Can we know what animals are thinking?
medium.economist.com
medium.economist.com
It is even worse with cetacean signals. Their system is nothing like human language; to begin with, it is very fast, it is so fast that dolphins could distinguish separate clicks in a sound that consists of 100s clicks which we perceive as one continuous "squeaky door" sound. Then they have 2 areas in their brain associated with auditory processing (unlike in humans and other mammals that have just one). https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150707082344.h...
On top of that, small corpus callosum means that two hemispheres are more independent in dolphins than they are in humans. This should have at least some effect on how they "think".Finally, "seeing" world through sound, and being able to make 2 (maybe even more) sounds at once independently only adds to the "alien" complexity of cetacean species.
Anyone who has seen a spectrogram of a dolphin pod vocalizing will testify: they rarely shut up! There is a constant chatter going on, apart from echolocation. It must have some meaning, evolution would not tolerate such waste of energy for nothing.We have been investigating dolphins cognition and communication since 1960s, we still do not know what they "think" or "say" and it could be partially due to our tendency to compare them to us, expecting something similar.
http://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-dogs-pass-the-test...
This was a fun read in general, but I think it's particularly interesting to consider some of its implications in the context of trends in AI (to be clear, the article has nothing to do with AI).
I think the excerpt above is rapidly becoming true for current generation ML/AI systems (I'm leaving aside the question of qualia [0], since we are still unclear how to evaluate that question even for animals).
To the extent the above becomes true, I think it's an interesting contrast to the implied point behind Dijkstra's famous "swimming submarine" analogy:
"The question of whether machines can think... is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim."
The submarine "swims", but almost none of that activity could be mapped onto how a human swims. As the structure of ML/AI systems starts to mimic what we believe we know about the neuroscience of the brain, the question of whether machines are "thinking", and what that might mean about thought in general, is very interesting.
On the one hand, naive human intuition seems to suggest that the "movie playing in your head" would not emerge from any number of transistors and wires connected to each other.
On the other hand, it's not clear how you can argue that what goes on in our own heads is physically any different. So that leads you either to religion, or to the idea that somehow consciousness has to emerge from interactions of matter. And if that's the case, it raises all sorts of ethical questions about the creation of artifacts that might (some day) exhibit consciousness. And, of course, there are already many ethical questions about how we treat animals in the here-and-now.
Doesn't seem like they're mutually exclusive. I mean, I'm pretty confident I can interact with some matter and produce another human. If or how God plays a role seems to be the unknown factor.
On the other hand we can agree that we can sufficiently easily distinguish conscious and unconscious human, dog or other mammal. From here we can study which parts of a brain participate in conscious activities, and maybe generalize it for species further away from us.
I define consciousness as the property of having an internal experience.
It would be better to describe someone "unconscious" as unresponsive. You don't know that they are not having an internal experience at that moment in time. Even if they told you later that they weren't having an internal experience, that only tells you that they have no memory an internal experience, it does not prove that no such experience occurred.
I quit pursuing philosophy as an academic matter when I realized that these sorts of conflations are at the root of most philosophical debates. In fact, I'll go ahead and state that the single most contested subject in modern philosophy is the definition of the word "is".
And we don't have anything better.
As one distillation he presents goes, first-contact comes about because of our emissions being noticed. But the reason for the contact is the content of the messages - intelligent but not-conscious beings receive them, find them difficult to process because they are mostly self-referential silliness only a conscious mind could worry about, and conclude they are informational attacks.
Maybe machines shouldn't be conscious, because consciousness is a waste of resources.
Animals might have a very different mind, but I'm quite certain they experience their existence.
- Would other intelligent species consider our AI machines alive?
- Would other intelligent species consider -us- alive?
----
Suppose we build some robots, that know how to learn on their own, teach each other, process raw materials and construct copies (and better versions) of themselves from it.
And we send them to an uninhabited planet far away.
Decades later, they have a "civilization" of their own, and are colonizing other planets, all on their own.
Would they, to an external observer looking for intelligent life, fail to meet any of the criteria for it? If yes, how?
----
Suppose there's an alien species that "sees" in a much wider spectrum than we do; from ultraviolet to infrared, and can see light polarity and perceive billions of more colors than us.
They can also innately detect magnetic waves and other phenomena, so they can "feel" way more than humans do.
Their natural lives also last for far longer than humans, so their thoughts and plans span decades and centuries, and their minds can casually consider enormous scopes without any effort...
Would THEY consider humans "alive?"
Along similar lines Hubert Dreyfus famously said "current claims and hopes for progress in models for making computers intelligent are like the belief that someone climbing the tree is making progress toward reaching the moon."
The problem with this way of thinking is that the fundamental principle in question gets conceded like it's no big deal. If you grant that I can swim, that I can climb a tree, even an inch, you've already given me absolutely everything. Of course further progress will be hard, but it won't be forbidden by some kind of transcendent philosophical principle.
So with the submarine example, we might "swim" differently, but we can both navigate through water. What would be cause for concern in the sense of raising some fundamental limitation would be if we discover that the place we want to go simple isn't accessible by any "submarine" we could ever build, or that the place we want to go isn't to be found in the "water."
One day, when I found the dog looking excitedly down a drain I said 'Rats!'. Now if I say 'Rats?' she goes and looks. I know she is thinking - 'I lost a rat down there once and I'd desperately love to make its acquaintance again'.
I do not think that there is much difference between the way we and other animals think. We get confused in the same way and even subconscious things like 'infectious yawn' see to pass freely to the horse and the dog and back to me. Some people have a hard time accepting that animals do think and whereas I recognize the easy peril of anthropomorphising subjects - I also suspect a political unwillingness and discomfiture in accepting animal intelligence.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Fes...
[1] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/04/animal-souls-part-i....
[2] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/animals-are-consciou...
[3] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/05/mind-body-problem-ro...
I feel like this is, intentionally or not, aimed at least 80% at my comments :)
Would you mind giving me some quick pointers on what the "errors" are? I can assure you that, though I may well be wrong, I have read several books on philosophy of mind and many more on cognitive science research. Despite that I'm struggling to see anything I said that would have been controversial at the time I was taking those courses in university.
This style is also seen in discussions where religion is raised, where it is used to avoid questions like why an omnipotent and benevolent creator thought smallpox was a good idea.
Another issue is what seems to be the claim that when accounting for consciousness, you've either got religion or a (reductionist) materialism. Nonsense. Aristotelians have always held that animals are both composed of matter[0] and conscious. One area Aristotelians and materialists differ is their concept of matter. The materialist's concept of matter is the reason why Descartes denied non-human animals consciousness. He understood that without the res cogitans--which he denied non-human animals--the impoverished res extensa he presupposed could not "support" consciousness. Aristotelianism avoids the problem without having to take refuge in substance dualism.
[0] The exception is man. While most faculties of human beings are understood to be material, the exception is the intellect. Why? Because the intellect engages in abstraction. If matter is concrete and particular ("this red apple"), and universals existing apart from particulars are abstract ("redness"), then the intellect, in which they reside, cannot be material. Compare this with the imagination which always deals with images and thus particulars.
> humans are different because we are capable of abstract reasoning and logic whereas animals are not. Do you suppose animals really are not capable of these two mental faculties?
We need to ask, in what sense and depth are animals able to express that form of reasoning and logic? Humans do so at unique levels through language. There is a layer of reasoning and following logic that can be expressed by being shown by doing, like preparing, but there is another, higher form, that can be expressed by being said through language, like planning. The former is continually in the present. It does involve a kind of thinking and a kind of intelligence. But unlike the latter form, which expresses an understanding, and therefore the ability to express in language, the past and future tenses, there is no expression of why it is being done. That expressing of why, that kind of expression of reasoning, animals lack and humans are capable of through language.
Language is not just some thing we slap over thought. It is an ability that, through its use, expresses the concepts and limits of our thoughts. It is the animate expression of our thinking, that is the collection of our rational and cogitative faculties that define us as persons rather than animals.
It's not so much that animals lack reasoning or logic (that is the view of a crude Behaviorism), it is that humans are capable of the same and far more unique expressions of reasoning and logic than animals, so much so that humans are unique from animals as a result.
*x* can *y*, as *z* is a subset of *x*, and *z* can *y*.
∃ x : X . x can y ⇐ ∃ z : Z . z can y ∧ ∀ z : Z . z : X
In English: There are X that can y because there are Z that can y and all Z are X. Nothing contradictory there.
While it is not always clear what the intended quantifiers are, it is usually best to choose the interpretation that doesn't make a statement trivially false.
People are so worried about projecting human qualities onto non-human things that they go the opposite extreme and assume that a whole range of qualities gets to be claimed as exclusively belonging to humans.
But how do you know that animals have no desire or ability to explain things to each other, at least amongst their own species? We may not be able to read it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, we already know that a parent can 'teach' its offspring that something is dangerous, for example among elephants this is even fairly easily observable.
> and culture is something animals haven't yet developed.
I know they don't have movies and such, but they do seem to have dialects, activities and behaviours based on various, (including location-based) factors even among the same kind of animals that one could classify that collection as being a 'culture' of theirs, no?
I think this mindset of trying to map everything 1:1 to humans might be robbing us of a greater understanding of the universe in general, like looking at planets that have water and an atmosphere of some kind as with probably having life. There is no need for other kinds of life to need water or oxygen per se, so why we seem to be focused almost exclusively on it?
I'd be interested to know the original sources and the rigor of the tests, though.
>They can’t conceptualize that there could exist a mind of thoughts and feelings outside their own.
Presumably they don't have a concept of their own mind either. And this is despite being quite sophisticated and hosting a bunch of memes related to things like tool-use:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10071-011-0403-...
Whereas primitive humans painted pictures of themselves on cave walls. Which seems like an early attempt to explain themselves to themselves.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30192493-are-we-smart-en...
If we could then we'd know if the question made sense.
I like David Deutsch's criterion for assessing claims about these issues: if you can't program it, you haven't understood it.
Of course this applies to robots, but not necessarily to animals, where we know they are constructed similarly to ourselves and so likely have feelings similar to ours although there are questions to what degree.
It's actually online here: https://themindi.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/chapter-8-soul-of-ma...
I think there is a real movement and push back against all this political correctness and endless 'feelings' based discussion thankfully.
Medicine (and millions of other people) has already proven that we don't need meat to survive. We have plenty of alternatives now.
But we are addicted to meat - because it gives us pleasure. But then you have to ask yourself, is it OK for sentient beings to horribly suffer for us[1], so we can experience some pleasure that could be easily achieved by consuming alternative foods[2] and shifting our perception. Consuming meat is also not the best way to efficiently feed the world.
Here is what Dr Neil Barnard says about bacon:
Power Foods for the Brain (17min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_ONFix_e4k
[1] Earthlings - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc2oizSsmUs (I challenge you to watch this and not think 'WTF')
[2] Beyond Meat - great presentation by Ethan Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x8jfiaLCPY
If animals can think and they eat other animals perhaps they will be able to teach us why it may be an acceptable choice.
* Veganism isn't about health[1]. It's about avoiding exploitation of other sentient and intelligent beings and reducing suffering on many levels.
* The difference between us and other animals is that we have the ability of critical thinking. We can change our attitude and mind when presented with new information. A lion can't do this (also, a lion needs meat to survive, modern humans don't).
There is a great quote by Aaron Swartz[2] and in that vein I encourage you to watch the videos that were posted in this thread - you might be surprised.
[1] "Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.[...]"
[2] “Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think.”
1) Eat animals and plants. Remember the animals you eat also eat plants. This creates maximum suffering and damage.
2) Eat plants only. This creates less suffering and damage than option 1.
To answer your question though, if it's scientifically proven that plants are sentient and feel pain like we do (i.e. suffer) then I would only eat what plants produce (e.g. nuts, legumes, apples, etc) rather than the plant itself (e.g. carrots).
Personally, at least until we can efficiently synthesize arbitrary dietary proteins, fats, and fibers, I'll keep using my computer built from rare earths mined with exploited workers to post about the delicious, factory-slaughtered chicken I just ate.
'If one can't save everything, one must save nothing?'
You should watch the presentation by Ethan Brown, he talks about creating meat using plant protein.
He's a great entrepreneur and 'hacker'. You might enjoy it.
"plants can see hear and respond" http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170109-plants-can-see-hear-...
Provided this is true don't they deserve more protection over animals because they can't defend as well as animals
This doesn't imply at all that they are sentient or have feelings, which is what we care about (or should, in any case) when we discuss harming or protecting other living things.
Of course, there are other considerations such as ecological, but that's not what we're discussing here.
One can readily see that the answer to this question is "yes" even when the suffering is that of humans, much less animals.
Many people readily consume products that are created in sweatshops, that are the product or cause of wars and/or environmental damage that has severe (and often deadly) consequences on other humans. Most people don't really care enough to change their consumption habits.
Out of sight, out of mind is a maxim many live by both when they eat and when they buy. Few people want to look in to the proverbial sausage factory or slaughterhouse to find out how their food is made, or in sweatshops to find out how their clothes are made. May if they did they'd change their consumption habits, but most don't really want to. They'd rather bury their head in the sand and enjoy their life. As long as they or their loved ones don't directly suffer the consequences, they effectively couldn't care less how their pleasure was got.
We, humans, are inflicting much more suffering to flora and fauna by the simple fact of participating in the industrial modern lifestyle. Buying food at the supermarket, using the internet, travelling, AC, and pretty much any activity we can think of.
The underlying problem is that to sustain 7+ billion people we need industrialisation which requires massive amounts of resources (energy, land, minerals, etc). The modern lifestyle doesn't help either.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/eat-less...
The second one is deforestation.
The third one is industry.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?artic...
Animal agriculture is extremely destructive. Forestry being in that category, one of the biggest causes of deforestation is expansion of cattle grazing and feed lands, especially in the Amazon.
> Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector come mostly from agriculture (cultivation of crops and livestock) and deforestation. This estimate does not include the CO2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in biomass, dead organic matter, and soils, which offset approximately 20% of emissions from this sector.
Not only the number includes crop agriculture, but also deforestation is caused by quite a large number of factors.
It's important to understand the claims your making if you're going to state that animal again is not a significant portion of that 24%. As much as it seems like you'd like to deny, animal agriculture is a substatial driver of man made climate change.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120925091608.h...
Why not? Try to not be part of the throwaway culture, avoid falling for gimmicks and new toys and try to build a environmental Friendly lifestyle. It's not perfect but it's perfectly possible to escape the modern lifestyle to a huge degree
I'm a vegetarian partly out of compassion for the animals who might be eaten and partly because of the other harmful effects of industrialized meat production.
In addition, I don't own a car and try to avoid non-human-powered transportation in general, I use air conditioning extremely sparingly despite living in Louisiana, I avoid buying crap I don't need online or in person, and I choose my foods and their sources carefully.
These are all personal choices, and I'm sharing them not to lecture or to be holier than thou. I'm just trying to say this: Maybe the correct reaction to "being a vegetarian alone won't save the world," is "I should be thoughtful about all the ways my choices impact the world" rather than "I'll have the 72oz steak."
I was like you a few years ago. Even left the world and moved to an off the grid cabin for a year until I realized I was only trying to feel better about myself.
Me installing some solar panels on that cabin: http://imgur.com/5mfDVHv.jpg
Everything that we do, like using the internet, is still consuming massive amounts of energy and resources. From manufacturing the computer(s) you are using, to networking.
Energy consumption for example is the number one cause of CO2 emissions, not transportation, and certainly not the food industry.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
Animal agriculture is a huge drain on resources and the environment. There's clear cutting of the Amazon for cattle feed and grazing. Cows and cattle emit huge amounts of methane, many times more potent in climate change than CO2. Nearly a quarter of ice free land in the world is dedicated to animal ag.
Some estimates put 20 kg of grain for a single kg of beef. That is not efficient.
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?artic... check out this link.
Yes every human activity uses energy. Does that mean we shouldn't try be consious in limiting our consumption and be damage we inflict on others?
That second sector includes quite a few things. For example deforestation for non livestock agriculture, city building, etc. None of which are alleviated by vegetarianism.
Also note this:
> This estimate does not include the CO2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in biomass, dead organic matter, and soils, which offset approximately 20% of emissions from this sector.
So in practice this 24% is really 19.2%, and less than that is really caused purely by livestock.
> Some estimates put 20 kg of grain for a single kg of beef. That is not efficient.
Indeed, but chicken or pork produce less emissions than fruits or even dairy products.
> Does that mean we shouldn't try be consious in limiting our consumption and be damage we inflict on others?
Sounds good in theory.
In practice if you care about suffering, you should realise that agriculture is one of the biggest environmental disasters of the last couple thousands years. Agriculture has destroyed (and destroys) entire ecosystems.
And before you argue about organic agriculture: that would not feed 7 billion people. Maybe aquaponics / hydroponics could save the world, but it remains to be seen.
If you do really care about emissions and your impact on the planet you could do a number of things like not having kids and getting out of the industrial lifestyle. Many have done it (I tried and failed). Otherwise there is really no moral high ground in vegetarianism.
But it's been proven that producing meat requires more resources than producing plant based foods. So if we truly care about feeding 7+ billion people, then we would reduce our meat consumption or move to a plant based diet completely. This is one thing each of us can directly do something about - by simply buying different foods. You should watch that presentation by Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown.
Also, when talking about moral reasons, this is not just about minimising the suffering of animals. What do you think seeing animals being killed, sliced open alive etc day in day out does to the human psyche - you can find out here: http://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2157... - also see this quote [1].
If you couldn't get any other job other than working in a slaughterhouse or food prep shop and they both pay the same - which job would you pick? Would you want to kill animals every day or rather wash, cut, peel fruits and veg every day?
Our buying choices do matter.
[1] "The worst thing, worse than the physical danger is the emotional toll. If you work in that stick pit for any period of time, you develop an attitude that lets you kill things, but doesn’t let you care. You may look a hog in the eye that’s walking around down in the blood pit with you and think, God, that really isn’t a badlooking animal. You may want to pet it. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them-beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t care (Dillard, p. 398, 2008). "
It's true, but you can see the global sources of emissions here.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
As I hope you can see we have bigger problems to worry about.
> What do you think seeing animals being killed, sliced open alive etc day in day out does to the human psyche
My grandparents killed animals on their farm regularly. Not only they were good moral people, but their way of life was much more sustainable and respectful of the planet than any of us here.
By focusing on something that shocks you personally you are missing the whole picture.
But why can't we act on multiple fronts? We can do many things to reduce our carbon foot print, and choosing not to eat meat or reducing it is one of those things.
Our meat consumption is a big problem environmentally - see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meat-and-environm...
Also, the way we farm animals now a days is completely different to when your grand parents farmed them. Using factory farming to feed the world is just not sustainable.
Look, I get it - most people can't give up meat, we're addicted to it and it's also cultural. But what we can do is giving a signal to the market that we demand better, by choosing to buy alternatives that are better on many fronts, like Beyond Meat etc.
That's why I really admire the work by Ethan Brown, he's trying to create meat using plant protein. You should watch the presentation by him I posted earlier - you might find it interesting.
> But why can't we act on multiple fronts?
Yes, as long as we don't forget where the big problem really lies and we also act there.
I've met quite a number of vegetarians that believe that not eating meat is the solution to all problems. Of course they fly to Thailand for their yoga retreat, buy food at supermarkets, buy products that have been transported all over the world, and a very long etcetera. It's easy to ride on the moral high ground of vegetarianism blindly ignoring every other facet of our modern lifestyle. From a seemingly benign Google search, to watching a movie at the theatre.
I don't like to touch this subject but another big and controversial issue is having kids. Every kid we put on this planet will produce a number of tons of CO2. About 7 on average, about 20 for a US kid.
http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/uploads/per_capita_em...
So can we act on multiple fronts?
Can we remove a glass of water from a sinking ship at the same that we pour buckets of water in it?
You tell me.
Also, what is the point of having a moral high ground? It doesn't accomplish anything. Even if some people's motivation for not eating meat is to feel morally superior, it shouldn't be a deciding factor for others to not eat meat.
For me personally it's about values[1]. I remember watching Star Trek as a kid and I think Riker said something along the lines that humanity doesn't enslave animals anymore[3]. We need a vision for the future and not oppressing and exploiting other beings for our own culinary pleasures is a good value to have I think.
We don't have to wait until the 24th century either. The future is already here, it's easier now than ever to choose not to kill animals, there are so many other delicious recipes[2] out there - if one would invest the time to research this.
And in terms of having kids - I think it was Hans Rosling who said that birth rates seem to fall in the developed countries. Also, imagine we would show a toddler how his sausages etc are made - from beginning to end. How do you think small kids would react if they knew what actually happens to peppa pig and friends? Why don't we show our kids the process of producing meat?
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[1] Best quote on this is from Dr Alex Hershaft. Holocaust survivor and FARM founder. He drew many similarities between what the Nazis did and what we do to farm animals. His story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7dZv43A0g0
His quote:
"[...]It's about us. It's about who we are, how we treat the least defensible, the most oppressed, the weakest in our society. What does it say about us?"
[2] http://annajones.co.uk/books
[3] EDIT: found that Riker quote from TNG: https://youtu.be/sS7NRtEJBcA?t=31s
I think pier25's point is we should spend our time advocating for the most important issues. See the forest, dont focus on one tree. It is true that beef has a large impact, but maybe time would be better spent advocating renewable energy subsidies and or carbon taxes? You can only complain so much before people get sick of you right? :P However I think their point was weakened by the anecdotes about vegetarians who do other unsustainable things and calling them delusional.
I think cryodesign's point is that every little bit counts. The forest is made up of trees after all. And it easier to avoid meat than it is to invent renewable power that can provide base load.(well I love meat, but I have been reducing my beef consumption) I think they focused too much on how it feels. You can humanely kill an animal imo. As someone who grew up on a farm, I found the quote about killing them with a pipe unbelievable.
In terms of what happens on animal farms and slaughter houses, you should check out the 'Earthlings' documentary I posted. Most meat that is consumed comes from factory farms. Those places are hell holes.
In terms of humanely killing, I think it's an oxymoron, the same way that 'humane oppression' is an oxymoron. Animals don't want to be killed. Humans don't need meat anymore to survive, so why are we continuing to oppress and exploit these beings? Could you kill and slaughter an animal? If not, why demand that others do it for you?
I see more and more people waking up to this fact and researching this and finding out that everything they believed was misguided, e.g. needing meat to be strong etc. One of the strongest person (Patrick Baboumian) on the planet is vegan, and more athletes are also becoming vegan.
If we create more demand for plant based foods, we will see more options in stores. Here in Europe, even Aldi and Lidl have vegan products now.
If one can't save everything, one must save nothing?
Are we saving 1%, 10%, or 30%?
Because if we are saving 1% we are being delusional.
In truth, if we offer animals a good life and harvest them in a compassionate manner, the ethical arguments against eating meat are weak.
People also underestimate the capacity for plants to feel. Plants in conventional monoculture farms are much more susceptible to pets and disease. Disease susceptibility is a fairly universal response to sustained stress in animals, so it seems reasonable to me that the conditions we are keeping plants in cause them distress as well. Just because plants "think" on long time-scales using gene regulation (plant biochemistry is incredibly complex) rather than short term activation of neurons doesn't mean their experience is any less salient.
See if you can stop thinking for the next sixty seconds. You can notice your breath, or listen to the birds, but do not let your attention be carried away by thought, any thought, even for an instant. Put down this book, and give it a try.
Some of you will be so distracted by thought as to imagine that you succeeded. In fact, beginning meditators often think that they are able to concentrate on a single object, such as the breath, for minutes at a time, only to report after days or weeks of intensive practice that their attention is now carried away by thought every few seconds. This is actually progress. It takes a certain degree of concentration to even notice how distracted you are. Even if your life depended on it, you could not spend a full minute free of thought.
The vast majority of us do not even know what we are thinking. I'm not sure there's much correlation with intelligence, either. If this sounds absurd to you, I can only recommend you try out meditation for a while until you see how disconcertingly true it is.
One day I hope the Economist publishes:
Can we know what we are thinking?
The inner lives of our species may be a lot richer than science once thought
We identify with these thoughts, believing we are their originator, but it's the biggest illusion of all.
This is not very helpful - note that neither of the above definitions tell us anything useful about consciousness; if anything, they are ways to avoid discussing the issues that we don't have answers to.
I think it is more helpful to put aside the definition of consciousness, and begin by regarding 'awareness' as a continuum, though one that displays some significant qualitative differences across its breadth, such as:
Entities that have hard-wired responses to their environment.
Entities that can learn responses.
Entities that have some sort of internal model of their environment.
Entities whose models include themselves.
Entities that are aware of their own models, at least to some degree.
Entities that believe others have the same capability (i.e. having a theory of mind).
Entities that can communicate their models to similarly-capable others.
A continuum is probably simplistic (though still useful), given that recent experiments seem to be showing species capable of a mix of the above responses, depending on circumstances.
The idea of a continuum seems consistent with evolution: To me, it seems unlikely that, for example, language popped into existence, fully-formed, in one species, but there is a gap in the record: there does not seem to be a living species demonstrating the transition to the level of awareness that distinguishes humans from chimpanzees.
I don't think it quite shows this. Collies and human toddlers use words (and are used by words) without understanding what they're doing or what the meaning of language is. The understanding comes later, growing over time as we attempt to explain our behaviour to ourselves. (Including reading what other people have to say about language.)
Objects such as books can contain knowledge without understanding anything because they don't have minds. The design of the fridge embodies knowledge about human needs, for example the need to hand-select food accurately at night. However there is neither understanding nor intuition anywhere inside that cold box about the relationship between the door opening and the light coming on.
Similarly, words, which are a type of meme (the type that can be pronounced) can exploit brains to make copies of themselves, without any understanding of this going on in those same brains.
Btw, none of this implies that animals can't think, or don't have minds, or that we shouldn't honour them. Actually I honour my fridge too...
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Remarkably, if told to fetch a toy with a name she has not heard before placed in a pile of known, named objects, she works out what is being asked for. Betsy, another border collie, will bring back a photograph of something, suggesting she understands that a two-dimensional image can represent a three-dimensional object.
Maybe we should first find out how we think and then build a theory what thinking is in general.
Uplift?
Vocalizations confused me. There isn't enough information in them to encode all of her demonstrated use cases. Maybe I could not hear everything. Wondered about that for a while.
One day, it sort of hit me: Cats, at least, are missing a layer of abstraction. To them, thought is very nearly action. We experience a similar thing when we reach mastery of some manual skill. You just do it, not think about it, then think about doing it, then do it.
Cats do not appear to present a facade like we can and do. They simply present as they are.
Given this, a "meow" isn't so much an encoding of thoughts as much as it is a signal to pay attention right now. Like a context tag of sorts. It does also contain some emotional information, urgency, concern, fear, pain.
When the cat chooses to vocalize, what it is doing is making its current context known, and marking that as important.
A meow near the door may sound almost identical to one by the food bowl, for example. In both cases, say there is urgency: I want out, or I need to eat.
We hear the cue to pay attention, and we see the context, may be a tail movement, or a walk or dance, and process the emotion to get a sense of what the cat wanted to communicate to us.
We have a layer or few, where how we present may be contrived, or managed and or very different from our other thoughts and state.
They don't. Thoughts are actions, their lives are stories.
Since that time, I have found my ability to understand cats has improved. When we get it, they will often make more of an investment. The dialog is surprisingly rich.
Other animals seem to do similar things. Body language is significant. How they position themselves, where they do that, dancing, other things all contribute to what can be fairly complex expressions.
They are similar to us. They think their thoughts, they feel a lot of things, they bond, and they often can make plans, and or understand a lot of the world around them.
Much of their thought appears to be spatial, emotional, boundaries, and other necessary things. And when around us, they pick up more, have reasons to do and think more, given we actually do interact with them.
Yes they think. And it's complicated for some animals, less so for others.
I feel work to better communicate is worth it. When I make investments in animals, they get close, like people do. I can feel the bond, and that little spark that is "them", it's a'll just simpler, smaller, and quite often much faster.
By faster, I mean their rate of perception seems much quicker than mine. And they have profound capabilities, such as hearing my call amidst so much noise it should not be possible. Maybe their simple nature and speed brings a type of attention we do not generally have.
Dogs and smell. To them, a sequence of smells, for example, is like sights for us on a road trip. We go somewhere special, and the dog rolls in some crap.
Why?
To bring the story back to the pack. And when all the smelling and such is done, the others will know if they too ever go there, or that one member did and stuff happened, such as food, or a hunt.
My take on all this. I remain completely unable to understand insects, for example. They are just too different.
But most common animals? Yeah they think, they make choices, they have preferences, seek comfort, bond with others, all that good stuff beings are into and or need.
Someone would have to make a hell of a case to move me off that understanding.
I like the way you put this and I had similar experiences.
If we'd just take some time to get to know those type animals we regard as food, maybe we wouldn't put them in the 'They're just dumb animals' box.
My very close experiences are potent enough to agree.
Heh, cows have besties! I sometimes look at a field and wonder. Their form limits what they can do physically, but socially? It's intriguing.
Whales demonstrate higher order tribal, familial, pair or partner type behavior. Same sort of dynamic.
What is there when one is limited in being able to build and manipulate? Community, emotions, stories, bonds, sharing of experiences. History.
That's a lot!
We consider that animals are of a lesser species so that we can take advantage of them without any "legal or moral" consequences. Like we eat animals on a regular basis. We do deadly trial medicines on them. We raise animals against their will (like birds) and cage them.
To be fair, I don't remember being asked either.
Lately seeing what humans did and still do to planet Earth, and what they do to each other based on completely made up topics like religion or plain material topics like skin color is making me wonder if humans can really think, or we just pretend to.
I stopped eating animals this year, after I finally realized how cruel the entire food industry is, AND how damaging it is to the environment.
If humans pretend to be more intelligent than animals, the minimum thing they can do is looking forward preserving and taking care of fellow animals that were not "gifted" more abilities.
Well, it is not an easy question to answer. First off, everyone would agree that humans, apes, dogs, squirrels, spiders - all "think" in essentially different ways. This is important. Humans, for example, think mostly in terms of the language (words, phrases) - the way they would talk to other people (or post on Facebook, for that matter). Other animals do not do that. From that perspective, computers are closer to humans than animals. Again, this is an important difference that cannot be ignored. It would help if we had different words for these different levels of "thinking", but we don't.
It used to be society thought a deaf person also meant you had low IQ. The signs were everywhere. It winds up that sign language was the key to not having a low IQ. It is almost like you need to learn the language of your brain.
I wouldn't, and a lot of the other comments on this story imply that they wouldn't, either. As an example, when I think, it's not usually in the form of words until I try to map my thoughts and feelings into a more concrete form. I'm particularly conscious of this because I frequently wrack my mind looking for the word that closest matches the thought that I'm trying to convey. The thought itself starts in a wordless form.
I can force my thoughts into an "audible" internal monologue, and I do when I'm reading, writing, or conversing, but it's a relatively forced way of thinking for me.
Many animals exhibit a much greater degree of tribalism than humans. Consider wild canid species like wolves. Tribalism in humans isn't "made up" either, it makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary perspective even if it's possibly not as useful today.
I agree with what you say but have yet managed to stop eating them. They taste good. Hopefully one day I'll manage to grow some more backbone.
Whether they communicate or not, of course they do. At a different level, obviously. Who's fault is it for not being able to understand? Theirs because "we" are smarter? That's arrogant. Heck, we have trouble communicating with each other properly.
And... I can't remember what the other comment below was talking about and I'm going to have lunch.
To end, can't remember exactly how to search for it. It went something along the lines of "2014 Cambridge [something]". Where several scientists and other fellow people smarter than myself signed a treaty stating animals are conscious. If I remember correctly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness#Cambridge...
No pressure, but personally I spent a few hours watching documentaries on Netflix and I completely flipped from "logically plants are more efficient" to "I will avoid animal products as much as possible/practical". You may have a different experience, but it's extraordinary how much effort is put into keeping consumers unaware of where these products come from.
Not eating animals isn't enough. You have to find ethically sourced food. So ironically, eating meat from animals raised on pasture causes less animal cruelty than eating industrial wheat / grain-based food.
[1]: https://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-the...
So in this perspective, does the article you linked to really make sense?
(I am joking. Mostly.)
Only because you have negative feelings toward some people and some actions - you cannot compare this to the whole society. The problem is with the system that allows bad people to be in power. Not with the society in general.
While the world is not in the best shape, it is not a disaster as well. Show me any other invasive species that will on purpose creating areas, where animals, with no use to us, are protected and can live freely.
Your message literally categorizes all people, even the good ones. Apocalyptic thinking like that can do only bad, not good. I would suggest for you to look at the good things that we do as well. Center your position a bit and hear both sides of the story.
As of not eating meat. There are ways to eat meat that is not from the "cruel industry". Supporting small, local farmers can help the local community and allow you to eat healthily and animals that have roamed freely and enjoyed their lives. But this requires doing some research, driving and time, which people do not want to sacrifice.
This is a solution to all the people that have a problem with the evil food industry. There is enough for everyone. What I am saying, there are more than two options. Also, if more people would eat such a products and prices would rise a bit, I bet a lot of people would start using their unused farm land for such a purpose.
Also, I think it would lead to new "Amazon for farmer products" start-up arising.
Sorry, what?
Humans are only capable of conceiving of religion and destroying the planet because they are more intelligent than other animals. I'm not a religious person, but it's a bit offensive to imply humans that believe in religion are less intelligent than canines, don't you think? And animals don't destroy the planet because, for the most part, they're incapable of it - many species frequently do things that destroy their ecosystem, they are simply limited in their ability to do it rapidly. It's not as though lions have a righteous crusade against depleting all the gazelle, or beavers against destroying forests to build dens. If they could amplify their activity by leveraging the intelligence we have they would oversaturate their environments too.
Your definition of intelligence seems to be moralistic, not empirical. Moreover it's inconsistent - I'm inferring that you don't eat animals now because you believe they're intelligent, and it's cruel. What's your opinion on animals consuming other animals if they're so intelligent?
Circling back to your opening claim: dogs do not think "better" than humans for any definition of "think" that primarily involves executive reasoning skills. Our prefrontal cortex development directly contributes to our superlative intellectual ability.
Put another way, would you make the same argument if the creatures in question were people?
1) self-sustaining space travel is more likely to be achieved by AI/robots, DNA or biological beings in general aren't well suited to space travel
2) Humans are the animal that have the highest risk of making the Earth uninhabitable before anything that can be self-sustaining leaves this planet
Humans are biased to view themselves as the most evolved, sophisticated and important species. A glance at the history of science shows this.
Slowly, we become aware of our bias and notice how damn lucky we are to survive to this day.
Ages ago, nature almost killed us off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#Geneti...
And in modern times, we almost wiped out our civilization many times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls
We are lucky to be here. Gotta make the most of it. IMO a good place to start: to value the other surviving animals on this planet. You could travel 10,000 light years but you will find them only on Earth.
(sorry for the Reddit'ism, but:) This. That sentence is subtly and unexpectedly profound.
Imagine having developed interstellar or even intergalactic travel, and after having colonized multiple solar systems, we find that life isn't so rare after all, but the specific lifeforms on Earth were.
What if we find that each life-bearing planet has its own unique creatures, not to be found anywhere else in the infinity of the Universe, and we may never again see the creatures we wiped out here on Earth?
>Lately seeing what humans did and still do to planet Earth,
>If humans pretend to be more intelligent than animals,
My brain knows this is just someone being snarky on the internet. But I keep running into this line of bizarre reasoning and I can't resist talking about it. I'm becoming more and more paranoid that someone actually says this non-ironically.
Obviously Charles Manson is more intelligent than a hamster. That's just a plain fact. Bad/good, warm/cold, bland/savory, smart/dumb - these are different spectra...
People are smarter than animals. This enables thermonuclear annihilation and so on.
Needless to say, they're wrong, proven wrong for the reasons you've described.
If the municipality doesn't clean the area it would be a "real" danger against kids.
Also, if they are real aggressive, I assume a catastrophe has already happened or is in the making (especially with a child?). The authorities have not intervened yet?
"pitbull" isn't a dangerou breed, it is a correlation signal for a psychotic owner that torture dogs to make them violent.
I don't know if you're being flippant or not, but the desire to eat humans has long been bred out of the domestic animal gene pool (and, frankly, out of most of the wild animal gene pool as well). The dogs who are chasing you almost certainly just want to establish their dominance over you and defend their territories. It's also possible that they want to play.
But any dog that is chasing you, or any other human, needs to be put on a leash. You should have a chat with the dog's owner and point out to them, politely but firmly, that an off-leash dog chasing people s serious liability risk for them. And if the dog doesn't have an owner you should call you local animal control.
When I had a cat, I'd fairly frequently wake up with her staring at me, sitting on my chest in the "breath stealing" position. I always imagine her inner dialog being something like, "Morning! Are you dead yet? Can I eat your eyes? OK, not dead yet. Scratch my nose?"
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/pets-dogs-cats-ea...
Thus humans at least cannot be pure DNN ML algorithm.
RNNs have error propagation thru time, but connections' weight changes aren't represented as neuron activations and therefore aren't accessible to the neural network itself. That is RNNs aren't aware that they learn too.
Thus humans cannot be pure RNN ML algorithm.
Naturally, humans implement some learning algorithm. The question is which algorithms are capable of which sides of thinking.
What are you talking about? Awareness of the changes is the point of such techniques as momentum or early stopping.
You can train dialogue NLP system as much as you wish, but you'll never get answers to a question "Have you learned this training set already?" which correlate with whether performance on the test set have plateaued.
I wouldn't call it awareness. We are certainly aware that one part of the system monitors another part, the system itself isn't.
So, again, what are you talking about?
> It's trivial to add the code that monitors this correlation to your model.
Yes, but while it's not there we can't say that the model is aware of the process of its own learning. The question serves as an experimental test of system's awareness of the process of its own learning.
All in all, I tried to make poorly defined terms like "awareness" and "the way humans think" a little bit more technical.
Signaling systems and elaborate warning cries do not account for a language.
Animals only feel. They have emotions, environmental clues and heuristics, everything but a language and hence no thinking by definition. That is exactly what some call non-verbal,'animal' mind. Emotional states and behavioral patterns and learning from experience only. Look at toddlers to grasp what it means.
Animals can form future-oriented plans, engage in risk management activities, can remember inventories of items stored in safekeeping locations, develop "cultural" dialects to their vocalization patterns, and much more. You can find a good start on the current state of the research here
Thinking implies language. Without language it is feeling. Period.
Learning from experience, map making and even planning, as one might see in case of machine learning and other branches of AI, does not require thinking. It is a lower level of activity, relative to abstract reasoning, like pattern recognition.
To ask "what animals are thinking" is exactly the same as to ask "what a self-driving car or a smartphone are thinking".
In the huge space of all possible kinds of cognition, humans have only ever occupied the tiniest sliver. There's modes of thought out there that we can't conceive of.
1. have a particular opinion, belief, or idea about someone or something.
2. direct one's mind toward someone or something; use one's mind actively to form connected ideas
Neither seems to mention language as a pre-requisite. In any case, you seem to have strong beliefs contrary to my understanding of animal research, so I will not bother you further.
Have a good day.
You mean like the patterns the puffer fish creates to attract mates?
Just plain incorrect. I will now present as much evidence for my statement as you presented for yours:
As you can see, it's a pretty ineffective technique and since you're starting from the overwhelming minority position, you're going to have to do a lot better.
Everything I'm saying here comes across as passive-aggressive childish bullshit, but in this case it's also true.
Animals certainly can think. And they have limited language, certainly not as complex as ours, but they are capable of communicating with each other.
Just because humans are much smarter doesn't mean animals don't think.
> Look at toddlers to grasp what it means.
Toddlers certainly think, though not on the same level as older children and adults. And certainly many animals like chimps, pigs and crows can think better than toddlers.
> Animals only feel.
If animals only felt and couldn't think, how can they think to use tools?
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/this-cro...
I'm not a vegetarian, I enjoy steak and pork chops a lot.
But I think animals, especially cows and pigs, are more conscious of their existence than we like to think.
I tend to agree that speech plays a central role in how our thoughts are organized, but I think the importance of being able to articulate oneself /with language/ as a measure of consciousness and intelligence is generally overestimated.
Babies are either unconscious or have a very low degree of consciousness, but infanticide is still morally abhorrent.
Your argument, however, is mixing the aspects of consciousness, and cannibalism in the form of infanticide. To me, that doesn't seem to be fair.
What do you find unfair about the example?
The identification of thought (or rather reason) with language was explicitly advocated by Descartes in part V of the Discourse on the Method, where he suggested a test for distinguishing a perfect automaton from a human being. It's a view more often associated with him, but other early modern thinkers such as Locke, Leibniz and Kant made similar statements.
But in each case they were also more concerned with abstract thought, rather than just the general information processing that all animals do.
Otherwise it loses all meaning - cells are thinking, tissues are thinking, computers are thinking, bacterias, etc.
People seem to forget that "thinking machines" is still a metaphor which cannot be interpreted literally.
Of course, the language within any field matters to the practitioners in that field. Things can be as easy or as hard to understand as the strictness and clarity of the language in that field allows it. But what do I mean is that, if any expression in a field ever fell in to such a degree of obscurity as to be said to have "lost all meaning", whatever it described still might be independently rediscovered later on. So meaning isn't something that needs to be formulated into a categorical imperative, or otherwise we might lose it forever. Striving towards clarity and towards a discriminating usage of words is a practical rule, not a moral one.
Plus, arguing definitions is never a sound choice.
I will try one more time.
The rules of logic require precise definitions (as best as we currently able to produce) and to follow the rule of substituting equal for equal only. The socially constructed memes cannot be substituted for definitions, no matter what hipsters would write in blog posts.
Thinking, as in "I think" or "I am" or how Descartes put it "I think therefore I am", is based on a language. Language is required for thinking and abstract thinking and reasoning. Language comes before the notion of "I". Before any abstractions.
Argumentation is quite straightforward. Human languages has been evolved together with related brain centers and this process took alot of time. There is a fundamental gap between association of sounds or cries with some sensory patterns and ability to say "I am". How long it took? Some primates are capable of learning very rudimentary sign language after years of rigorous training, but they are incapable of developing of (or even grasping) the notion of "I" on their own. Now you might see the gap.
I would argue that language comes prior to abstract reasoning and abstract thinking, and that they have been evolved together in a mutually recursive relationship. Think of the mutual recursion of #'eval and #"apply as the best example of mutual recursion I know.
Thinking, I would say, started with a primitive, rudimentary language and then related brain circuitry has been selected by evolution. Social evolution and biological evolution together.
One could see the very process of emergence of self-awareness and self-consciousness in babies as a gradual process parallel (or rather based on) language acquisition. The fundamental difference is, of course, that all necessary brain centers are already developed and encoded in DNA (but they are still has to be trained).
This line of arguments is for justifying and supporting the postulates of Descartes about fundamental difference between a human and an animal (creationist nonsense aside). To put it another way - there is not a single scientifically proven contradictions with his definitions.
I would spare you from a lecture on basic linguistics - there are much better figures in the field. The only reference I would like to make is to the postulate of Chomsky, that language acquisition is a process, similar to growing of an organ. So, the story about Evolution is applicable to a capacity as it is applicable to any organ or a subsystem.
So, thinking in its classic definition is the capacity based on a language. It is implemented in corresponding brain centers and related circuitry and is impossible as ability without underlying lower level machinery which takes long and unique path to evolve.
As far as we know, no species went to the same evolutionary pathway which humans did to evolve even a rudimentary natural language in linguistic sense (uniform, rule-governed, arbitrary composition).
So, animals cannot think the way humans do.
BTW, in this chain of reasoning I have demonstrated the kind of thinking no animal is capable of and, hopefully, why it is so.
People are objecting to the unsubstantiated, doctrinaire, insistence on this very narrow definition to the exclusion of all others, including the ones used by people who research animal cognition for a living.
I don't see why anyone should exclusively care what Descartes has to say about it when we have an additional 400 years of science after his death that suggests he didn't have the whole picture.
Furthermore, I don't believe anyone should exclusively care about Descartes' thought on the matter, whether in the light of contemporary science or not. I just tallied my thoughts as they came, really. But I do believe that there's a way to reply to comments which maximizes the likelihood of there being at least some degree of mutual understanding and which minimizes the likelihood of conflict, and that is to have a charitable, unassuming reading of the comment in question, and to not take offense. And that people should either have that, or not to discuss at all. Else, they might as well talk to the wind.
The whole exchange of comments we have in mind, for instance, was to little or no benefit to everyone involved, being little else than comments of "uh huh" and "nuh huh" back and forth.
Slatestarcodex has a comment policy (http://slatestarcodex.com/comments/) that I think is very relevant here too because I think that's how people implicitly judge most comments—"If you make a comment here, it had better be either true and necessary, true and kind, or kind and necessary."
OP's statement was not 100% true so it should at least have been necessary / relevant AND kind / humbly put. It wasn't kind.
I am good to people who are good.
I am also good to people who are not good.
Because Virtue is goodness.
People should be thought as being free to speak their mind in whatever way it suits them. Not because they should, but because they will. And when the time comes, it's up to me whether to make an issue of it or not. And in so far as I know, I'd rather not.
Which might sound dilletante-ish, but isn't really out of place for anyone reading a pop-sci article on animal cognition during a Saturday evening, on their spare time.
As for downvoting or upvoting, I've never seen any actual evidence that either does anything useful.
You can find great nuggets in modern work just as you can find great nuggets in older work, too. It's not that disposable!
Ancient Inuits may have said flying requires feathers.
There is a large amount of experimental evidence showing some animals planning for the future, imagining what other creatures will do based on what they have seen, making tools, saving tools for the future to deal with predicted future situations, solving puzzles they've never seen before (did they learn to solve puzzles they've never seen before from experience?), beating humans in gestalt tests, communicating via sign language (how about those animals? They communicate via sign language; do they think?), and various other things that by any sensible definition are the product of mental processes everyone else here considers "thought".
It seems that as far as you are concerned, "thinking" is defined as something to do with language. Everyone else is using a different definition. If you clearly explained your definition of "thinking", perhaps this will turn out to all be a misunderstanding and you're actually saying something completely different.
Simply stating over and over that without language there is no thought does not help your case, as everyone else here considers that to be trivially falsifiable by the animals they see doing things that must be the product of thought.