A Thought

  On 10/15/2010 at 8:32 AM, Calx Sherbet said:

humans may come up with the most advanced tools, but we sure screw up more than any other animal. if it was nothing but other animals, global warming probably wouldn't have happenedif certain jellyfish haven't changed in billions of years, does that mean they are near perfect creatures?

No? It just means theyve dominated a niche in their environment. They still succumb to disease, overpopulation, parasitism. I just don't think that the word "perfect" should apply to an entire species.

  On 10/15/2010 at 7:57 PM, Rhombix said:

I will totally concede that the more intelligent forms of life will have a some capacity to choose restraint. Where i draw the line is that, without self consciousness, you cannot make "real" decisions. Without the 'I' you cannot consider what might be best for 'I'; compare it to another option, and then decide to make take the action that may best benefit you or others, not just now, but also in the future.

The point i was making is that animals cannot make the decision to conserve resources or life. Locusts would eat the world bare if they could, and they wouldnt/couldnt think twice about it.

I will suppose that by "consciousness" you mean "being able to recognize your image in a mirror".

I don't think dogs pass the mirror test. yet, they're fully able to decide what is good to eat and what is not (same goes for cats, if you ever succeed in feeding vegetables to a cat, phone me, i'm interested).

Also squirrels conserve resources. They bury glands() acorns and eat them during winter.

Animals are biologically superior creatures than humans, not only because immune system, but as mentioned organization in specific tasks, improved senses, better reproduction.

One human can be intellectually superior than animal, he can make tools, share and store information. Paradoxically group of humans tend to be self destructive. Just look in history books, tendencies

Conclusion, humans are potentially superior over animals, but today we cant see that to be true.

  On 10/18/2010 at 5:39 PM, nightex said:

 

Conclusion, humans are potentially superior over animals, but today we cant see that to be true.

yes we can

that's a wrap folks

  On 10/18/2010 at 5:14 PM, Babar said:

  On 10/15/2010 at 4:53 AM, 24ourange said:

Even though i wasnt speaking biologically, i'd say our adaptations for survival surpass the majority of the animal kingdom. I'm not trying to hold individual animals up to each other and trying to decide "who wins here, and who wins there" because most all animals have truly impressive ways of surviving their environments. But we've adapted to do more than just survive, we have choice and can manipulate our fates, which is something no other species can lay claim to.

 

A. "Surviving their environments" can mean two different things : Surviving to usual condition and surviving to extreme conditions. What if the average temperature on earth suddenly becomes 80°C ? I guess only bacteria can survive such a scenario.

B. Some animals have stopped evolving : crocodiles, sharks. For example sharks have amazing mechanisms to prevent cancers.

C. "we have choice and can manipulate our fates". waht do you mean ? Do not ants that sacrifice to help their mates cross the river or birds that migrate to avoid a cold winter manipulate their own fate ? And what about the animals that flew away from the tsunami while humans were still enjoying a sunbath ?

 

On a more general not, i'd say that your opinion is tinted by the Christian idea that man is at the center of the universe. Concerning the fact that animals have no control over their fate, or that they are not conscious, I think the dudes that wrote/interpreted the bible chose at one point not to allow animals to go to heaven (otherwise that would have been a fucking mess, imagine if the priest had to do 30 ceremonies a day). Thus they decided animals don't have souls.

Sure animals would appear to make some sort of decisions. but its from instinct, not choice. Animals are in autopilot mode, a bird cant leave its migrating pattern and go somewhere else because it saw a nice warm place in the north.

I'm not vouching for the superiority of humans, or that they are the beat-all product of this planet. Just that they aren't shit. They arent some mindless colony of jowel-wagging bigoted consumption... well they are, but theyre more than that too. I'm really just sick of the humanity hate because some idiots cant get over their own insecurities about the general population.

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humans may come up with the most advanced tools, but we sure screw up more than any other animal. if it was nothing but other animals, global warming probably wouldn't have happened

would the earth be free of climate change? no. Of course we screw up, to err is human. Only something capable of deciding can make the wrong decision.

  On 10/18/2010 at 5:39 PM, Babar said:

I will suppose that by "consciousness" you mean "being able to recognize your image in a mirror".

I don't think dogs pass the mirror test. yet, they're fully able to decide what is good to eat and what is not (same goes for cats, if you ever succeed in feeding vegetables to a cat, phone me, i'm interested).

Also squirrels conserve resources. They bury glands() acorns and eat them during winter.

No i dont mean that at all. By consciousness i mean being aware that you are a living being. Dogs don't know what is good to eat and what is not. Dogs will gladly eat antifreeze if it is given to them. Dogs will turn down food that is perfectly edible, and eat that which will give them the poops, they owe just as much to the saving grace of their strong digestive and immune system that allows them to survive as scavengers. Squirrels appear to choose when to store food and where to store it, but they are just acting on biological impulses that says "horde food NOW" and they do it because if they didnt there wouldnt be larder-hoarding mammals (duh, but you get the point).

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Animals are biologically superior creatures than humans, not only because immune system, but as mentioned organization in specific tasks, improved senses, better reproduction.

Isn't intelligence a bilogical factor? If intelligence can give us superior interpretation of external data (microscopes, telescopes, cameras, machines), what use is biological "superiority". Our intellectual superiority gets us just as far as those with biological superiority, and indeed even farther.

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