.

Will Robinson · Post by **Will Robinson** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 9:02 am

Pandora wrote:can't really recall. But I think it was in this book, and they had a strong focus on Bonobos.

just found the above anectode reallly amazing. Just think about it ... to act like he did, the monkey must have mastered a lot of things:
- he must have anticipated his own future behavior
- he must have anticipated how the other monkeys would react to his future behavior
- and most importantly, he had to figure out a way to beat his own instincts.

Bonobos have the reputation to be the most 'human' apes anyways. They have prostitution, homosexuality, and resolve tensions in the group by having sex (although the descriptions sounded more like orgies, actually).

That's amazing stuff! I never would have guessed that was possible.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 8:25 pm

Will Robinson wrote:
Pandora wrote:can't really recall. But I think it was in this book, and they had a strong focus on Bonobos.

just found the above anectode reallly amazing. Just think about it ... to act like he did, the monkey must have mastered a lot of things:
- he must have anticipated his own future behavior
- he must have anticipated how the other monkeys would react to his future behavior
- and most importantly, he had to figure out a way to beat his own instincts.

Bonobos have the reputation to be the most 'human' apes anyways. They have prostitution, homosexuality, and resolve tensions in the group by having sex (although the descriptions sounded more like orgies, actually).
That's amazing stuff! I never would have guessed that was possible.

They'll also have sex with humans if the price is right so we'll leave it to you to determine if that makes them sentient (sorry, had to throw that in for the first post you made

)

Will Robinson · Post by **Will Robinson** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 10:26 pm

woodchip wrote:
Will Robinson wrote:
Pandora wrote:can't really recall. But I think it was in this book, and they had a strong focus on Bonobos.

just found the above anectode reallly amazing. Just think about it ... to act like he did, the monkey must have mastered a lot of things:
- he must have anticipated his own future behavior
- he must have anticipated how the other monkeys would react to his future behavior
- and most importantly, he had to figure out a way to beat his own instincts.

Bonobos have the reputation to be the most 'human' apes anyways. They have prostitution, homosexuality, and resolve tensions in the group by having sex (although the descriptions sounded more like orgies, actually).
That's amazing stuff! I never would have guessed that was possible.
They'll also have sex with humans if the price is right so we'll leave it to you to determine if that makes them sentient (sorry, had to throw that in for the first post you made )

That brings up a totally ugly visual when you think of the old saying 'a monkey on your back'...so I'll pass

roid · Post by **roid** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 12:11 am

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... me=2375000

mentions dolphins using tools. and has a pic of a dolphin holding a sponge on it's snout.

Suncho · Post by **Suncho** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 5:56 pm

It's a sliding scale. We're more sentient than mice, but Xenu is more sentient than us.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 1:12 am

I thought no one was sentient but me.

Money! · Post by **Money!** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:14 pm

Sometimes I think that ALL animals are smarter than us, and are SO smart that they can act stupid and laugh in their corners at how we think we're the smartest while they are plotting to take over.

roid · Post by **roid** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 1:46 am

nah, the smart don't want control of externals.

Dedman · Post by **Dedman** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:07 am

When they can make a good margarita, I will consider them sentient.