Where does sapience start?

I definitely recall wondering that at many different points myself. I daresay that's the crux of the idea of a soul.

Interesting point.

edited 9th Feb '11 5:35:21 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Well, in Book II, Elegy XIV of Amores, Ovid says tigers are wiser than humans because they don't kill their young.

I meant "rerail to the parent topic." Tis a joke.

edited 9th Feb '11 5:38:09 PM by Rottweiler

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Edit: Whoops. Sorry for dropping the ball there. Totally failed to pick up on that.

edited 9th Feb '11 5:44:04 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Well, bees do some pretty freaky things with their navigation that we even now don't understand. Migratory animals store huge maps of the ocean and continents in their heads.

Really, though, the whole idea of 'intelligence' is a human construct.

Be not afraid...

And that is why I feel Humans Are Special, because we can do that. we can understand and create abstract concepts that other animals ,barring a few rare exceptions, can't understand. Animals do have their own forms of intelligence like the aforementioned navigational skills of bees and the migratory animals internal maps, or a parrots mimicking skills, as just a few examples.

edited 9th Feb '11 6:36:10 PM by Alfric

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13239183440B34964700 Alfric's Fire Emblem Liveblog Encyclopedia!

Well, Clever Hans comes to mind. His body language reading skills were on a level that I doubt many humans could equal, particularly given that he was interpreting the body language of an entirely different species.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

Yeah, that's true. Have you seen the Far Side parodying Clever Hans?

Moving on, he's just one horse. I'm sure that if we trained them up, we could get several people capable of reading the body language of horses. Assuming they even have body language, I don't spend a lot of time around horses.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Horses like many animals make use of sounds and body language to communicate with one another. In the case of horses it seems to be that body language is their predominate form of communication.

Also people can and do learn the body language of horses.

edited 9th Feb '11 8:15:36 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

This doesn't even seem to matter, otherwise humans with mental disabilities or in a vegetative state wouldn't possess rights. And society seems to agree that they do.

They're not responsible for anything else. They aren't allowed to have jobs above a certain skill level they can't attain.

But the real kicker for those no more intelligent than an animal is that they're human. People relate to them, and they might even have normal, intelligent human relatives. If there were genius polar bears out there somewhere, we'd definitely allow some polar bears to walk around (under guard).

edited 9th Feb '11 10:09:24 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

^^

In the same way you can't torture a horse, you can't torture a human being. The rest gets more fuzzy. I don't think I can justify certain things, like the fact that you can get permission to do certain scientific experiments on apes a lot easier than you can for mentally retarded people  ^*

, but it's pretty clear that, depending on the severity of the mental handicap, their rights are pretty severely curtailed.

edited 9th Feb '11 10:22:25 PM by Roman

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Well, no...speak your mind.

Because if A) how we treat animals depends on their mental faculties and B) we can objectively prove that a person with severe mental inabilities is an incurable detriment to society, then we need to either begin treating animals with the same consideration as those humans or begin treating those humans with the same consideration as animals.

If a law doesn't make sense, then it should go. Simple as that.

edited 9th Feb '11 10:58:23 PM by KingZeal

Perhaps, sometimes laws that would be otherwise good are undesirable because of the complexities they raise.

For now, we should just be respectful to animals, while giving disabled people the benefit of the doubt, thus blessing them with full rights anyways.

It's not an absolute, and has no anchor, but it's better than deciding rights based on intelligence. It could have weight though, if humans are shown to have souls, while animals do/don't lack them.

edited 9th Feb '11 11:05:38 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Okay, so answers in this thread come down to, we're superior because we're more intelligent.

So now my question is, why?

We can't even define intelligence in any objective way, without Moving the Goalposts whenever we find that an animal is smarter than we thought. And it gets messy when you put smart animals against dumb humans, so really intelligence is not a good barometer of the "worth" of a species.

It's been said before that elephants mourn their dead, so why are their families worth less than ours? And how do we know other animals don't have similar processes just because we don't see what we interpret as expression of it? I'm pretty sure wolves murder each other far less often than humans do (especially if you count wars). And you want a species comparable to humans? Dolphins. Dolphins are it.

I'm not talking about, like, not giving bears right to free roam through New York. That's pretty fair; most bears wouldn't let you in their homes either. But the way we pave over habitats with cities and roads, driving species to extinction and keeping others in meat and fur farms in horrible conditions seems to demonstrate to me that humans have a serious entitlement issue, that since we think we're the only animals who matter we can do whatever we please with the planet and everyone in it. Is this what we do with that intelligence we're so proud of? If there's one thing humans are superior to all other animals at, it's destruction.

No offense Anonym, but this is one of my major beefs with Christianity. The way your faith teaches that Man is the supreme race (either because we're God's chosen creation or because the world was made for us to begin with, whatever), especially with the belief that humans are the only animals with "souls" (as if "souls" have any scientific basis). I think this is one thing that leads us to have such disregard for non-human life, doing all the stuff I said above, and leading us to destruction.

edited 10th Feb '11 7:59:39 AM by KillaClass1

"I could go on listing the stupid design decisions... so I will!" — Yahtzee's job description

Christianity actually puts high value on animals, saying that one of the ways you can tell a man's characters is how he treats animals.

I can't remember where, but a man is riding into a city on his donkey, and the donkey stops. The man is irked, so he gets off the donkey and beats it with a stick.

When he does this, an angel shows up, and asks the man if he saw them. The angel then enables the donkey to speak and the donkey asks him why he hurt him, as he was trying to obey the angel. The angel then chastises the man for beating his donkey. (I'm pretty sure I muddied a few details, but the general idea of the story is still there. I wish I could remember where this is.)

If anything, this shows that animals (or at least certain ones) actually do have souls, or some form of them.

The Bible has hunting to be an almost spiritual thing of honor, such that one should kill what they need, and do so in reverence of God and respect to the animal.

Christianity, at least for one who studies it, actually encourages a very interesting view of animals. They are to be respected. Id on;t see how the Bible encourages the disregard of animals at all. It encourages respect of animals; one who is cruel to an animal is definitely not in line with the Bible.

As for the soul deal, that was a hypothetical, not a religious statement. If some method for testing whether or not a living thing has a soul becomes available, then one could feel more/less inclined to hold X to the same degree as humans.

Essentially, if nobody is home, then home is perfectly fine to destroy. "Philosophical Zombies" come to mind here.

edited 10th Feb '11 9:51:32 AM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

'W'e can't even define intelligence in any objective way, without Moving The Goalposts whenever we find that an animal is smarter than we thought. And it gets messy when you put smart animals against dumb humans, so really intelligence is not a good barometer of the "worth" of a species.''

I haven't seen anyone Move The Goalposts in this thread.

It's been said before that elephants mourn their dead, so why are their families worth less than ours?

I don't place all that much higher value on your family than an elephant's. Abstractly, you're human, you probably aren't a bad person, and it'd be a shame if some one hunted your family down, but you're some guy on the internet, you might as well be from Neptune.

Same thing for elephants. Abstractly, it's sad if an elephant dies, and while they probably aren't half as smart as an adult human, they do have complex behaviors that make it obvious they deserve reasonably good treatment. They mourn. They learn. They even commit revenge, and can suffer PTSD.

But at the end of the day, I just really love my mom and my family. Because their my family, not because of any magical fairies that hand out value to sentient beings. And there aren't any elephants in my family.

And how do we know other animals don't have similar processes just because we don't see what we interpret as expression of it?

Occam's Razor.

I'm pretty sure wolves murder each other far less often than humans do (especially if you count wars).

And I'm sure ducks rape each other a lot more often than humans do. What's the point?

Even if wolves don't kill each other nearly as often (I'm not sure this is true when compared to modern society, even most wars aren't total war anymore, but it probably is true for some hunter gatherers, where the most likely cause of death is sometimes murder.) the certainly aren't that nice to their prey.

And you want a species comparable to humans? Dolphins. Dolphins are it.

Dolphins are pretty smart, but there's simple nothing comparable to human social institutions, or human technology or human oral tradition or codified human ethics. Their might be something comparable to human learned language in some lemurs.

Look, just admit it, all are close relatives have died off, either killed, out competed or assimilated by us. We aren't like any other species on the planet. Do you think some Dolphin somewhere is having a philosophical debate about rather it should eat tuna or not? Occam's Razor says no.

But the way we pave over habitats with cities and roads, driving species to extinction and keeping others in meat and fur farms in horrible conditions seems to demonstrate to me that humans have a serious entitlement issue, that since we think we're the only animals who matter we can do whatever we please with the planet and everyone in it.

Yes. We're animals. We out compete other animals for resources, some of them go extinct. It's probably bad resource management, at least some of the time. But a human feeling entitled to build roads doesn't strike me as any different than any other behavior animals do for their own benefit.

Is this what we do with that intelligence we're so proud of? If there's one thing humans are superior to all other animals at, it's destruction.

Human intelligence is pretty amazing, and it's easier to destroy than create, but if all you see when you look at a human city is destruction, than you are missing a lot.

Because if A) how we treat animals depends on their mental faculties and B) we can objectively prove that a person with severe mental inabilities is an incurable detriment to society, then we need to either begin treating animals with the same consideration as those humans or begin treating those humans with the same consideration as animals.

I think this may be a false dilemma.

edited 10th Feb '11 1:50:59 PM by Roman

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Sapience is a sliding scale of intelligence/cunning that at the lower end is more-or-less indistinguishable from sentience.

Sentience is a sliding scale of feeling that at the lower end is more-or-less indistinguishable from purely mechanical reflex [inb4reductionism].

Self-consciousness and empathy are, I believe, some marks of humanity which are rather more interesting. Though they are not limited to homo sapiens of course.

Anyone disagree with my [just now cooked up] definitions? Why? Ta.

edited 10th Feb '11 2:03:11 PM by mmysqueeant

This strikes me as an "Appeal to Inherent Nature" (this is the way things are, so accept it) which doesn't really address the issues so much as avoid them. Yes, my family isn't your family and you care less about them...but the entire point to this thread (in which we're trying to example societal behavior and policy) is to figure out how to gemerate mutual empathy. Being apathetic about things outside of your sphere is inherent nature, but that doesn't argue the point.

edited 10th Feb '11 2:55:49 PM by KingZeal

He asked why Elephants are less important than humans. I told him exactly why I value the things that I value. I never made a statement over the goodness or badness of the situation, or what he should do about it. The situation is imperfect, and he can do whatever he likes.

The point of this thread, is to say what sapience is, and maybe to figure out where that fits into the things humans value. If you want to generate mutual empathy, that's a noble goal, but nobody said that was the point of the thread until you did.

edited 11th Feb '11 5:08:01 AM by Roman

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In the beginning of this thread there was a lot of, "Maybe the definition of sapience is this... But wait, that would mean X is also sapient, so I guess it can't be that." It looked to me like we were purposefully trying to find a definition of sapience that included only humans. This happens on a broader scale as well; the definition of intelligence used to be "the ability to make and use tools," until we found other animals can make or use tools, then we changed it. Check the Real Life section on the page as well.

It reminded me of the tendency we seem to have to regard ourselves as the central beings of the earth, so that's why I brought it up.

Okay, listen: I'm not talking about loving your family more than mine or a family of elephants. Everyone does that; you, me, and the elephants alike. I've already said that human-perceived levels of "value" are unimportant, and all animals prioritize their own species.

So, all animals compete with others for resources and most probably don't care about "being fair" and such. But what we do is not just competition. Competition would be killing a cow before a wolf does, or driving a wolf off a cow so you can kill it. What we do is take ownership of all the cows, keep them on farms, and prevent all other animals from "stealing" "our" prey. We also actively seek to wipe out competitors so there's more resources for us; like how we demonized the wolf for thousands of years because they ate "our" livestock, driving them to the edge of extinction in the process. Wolves are just an example, though; we've done it to many other animals, and in all our activities you can see how we wipe out other life and "competitors" in order to have maximum resources and luxury for ourselves.

Keeping farm animals is not necessary to our survival. We could easily survive and flourish just by taking what we need from the environment ever day, but we do this in order to sustain a consumer society, to have the most possible food for the least possible effort at the cost of all other life. We also do things for the sake of comfort, not just survival; for instance, hunting more animals than you need to in order to profit off selling their pelts, or keeping millions of animals in fur farms in order to make nice fur trims for celebrity fashion. We raze entire forests to build highways. I hear they're planning to build a highway straight through the Serengeti that would kill a significant number of elephants by interfering with their migration route. A highway isn't necessary to our survival as a species, yet I've actually heard arguments that the elephants' migration shouldn't stop the highway from being built, because "humans should take priority over animals every time" (which apparently means our highway is more important than their lives).

I'll admit what you want me to: humans are not like any other species, and we have the greatest intelligence of all animals. But that doesn't give us the right to do what we please with the world; in fact, I would say having the capacity to destroy the world is what makes it so important that we reign ourselves in and use discretion. In return, I want you to admit that we don't treat the earth or the life on it fairly.

I think that this attitude makes us very destructive and is going to lead us to our own extinction. This is the reason I argue against the commonly-held notion that humans are superior to all other life, not because of "mutual empathy" or arbitrary assignments of "value" and "rights," or because I think a family of elephants should be as important to you as your own family. It's because our dominance of the world is actually harmful, not just to it but to us as well.

Admittedly, this post kind of goes on an off-topic tangent, but I think it's related because I think human-created concepts like "sapience" are one of the ways we try to convince ourselves that we're the inherently superior beings, and the constant re-defining of concepts like this and "intelligence" only goes to show.

@Anonym: This is commendable, but you can't deny that Christianity's influence on the general public views is one factor of what led us to where we are today. Okay, so the Bible says not to be cruel to animals because they are also God's creation and deserve respect. According to that Wikipedia article I linked above, the Bible is commonly translated to say God gave us "dominion" over all other animals but that a closer translation would be "stewardship" (i.e. it's our job to take care of the world).

However, what constitutes animal abuse to you? Most people would oppose direct acts of cruelty to animals, but for many it's only because cruelty to animals can be indicative of future cruelty to humans. But what about other things we do that harm animals, like raze habitats and keep them on farms? I've heard it straight from the horse's Christian's mouth that these things are justified, because God made animals for the purpose of serving Man. And there's also the "God made us in his image" thing. So even if you oppose animal cruelty yourself, I still think Christianty had a large part in the current anthropocentric views of the public.

edited 11th Feb '11 9:35:15 AM by KillaClass1

"I could go on listing the stupid design decisions... so I will!" — Yahtzee's job description

As I said, the entire point of any topic about law, morality, or ethics is always going to be about empathy. The question, "where does spanience start" is essentially asking "when do we start treating things with empathy (as humans)?"

I think the reason sapience tends to be extended to humans only is that it's supposed to denote the specific type of intelligence which humans possess. It's an anthropocentric term, so of course it will be applied in an anthropocentric manner.

I don't think it's very useful to just draw a cut-off line and say, "this is sapient, this isn't". Intelligence happens in degrees. The reason human sapience is important to us is because we have the ability not just to think, but to think deeply, and because we form a society. Animals which cannot participate in our society are not going to abide by our ethics and therefore it isn't useful to consider them sapient. Nevertheless, some of them are capable of highly complex thought, and therefore can comprehend mistreatment more acutely. As a rule of thumb, I'd say if an animal is smart enough to know that it's being mistreated and feel distressed by this, then it's sufficiently sapient not to be mistreated in that fashion.

I'd also say that any amount of unnecessary pain caused to any animal is undesirable, regardless of actual intelligence.

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The Classical definition is that man is an animal possessing (abstract) reason.

Does any other earthly animal have that? If so, I'd bet only elephants, as they have some behaviors, like "funerals" that vary from one society to another, often used to infer when early humans became sapient.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

In the beginning of this thread there was a lot of, "Maybe the definition of sapience is this... But wait, that would mean X is also sapient, so I guess it can't be that." It looked to me like we were purposefully trying to find a definition of sapience that included only humans.

I never saw this. Please point it out.

This happens on a broader scale as well; the definition of intelligence used to be "the ability to make and use tools, " until we found other animals can make or use tools, then we changed it. Check the Real Life section on the page as well.

On what page? I've never heard this before. It sounds fascinating.

What we do is take ownership of all the cows, keep them on farms, and prevent all other animals from "stealing" "our" prey.

There are other animals that do this. Ants that herd aphids, or example, or ants that farm moss, There are some other more complex types of mutualism/ symbiosis that add up to the same thing. This is a form of adaptive behavior, which competes with other species with different adaptations and behaviors.

We also actively seek to wipe out competitors so there's more resources for us; like how we demonized the wolf for thousands of years because they ate "our" livestock, driving them to the edge of extinction in the process. Wolves are just an example, though; we've done it to many other animals, and in all our activities you can see how we wipe out other life and "competitors" in order to have maximum resources and luxury for ourselves.

Lions vs Hyenas is basically the same thing. Predators killing competing predators is often intraspecies, too. Competition is biology is more compex than how you're putting it, though. The behavior of killing off competing predators is a competitive strategy, as is farming and herding.

Keeping farm animals is not necessary to our survival.

Technically, no. Not for me. I could just live off Soybeans. But I'm an omnivorous descendant of predators. I like meat. I'm smart enough to know what would happen if we got all our meat the natural way: a tragedy of the commons scenario. And I don't have an ethical problem eating meat as long as the animals are treated in a way that isn't torturous.

"We could easily survive and flourish just by taking what we need from the environment ever day, but we do this in order to sustain a consumer society, to have the most possible food for the least possible effort at the cost of all other life."

I, in all probability, could not survive off of a hunter gatherer diet. We could never make it to six billion that way, and flourishing for me could never be accomplished that way either, as without a large population, the quantity of specialized artists and great art would be impossible.

"We also do things for the sake of comfort, not just survival; for instance, hunting more animals than you need to in order to profit off selling their pelts, or keeping millions of animals in fur farms in order to make nice fur trims for celebrity fashion."

And penguins gather stones. And wolves eat more food than they need to keep better pelts. And Tigers expand territority farther than strictly necessary to acquire mates. Cats of all sizes kill for fun.

We raze entire forests to build highways. I hear they're planning to build a highway straight through the Serengeti that would kill a significant number of elephants by interfering with their migration route. A highway isn't necessary to our survival as a species, yet I've actually heard arguments that the elephants' migration shouldn't stop the highway from being built, because "humans should take priority over animals every time" (which apparently means our highway is more important than their lives).

Beavers, ants and other animals make environments uncomfortable for other animals and drive extinctions too.

I have enough sympathy for Elephants for that to give me pause, but enough sympathy for people that if that highway could lift thousands of people from poverty, I might do it anyway. Economies of scale simply work better for humans with current technology, since current technology was built for humans. One happy human costs less resources than one healthy elephant. From a utilitarian point of view, the answer is obvious.

In order to make a case for the elephants, you'd have to make a case that the species was valuable itself, not that an individual elephant deserves happiness or health.

This does bring a point though, if there was a cheaper than human purchase of utility, should I take it? Ofcourse, the answer is, I'd never do it, for self interested reasons,  ^*

and for other things that I value, but from a utilitarian perspective, yes by definition.

But that doesn't give us the right to do what we please with the world; in fact, I would say having the capacity to destroy the world is what makes it so important that we reign ourselves in and use discretion. In return, I want you to admit that we don't treat the earth or the life on it fairly.

I'm not sure what fair could mean in this context. We certainly don't treat them nicely, but that's obvious.

I think that this attitude makes us very destructive and is going to lead us to our own extinction. This is the reason I argue against the commonly-held notion that humans are superior to all other life, not because of "mutual empathy" or arbitrary assignments of "value" and "rights, " or because I think a family of elephants should be as important to you as your own family. It's because our dominance of the world is actually harmful, not just to it but to us as well.

Yeah, sure, poor resource management. We should manage animals more carefully in order to ensure our survival. This much is obvious, and I've said as much upthread. This is different from talking about the moral quality of animals, though. How are these related? I mean other than how they relate to humans e.i. algae is important because they provide oxygen that is important for humans.

As I said, the entire point of any topic about law, morality, or ethics is always going to be about empathy. The question, "where does spanience start" is essentially asking "when do we start treating things with empathy (as humans)?"

I have empathy for dogs, and they fail the mirror test. I have empathy for fictional characters. The way I treat empathy is just a thing that I do when relatively arbitrary criteria are met, like meeting them, and being around them for a short time.

I don't think you should torture anything that can remember pain. If imprisoned, quarters must be reasonably sized, no electric shocks, surgery under anesthetic while alive, and no sowing anythings eyes shut or dropping bleach in their eyes until they go blind. And if imprisoned, no starving them to death either.

Things that show theory of mind are a little harder to deal with. If it turned out lions and impala were sentient, what could I do about it? Can I punish a lion for hunting impala? Should I provide with refuge in another country? If either species are starving due to natural conditions, do I have a humanitarian duty to provide one or both with food?

That sounds absurd to some people, but that's what the empathy we have for other humans is. I can even say that about my first statement. There are lots of slow, painful deaths in nature. If I see one and it's convenient, I'll probably put an animal out of it's misery but do I/ human beings in general/ the government have a responsibility to go out of our way to stop that from happening where ever it might happen?

edited 11th Feb '11 8:41:28 PM by Roman

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Killa, what exactly do you want? What's your plan? The world isn't perfect, but you seem to be proposing changes on an impossible scale.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.