Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Infinityforce]

Lots of animals do have adequate self-awareness, but only humans have such a deep understanding of repercussions, empathy, sympathy, logic etc.
Sex between humans is really quite divine and very unlike mere animal rutting (pardon my french)

[Solifuge]

humans are just in a different LEAGUE.

Lots of animals do have adequate self-awareness, but only humans have such a deep understanding of repercussions, empathy, sympathy, logic etc.
Sex between humans is really quite divine and very unlike mere animal rutting (pardon my french)

Those are nice ego-stroking notions for us Humans to tell ourselves, but the science just doesn't agree with that. Also, when people used to talk about stupid savage creatures rutting in the dirt for most of history, they were talking about other Human cultures that were different than them. It's a matter of perspective, and of judging others from ivory towers.

That said, don't let me sell Humans short; we've got one of the heaviest-duty brains in the animal kingdom, we've got dexterous hands we don't need to reserve for walking, and we also lucked into big meaty lumps of Mirror Neurons that improve our empathy and social ability. Whether it's human or baboon or elephant or whatever, once your culture develops a complex enough social language, all bets are off. Being able to pass experiences, tools, and strategies down from parent to child outpaces adaptations from biological evolution on an exponential scale, plus it's intentional and guided (unlike evolution).

Humans were basically the perfect storm for rapid advancement like this, but there's other animals on Earth in very similar positions, and with very similar raw abilities. They're just waiting for something like Fire to predigest their food, and give them the leisure time and spare energy to start culturally advancing like we did. Count yourself lucky that Humans were the species that got that head-start, so we get to run the show.

[Calidovi]

Lots of animals do have adequate self-awareness, but only humans have such a deep understanding of repercussions, empathy, sympathy, logic etc.
Sex between humans is really quite divine and very unlike mere animal rutting (pardon my french)

Spoiler: kind of off-topic (click to show/hide)

it's an interesting line to be drawn

how deeply do, say, sheep understand the repercussions of wandering from the pack? is it purely instinctual?

how deeply do they understand emotion if they are able to generally decipher them by expression? again, is it instinct?

we often think of animals being very pragmatic. when put in an environment of excess, their other traits become more pronounced.

[i2amroy]

Lots of animals do have adequate self-awareness, but only humans have such a deep understanding of repercussions, empathy, sympathy, logic etc.
Sex between humans is really quite divine and very unlike mere animal rutting (pardon my french)

I mean really that statement is fairly unprovable, given how our anthropocentric studies kind of limit us by virtue of not actually having any animal writers/etc. that have written down their thoughts on the subject. I mean for all we know animals think that their version of it is way better than anything humans might experience, but we can't exactly ask them that question and get an intelligible answer. (And emotions/understanding of emotions aren't exactly comparable things anyways. I mean if a person thinks that compassion in a particular case doesn't require action that doesn't necessarily mean that they have a "lesser" understanding of it, or that they necessarily feel it any less, they've just chosen not to act on it.)

I mean at best you can pretty much resort to the "I think that X is true" due to the lack of evidence making the statement unprovable, which while it certainly can be a belief you can hold (and one that's vague enough I'm not necessarily going to hold it against you), it doesn't actually mean anything for whether the actual idea of the statement (that X is true) is true or false.

[Infinityforce]

It's not merely a matter of having a view, it's the quality of the view.

For example, humans examine things in much deeper depth and detail, reference and cross reference it to existing data, abstract it and play with it as a concept or idea, and finally dismiss it at will. Humans can literally formulate ideas at will and combine them with other ideas to solve problems. They can extrapolate on data and make very accurate guesses about a variety of things (some animals can guess the weather, for example, but to them, it is much more an unconscious instinct)

Even though animals can appreciate life, they can never look at things with the same understanding that human does, because humans have such depth, breadth and width of understanding of such diverse sets of knowledge, rational and abstract, creative and intuitive.



For example, they can figure out the solutions to problems, but perhaps after seeing it and failing a few times.
Animals do problem solving unconsciously. It happens, but usually by accident. 
Humans have bought problem solving to the fore of their being, evolutionarily.  They seek out solutions and are able to grasp and juggle many things in their mind in a way which even apes cannot do. Most of this is down to the superior concentration of human beings. This is bought on by self-awareness.
Humans can make abstract leaps that put them bounds ahead and allows them to solve purely theoretical problems.
As far as I know, no animal can think "purely theoretically", but humans, and neither has any animal need to.
Yet humans have been pursuing "thought" for their evolutionary history, and our minds, bodies and lives reflect that.

[Calidovi]

It's not merely a matter of having a view, it's the quality of the view.

For example, humans examine things in much deeper depth and detail, reference and cross reference it to existing data, abstract it and play with it as a concept or idea, and finally dismiss it at will. Humans can literally formulate ideas at will and combine them with other ideas to solve problems. They can extrapolate on data and make very accurate guesses about a variety of things (some animals can guess the weather, for example, but to them, it is much more an unconscious instinct)

Even though animals can appreciate life, they can never look at things with the same understanding that human does, because humans have such depth, breadth and width of understanding of such diverse sets of knowledge, rational and abstract, creative and intuitive.



For example, they can figure out the solutions to problems, but perhaps after seeing it and failing a few times.
Animals do problem solving unconsciously. It happens, but usually by accident. 
Humans have bought problem solving to the fore of their being, evolutionarily.  They seek out solutions and are able to grasp and juggle many things in their mind in a way which even apes cannot do. Most of this is down to the superior concentration of human beings. This is bought on by self-awareness.
Humans can make abstract leaps that put them bounds ahead and allows them to solve purely theoretical problems.
As far as I know, no animal can think "purely theoretically", but humans, and neither has any animal need to.
Yet humans have been pursuing "thought" for their evolutionary history, and our minds, bodies and lives reflect that.

[TempAcc]

THERE IS NO GENDER

THERE IS ONLY BABBY AND AMINALS

AM DOG, HEAR ME ROAR

NEIGH

[Infinityforce]

CLEVER DOGE

[i2amroy]

-snip-

Sure humans are good problem solvers (though we still lose in certain things to some animals, such as the aforementioned example of how chimps can beat humans at solving for game-theoretic strategies and applying them). For pure theoretical thinking, my previous point stands, in that we don't know if animals can or can't, because we can't talk to them and ask and a purely theoretical thought will be, by definition, untestable due to virtue of being purely theoretical.

Regardless the ability of an animal to problem solve really has absolutely nothing to do with their emotional capacity; there are plenty of cases of autistic geniuses without the ability to really feel many emotions, as well as amazing artists who are horrible problem solvers, just within the human species alone, and that's just the differences within our species itself as opposed to the difference between multiple species.

No offense, but it's kinda like you're trying to have three different discussions on the differences between animals and humans at the same time, and are falsely implying that progress towards one goal in your statements also implies progress towards the others.

[Solifuge]

Spoiler: -Snipped for Length- (click to show/hide)

It's not merely a matter of having a view, it's the quality of the view.

For example, humans examine things in much deeper depth and detail, reference and cross reference it to existing data, abstract it and play with it as a concept or idea, and finally dismiss it at will. Humans can literally formulate ideas at will and combine them with other ideas to solve problems. They can extrapolate on data and make very accurate guesses about a variety of things (some animals can guess the weather, for example, but to them, it is much more an unconscious instinct)

Even though animals can appreciate life, they can never look at things with the same understanding that human does, because humans have such depth, breadth and width of understanding of such diverse sets of knowledge, rational and abstract, creative and intuitive.



For example, they can figure out the solutions to problems, but perhaps after seeing it and failing a few times.
Animals do problem solving unconsciously. It happens, but usually by accident. 
Humans have bought problem solving to the fore of their being, evolutionarily.  They seek out solutions and are able to grasp and juggle many things in their mind in a way which even apes cannot do. Most of this is down to the superior concentration of human beings. This is bought on by self-awareness.
Humans can make abstract leaps that put them bounds ahead and allows them to solve purely theoretical problems.
As far as I know, no animal can think "purely theoretically", but humans, and neither has any animal need to.
Yet humans have been pursuing "thought" for their evolutionary history, and our minds, bodies and lives reflect that.

Spoiler: TL;DR All of these things are not Intelligence, nor are they Biological. They're Knowledge. They're Cultural, and Invented. (click to show/hide)

Clearly you've never seen a person use trial an error to figure out something they didn't know. That ability, by the purest definition, is what Intelligence is. The dog, using trial and error, and learning from happy accidents, is demonstrating it Right There.

Everything you're talking about is a learned skill. Breadth of knowledge, even knowledge itself... none of it is innate. We're not born with knowledge, and we wouldn't learn it if we didn't have older people to teach it to us.

If you took a baby from today, and transported them back to one of the oldest family troupes of humans (before language or simple tools were invented), they'd grow up to be indistinguishable from the others. They wouldn't spontaneously know how to engineer buildings or solve complex problems by integrating multiple disciplines of modern academics. They'd be thinking in emotions, because they lack a language to give their thoughts shape and nuanced meaning. They'd be solving puzzles the way that dog trying to carry an over-large stick home does; through trial and error.

The bulk of what you're calling Human Intelligence is just our Inheritance. Human technology, and philosophy, and craft. Things that, before language was invented, some bloke from history had to trial-and-error their way into discovering, then showed their neighbors, and passed it on to their children.

SPEAKING OF THINGS THAT ARE INVENTED, what's the deal with Gender? </Seinfeld>
I mean, is it totally fake just because someone invented it way back when, or do invented things like that become real when enough people agree on them?

If so, I motion to officially recognize Child, Tomboy, Effete, Androgyne, and Nope as official Genders. Additional suggestions are open!

[Infinityforce]

Look, I'll just say it plainly.

ANIMALS LACK THE WETWARE.
Humans have brilliantly faceted and intricately developed minds, formed from tens of thousands of years of contemplation on "nature" "virtue" "music" "art" "logic" and "self" as well as many more things. Our brains are just plain different and made that way through thousands of years of a specific burning curiosity that is found nowhere else. It is imprinted, burned on our minds, the thoughts and deeds of our ancestors, which, even then, were far beyond the musings of any ape by at least 100 thousand years difference in evolution.
Somethings, a dog was never meant to compute or contemplate.
Apes too, are shockingly devoid of "higher" thought processes.
Even orcas, dolphins and elephants, despite being emotionally profound and inspiring, cannot match the will of a human being who can sacrifice for an intangible cause, and do so happily, gladly, lovingly.
Only humans understand their feelings and actions to such an extent as to become conflicted.
Not that animals don't get depressed or anything, but humans are definitely more complicated, deeper, intelligent, capable of forming rational, complex, well-thought-out and rehearsed ideas, abstract theories, images etc.

Humans can lie about their feelings about sex. Animals don't even need to lie.
Humans can appreciate the presence of another person. We keep them alive in our minds in a way that a dog can never do, because a dog isn't made to understand it. They yearn and pine, but ultimately, there is no recognition of the person as an individual being, through empathy, sympathy, self-awareness etc.

[i2amroy]

SPEAKING OF THINGS THAT ARE INVENTED, what's the deal with Gender? </Seinfeld>
I mean, is it totally fake just because someone invented it way back when, or do invented things like that become real when enough people agree on them?

Depends, what sense are you talking about it in? Physical, mental, emotional, role-wise? It matters, because some of those things are biologically based (hormones affecting behavior/actual physical composition of cells/etc.) while others are defined more as a collection of traditions that have been passed down through society over the years, and some are a composition of both, being an initial small physical difference that was amplified by tradition or any other number of things.

ANIMALS LACK THE WETWARE.

Except we can't prove this on a number of counts, because we can't ask a dog how he feels about the presence of another dog, or what he thinks about this idea or that, or whether he feels conflicted on eating food now or saving it for later. The communication barrier alone stops us from gather any direct proof at all. And if you want to talk indirect proof through actions/etc, then those ways that we have studied appear to have come back fairly strongly in terms of grey, not in basic black and whites of humans vs other animals, as has been noted again and again in example linked studies in the last few pages alone.

[Calidovi]

Spoiler: UK Facebook Gender List (click to show/hide)

Female to male

Female to male trans man

Female to male transgender man

Female to male transsexual man

F2M

FTM

what's the difference between these? facebook has them on its gender list, but aren't these all expressions of maleness?

[Criptfeind]

Probably just giving people the option to pick whatever it is they want to call it. If they want to specify something other then just "male"

[Solifuge]

Lets take the Sex stuff (Body and Hormones and Reproductive Ability, etc.), and keep it separate it from the Gender stuff (Cultural rules for acceptable behavior, style of dress, appearance standards, pronoun rules when referring to you not by your name, etc.)

I mean, Spanish is real, right? But it's also Artificial, the same way Gender is; made up and modified by people throughout history, assigned and taught to kids, and used to help us understand one another more easily. They're even both ways of standardizing behavior and communicating things to one another:

Language has standard grammar rules to keep the meaning intact when spoken (ideas are never perfectly communicated in words, but standard rules help!), and to keep the meaning of writing as stable as possible over the years. Gender has standards of appearance that encourage people to dress and label themselves visually so we can find ideal mates more easily, and standards of behavior that can restrict dangerous activities from childbearing people (and thus maximize reproductive rates and combat high mortality rates. Yes, I've talked about this a bazillion times before, and everyone is probably tired of it by now, but it's true >:U)

Spoiler: UK Facebook Gender List (click to show/hide)

Female to male

Female to male trans man

Female to male transgender man

Female to male transsexual man

F2M

FTM

what's the difference between these? facebook has them on its gender list, but aren't these all expressions of maleness?

Er... some folks might find the distinctions important, but yeah. These are just synonyms for "Trans-Male". Ugh... and Female-To-Male focuses on being trans as a thing that's about Sex Changes and Physical Bodies, rather than about Gender Roles at all, so fuck whoever invented that terminology I suppose? 9_9;

Honestly, can't we just let people be Male Men, or Female Men, or Male Women, or Female Women, and just be done with the complications? Male and Female is about your parts, and Man or Woman is about your role. Throw in "Androgyne" for anyone in the middle or outside the binary, and you could make a god-damned Gender Alignment Chart of it.

...I want someone to do this now.