Are we part of the animal kingdom?

[pioneer]

The ancients divided humans into body, soul and spirit. In ancient tradition, the soul animates the body and the spirit animates the soul. As a modern example of this symbolism, say you are afraid because of man-made global warming. This line of thinking is the spirit of the times. This spirit of the times, can make some people feel afraid. Whereas the spirit is mind, the soul has a connection to emotional valence or feelings. If we add it all together, the spirit of the times can induce the fear within the soul. Once the soul is afraid, this will animate the body. Some people can get afraid enough to make their body sick with anxiety.

 

The animal spirit, soul and body is different. Their spirit is symbolically called Mother nature, and their soul are their instincts , which give them the feeling valence needed act in a way that is completely natural. This animal soul effects their body to give it health and vitality.

 

The Divine spirit is similar to the animal spirit, except it is geared toward what is unique in humans. It is not man-made like in the first paragraph. It is natural in its own way, and animates the soul in the ways of love and peace, which then animates the body, so humans can also have the humans version of what animals have.

 

The problem is the human spirit, Divine spirit and animal spirit all play together in humans. The human spirit tends to dominate and tries to interpret and explain the natural and divine spirits in the context of what it knows and thinks it knows. The composite is the spirit of the times.

[Incendia]

1. There is no spirit...

2. There is no soul...

 

You forget humans are more intelligent than other animals. We have the largest brain relative to our body. Comparing a human intelligence with the intelligence of all animals is foolish. We all know we are more intelligent than jelly fish. [They don't even have brains...]

[AzurePhoenix]

I don't see any way to objectively establish your statement as any more factual than pioneer's. Can you describe a way to show that these animals definitely have the same characteristics of mind as humans including what is widely understood as ability to exercise choice and make contingent plans?

Extensive studies focus on animal intelligence, with strong indications of self-awareness, foresight, introspective capacity, the ability to recognize that another mind has a different perspective on reality, etc. For example, keas examine experimental latches before attempting to unlatch them, rather than just learning the right thing to do through the trial and error of random action (as displayed by cats and dogs, by comparison,) African Red parrots have displayed the capacity to deceive, pretending to get answers wrong when they're bored with a test in order to trick the experimenter into ending the testing (showing recognition of perspective besides their own,) and one coined a new word to identify a new fruit (yes, it was based on two other fruit names it knew, but nothing a human creates is devised ex nihilo either), dolphins display indecision, communication and creative invention, and various animals pass tests that indicate self-awareness. And most obviously, the great apes are clearly capable of expressing any number of these elements via actual human language. The non-human mind is widely studied with vast numbers of peer reviewed papers on the subject. Many of the same tests used to study non-human awareness and intelligence are similar to those used to study the development of the mind of humans, especially young children (which the vast majority of people tend to accept as self-aware people without any examination of the claim.) Are we absolutely certain than a killer whale is self aware? No. But I can only be a small degree more certain that my nineteen year old brother is self-aware.

 

All the elements of the mind mentioned above are well-defined. The concept of Free Will simply is not. There is no comparison between pioneer's nonsensical claim, and my well-defined, widely supported one.

 

Victims of brain damage do act in ways that are more consistent with this description of duality, Alzheimer patients in particular do. Furthermore there is abundant evidence that the mind is able to influence physiological changes to the brain. The placebo effect is also indication that the mind is able to influence the body independently. These are more than whispers. For those who are interested, there is a fair amount of literature in favor of duality but since this topic is not primary to this thread I will leave it at that.

In what way do any of these things indicate that a completely undefined "transcendent influence" is somehow involved, as opposed to more mundane explanations? More consistent how?

 

Your bias is showing, many many people strongly disagree that some new half-baked neurological speculations paint an accurate picture of the mind.

What people? People who have presented experimental data that's passed the rigors of peer review? Has anyone yet even offered up an alternative explanation? Such as a coherent hypothesis even remotely related to the vaguely undefined premise you repeatedly bandy about? I seriously, absolutely would love to see one. No sarcasm, it'd be just about the most interesting thing ever.

 

You have constructed a straw man for my response to a poster other than yourself and now you are simply attempting to knock it down. My example demonstrated that edtharan's claim that the mind can only be a physiological product of the brain because there are no alternatives is incorrect. I offered one to demonstrate that Edtharan was incorrect.

You did not offer one.

 

As I have previously explained, I don't need to show that it is correct to achieve the purpose that the alternative was offered you have admitted that as well.

You are failing to comprehend what I'm saying. You did NOT offer an alternative. You didn't suggest a damn thing. There is no hypothesis of what a soul is supposed to be. If you cannot define the thing how can you offer it as an alternative explanation for anything?

 

I now add that further discussion takes us off the primary point of this thread. If you go looking through literature you will find it is far better supported than your bias will admit.

The point's still there, I'm just coming back to it. And also, no. They just don't hold up to close examination.

 

No, it was introduced to show that Edtharan's truth statement was incorrect.

Regardless of whether or not Ed's statement is true, your response to it shows nothing of the sort. You might as well have suggested that a rat divided by the color orange equals a thought, is an alternative to the big bang theory.

 

The literature is so full of these discussions, particularly in the past 100 years it is shocking that you would deny it. Again though traipsing further into the idea of duality is off topic, the purpose of introducing this idea was as described now thrice.

I've read modern and archaic apologetics, western metaphysics, eastern metaphysics, and no matter where you look, all you ever find are superficial descriptions of what a soul or spirit is alleged to be in a symbolic or comparative sense (most often comparing it to wind/air/breath/fire/light), without any description that has any substance, or suggestion of underlying mechanisms. And this is where it circles around back to the topic, that many myth systems don't make much or any distinction between the spiritedness of humans or other animals. How do you determine which best describes reality? Why strict human exceptionalism at the complete exclusion of other intelligent species, rather than varying degrees of spiritedness the same way intelligence varies? Or full-scale animism at the other end of the spectrum? Even if you assume the existence of something that would, were it defined, mesh with our faint conception of the soul, what is this distinction between humans and other lifeforms based on? Why pick one soul myth over the other?

 

Something else. Since morality is the sense of right and wrong, it is a belief or thought, while moral behavior is an act. It was to make the point that we don't know if animal behavior that is labeled as "moral" is a result of morality. It may well be a result of programming.

Yes... I think it's very clear that the feelings that drive any creature's moral behaviors are the result of programming, just as our own are, whether through inherent biological instinct or upbringing/experience (including the effects of intellectual consideration). I do grant you, we are certainly distinct in the sense that we have the capacity to examine ourselves and other subjects with a level of complexity even the other self-aware, introspection-capable species lack. But those differences are only a matter degree, not novel traits unique to humans, and the same variation clearly occurs even between human individuals.

[Mr Skeptic]

You forget humans are more intelligent than other animals. We have the largest brain relative to our body.

 

Not so fast, the shrew has a brain that is 10% of it's body mass, far more than humans. For total brain size, the sperm whale has a brain about 6 times larger than a human's. However, when we do a fancy formula for expected brain size given type of animal and its size, then we come out on top.

 

As for being more intelligent, we are in the way we define intelligence, but it could be defined in other ways and then we wouldn't be top anymore (eg for 3D navigation I think the birds will beat us). One thing we do have, is that we are born totally helpless and are helpless for an absurd period of time, which means that we don't need to have things programmed into our brain to the extent most animals do, and can learn it on our own rather than as instinct. Animals which do this tend to be more clever, and I'm pretty sure we're the most helpless/for the longest when born.

[Incendia]

...I thought sentience and advanced technology was enough to show we are the more intelligent ones...

[pioneer]

Another thing humans have is an extra level of subjectivity. For example, the "pet rock" was just a rock at the rational level. An animal would instinctively see the pet rock for what it was, just a rock. But humans can give the pet rock the subjectivity of prestige, to give it an irrational enhancement that loses touch with cause and effect. If all agree that the pet rock is indeed a pet, like a dog or cat, we create an alternate reality. Animals don't create this alternate reality. One possible value this creates for humans are things no longer have to be only what they appear to be to the instincts. The stick is no longer just a stick but can now become a lever or weapon.

Edited November 24, 2010 by pioneer

[Incendia]

Are you sure...There are apes and monkeys that look at sticks and also see tools.

Domestic cats play with toys and so do pet dogs.

Higher intelligence does not separate us from animals.

 

Definition of animal [taken from 5 separate dictionaries]:

 

-a living organism characterized by voluntary movement.

Yep humans are those.

-Animals are a major group of mostly multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa.

Yep humans are those.

-Any of the multicellular organisms belonging to the kingdom Animalia. All animals are eukaryotes, with each of their cells having a nucleus containing DNA. Most animals develop from a blastula and have a digestive tract, nervous system, the ability to move voluntarily, and specialized sensory organs for recognizing and responding to stimuli in the environment. Animals are heterotrophs, feeding on plants, other animals, or organic matter. The first animals probably evolved from protists and appeared during the Precambrian Era.

Yep humans are those

- A multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, differing from plants in certain typical characteristics such as capacity for locomotion, nonphotosynthetic metabolism, pronounced response to stimuli, restricted growth, and fixed bodily structure.

Yep humans are those.

-any living organism characterized by voluntary movement, the possession of cells with noncellulose cell walls and specialized sense organs enabling rapid response to stimuli, and the ingestion of complex organic substances such as plants and other animals.

And yes...humans are those too.

[cypress]

Extensive studies focus on animal intelligence, with strong indications of self-awareness, foresight, introspective capacity, the ability to recognize that another mind has a different perspective on reality, etc.

 

Please provide objective measures and the calculations for each of these characteristics and then tell use what score each of the animals used in your examples receives.

 

All the elements of the mind mentioned above are well-defined. The concept of Free Will simply is not. There is no comparison between pioneer's nonsensical claim, and my well-defined, widely supported one.

 

I was looking for objective. Are they measurable, is there any criteria for establishing if a particular animal displays these characteristics? if not how can they have any objective meaning?

 

In what way do any of these things indicate that a completely undefined "transcendent influence" is somehow involved, as opposed to more mundane explanations? More consistent how?

 

These observations are more consistent with duality because they indicate the mind is distinct from body and brain. See next response.

 

What people? People who have presented experimental data that's passed the rigors of peer review? Has anyone yet even offered up an alternative explanation? Such as a coherent hypothesis even remotely related to the vaguely undefined premise you repeatedly bandy about? I seriously, absolutely would love to see one. No sarcasm, it'd be just about the most interesting thing ever.

 

In your synthesis 1) There will be no mental phenomena without brain function. 2) As brain function is altered, the mind will be altered. 3) If the brain is damaged, then mental function will be damaged. 4) brain development will correlate with mental development. 5) brain activity will always correlate with mental activity

 

Whereas dualism predicts: 1) There will be some mental phenomena without brain function 2) As brain function is altered, the mind will not necessarily be altered 3) If the brain is damaged, then mental function will not necessarily be damaged 4) Brain development will not necessarily correlate with mental development 5) We will not always be able to correlate brain activity with mental activity

 

In this article several of the dualist predictions are confirmed while predictions from your synthesis is contradicted.

 

Owen's study indicates that normal consciousness is present in some patients who have met the clinical criteria for persistent vegetative state, which is defined as a state lacking consciousness. The study shows that methods of assessing brain state and function (e.g., MRI, EEG, clinical examination, fMRI) can differ profoundly in their assessment of consciousness. Resulting in very different conclusions. And it demonstrates that an indirect assessment of brain function (fMRI, which measures regional blood flow and brain metabolism), may reveal evidence for consciousness when more direct methods (clinical examination, EEG) fail to detect consciousness.

 

Benjamin Libet, a neurophysiologist at UCSF one of the first in the scientific study of the relationship between the brain and the mind.

 

Neuroscientist Jeffery Schwartz, has shown there is substantial evidence that mental changes can induce measurable changes in brain function. I made reference to this work previously.

 

Why pick one soul myth over the other?

 

No reason to single out a myth out as an explanation. It is sufficient to note the research that indicates dualism is a more parsimonious explanation for observed behavior than materialism.

 

The materialistic description of the mind isn't even logically coherent. The most salient characteristics of the mind

1) free will

2) intentionality

3) quality of consciousness

4) continuity of self in time

5) restricted access

6) incorrigibility

7) unity of consciousness

are not properties of matter. There are good philosophical and logical reasons to reject idea that the mind is only material or that the mind is caused entirely by matter. Materialist theories of the mind haven't even reached logical coherence, or empirical validation.

 

Yes... I think it's very clear that the feelings that drive any creature's moral behaviors are the result of programming, just as our own are, whether through inherent biological instinct or upbringing/experience (including the effects of intellectual consideration). I do grant you, we are certainly distinct in the sense that we have the capacity to examine ourselves and other subjects with a level of complexity even the other self-aware, introspection-capable species lack. But those differences are only a matter degree, not novel traits unique to humans, and the same variation clearly occurs even between human individuals.

 

The relevant question is: Can the brain cause mind? Can the brain cause subjective experience? What in physical scientific description of the brain and brain function invokes subjectivity? The answer is nothing, and thus the materialist theory fails as logic.

[Incendia]

Why is the mind becoming the subject here? I already proved we are animals...

 

Are you sure...There are apes and monkeys that look at sticks and also see tools.Domestic cats play with toys and so do pet dogs.

Higher intelligence does not separate us from animals.

 

Definition of animal [taken from 5 separate dictionaries]:

 

-a living organism characterized by voluntary movement.

Yep humans are those.

-Animals are a major group of mostly multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa.

Yep humans are those.

-Any of the multicellular organisms belonging to the kingdom Animalia. All animals are eukaryotes, with each of their cells having a nucleus containing DNA. Most animals develop from a blastula and have a digestive tract, nervous system, the ability to move voluntarily, and specialized sensory organs for recognizing and responding to stimuli in the environment. Animals are heterotrophs, feeding on plants, other animals, or organic matter. The first animals probably evolved from protists and appeared during the Precambrian Era.

Yep humans are those

- A multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, differing from plants in certain typical characteristics such as capacity for locomotion, nonphotosynthetic metabolism, pronounced response to stimuli, restricted growth, and fixed bodily structure.

Yep humans are those.

-any living organism characterized by voluntary movement, the possession of cells with noncellulose cell walls and specialized sense organs enabling rapid response to stimuli, and the ingestion of complex organic substances such as plants and other animals.

And yes...humans are those too.

[pioneer]

Mammal is an empirical term the human mind has developed to help categorized life on earth based on physical attributes. Based on that definition humans fall within that category. Religion formed its own definition of humans to help categorize humans in relationship to other life forms on earth. This definition is more based on inward attributes of the mind.

 

Biology is an empirical science, which means the best fit for the data. But the best fit of data does not mean all the data touches the line. An empirical theory can still have data that does not touch the curve, but may be within a margin of error. This fuzzy data is where humans are.

 

Another way to look at the entire debate is if we had a graph populated with color instead of data dots. Half the data is black and the other half white. The average or best fit curve would be gray, even though there are no gray data points. Rational theory would not make this averaging mistake, but would say since the data collection has no gray, this can't be right. Rather there are two curves and not one.

Edited November 25, 2010 by pioneer

[Edtharan]

I was looking for objective. Are they measurable, is there any criteria for establishing if a particular animal displays these characteristics? if not how can they have any objective meaning?

Have you got any objective means of showing that any other human has those characteristics too? You have already said that you can't objectivly determin them, so why are you asking this if you agree you can't even do it for humans?

 

These observations are more consistent with duality because they indicate the mind is distinct from body and brain. See next response.

 

In your synthesis 1) There will be no mental phenomena without brain function. 2) As brain function is altered, the mind will be altered. 3) If the brain is damaged, then mental function will be damaged. 4) brain development will correlate with mental development. 5) brain activity will always correlate with mental activity

 

Whereas dualism predicts: 1) There will be some mental phenomena without brain function 2) As brain function is altered, the mind will not necessarily be altered 3) If the brain is damaged, then mental function will not necessarily be damaged 4) Brain development will not necessarily correlate with mental development 5) We will not always be able to correlate brain activity with mental activity

In this article several of the dualist predictions are confirmed while predictions from your synthesis is contradicted.

So, because I damage the montior sockets on my computer and can no longer see the output of the computer, then this proves that my computer has an imaterial mind.

 

This is the same thing. Somtimes the brain damage is in the morot cortex of the brain. This will prevent the person being able to respond, and be classed in a vegitive state. However, their inputs and other parts of their brain might not be damaged, so they would be able to understand what people around them are saying and their brain can still function well enough to try and perform these actions (but because the circult that allows the body to move is damaged, these instruction can't get out).

 

In the computer analogy, the monitor (the muscles of the body) does not display anything, but the rest of the computer works fine (actually this has happened to my computer and the video card was faulty, but everything else about the computer worked fine - I could even operate it without being able to see what should have been on the monitor).

 

So your argument is false unless you can show that it was brain damage that should have prevented the person from being able to recive input or understand that inpot.

 

Owen's study indicates that normal consciousness is present in some patients who have met the clinical criteria for persistent vegetative state, which is defined as a state lacking consciousness. The study shows that methods of assessing brain state and function (e.g., MRI, EEG, clinical examination, fMRI) can differ profoundly in their assessment of consciousness. Resulting in very different conclusions. And it demonstrates that an indirect assessment of brain function (fMRI, which measures regional blood flow and brain metabolism), may reveal evidence for consciousness when more direct methods (clinical examination, EEG) fail to detect consciousness.

Persistant vegetative state does not mean that the person is incapable of conciousness, only that they can not act.

 

Benjamin Libet, a neurophysiologist at UCSF one of the first in the scientific study of the relationship between the brain and the mind.

Yes, it is well known that the brain is 'plastic" (btw Plastic means maliable and changeable). The mechanisms on how the brain does this is well known. The brain is made up of neurons, which are living cells. That is they grow, reproduce and can even move around. This has been observed both in labs under microscopes, and directly in brains (by staining cells and and seeing how they have changed after a period of time has passed).

 

This means that a brain is not static, but is changeable (plastic). As the brain is a network of neurons, changing the network changes the brain. The mechanism that the brain uses to do this is chemical signaling. Neurons will grow towards chemical signals put out by other neurons, and as neurons fire according to signals in the brain, then it is not suprising in the least that the brain can cause changes in the brain. This does not confirm that there is a "mind", but it does confirm that the brain functions as it is described in science without reference to an external influence (as the signal that releases the chemical orriginates in the brain, and the neuron grows towards that chemical signal).

 

Neuroscientist Jeffery Schwartz, has shown there is substantial evidence that mental changes can induce measurable changes in brain function. I made reference to this work previously.

As there is a causal link *that has been confirmed in both labs and live subjects) as to how the brain is plastic, without the need to reference an external actor (ie: mind), then this argument does not distinguish between them. It does not provide evidence to support your claim at all.

 

No reason to single out a myth out as an explanation. It is sufficient to note the research that indicates dualism is a more parsimonious explanation for observed behavior than materialism.

You have not provided any evidence that distinguishes between the two arguments. All the evidence you have provided either confirmes materialism or, at best says that either could be true.

 

The materialistic description of the mind isn't even logically coherent. The most salient characteristics of the mind

1) free will

2) intentionality

3) quality of consciousness

4) continuity of self in time

5) restricted access

6) incorrigibility

7) unity of consciousness

are not properties of matter. There are good philosophical and logical reasons to reject idea that the mind is only material or that the mind is caused entirely by matter. Materialist theories of the mind haven't even reached logical coherence, or empirical validation.

No they are not properties of matter, but they are properties of systems (or don't have any objective evidence that they actually exist - remember you have already dismissed behaviour as an objective measure of internal states).

 

The relevant question is: Can the brain cause mind? Can the brain cause subjective experience? What in physical scientific description of the brain and brain function invokes subjectivity? The answer is nothing, and thus the materialist theory fails as logic.

Using fMRI they have shown that "concious" experience occurs after the brain has taken action (see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19046374).

 

So if concious experience is directing our actions, then it must have some wierd backwards in time effect. This actually disproves that conciousness is what drives our actions, at most conciousness is a passenger.

 

So, from these studies, they have mapped the activation of the brain and how conciousness effects it. What they have found is that conciousness reacts after the fact to correct the unconcious reaction.

 

Now, this can actually answer your question. As the brain has a feedback circuit designed to critisise actions and change them if needed, this creates self awareness, as this is what is needed for such a circuit to work. This circuit needs to know about the self, the goals, the actions taken and the consiquences of those action to make an assesment. However, humans have a capacity of abstract actions, that is actions that are not actually performed, but take place inside the operation of the brain. As these too are subject to this feedback circuit, we have the ability to be aware of such abstract activity: We are concious of our own thoughts.

 

This is a materialist explaination, and based on scientific (and objective) evidence. As this answers your question and only uses materialism, your conclusions that materialism can't explain subjective experience is false (and just saying it doesn't won't actually prove you right - you have to show where the evidence I have provided is wrong or how my conclusions are wrong).

[cypress]

Have you got any objective means of showing that any other human has those characteristics too? You have already said that you can't objectivly determin them, so why are you asking this if you agree you can't even do it for humans?

 

Surveys and interviews provide an objective means of discovering the range of human characteristics for a population, and the results of these largely contradict the view promoted by AzurePhoenix. The ability for humans to communicate a broad range of ideas and concepts allows for an objective means to understand human character, but this barrier makes it impossible to use the same technique for animals. This is why AzurePhoenix is unable to provide objective measures for animals.

 

 

So, because I damage the montior sockets on my computer and can no longer see the output of the computer, then this proves that my computer has an imaterial mind.

 

So you didn't read the article. I think you are missing the purpose of the response also. AzurePoenix insisted there are no objective scientific studies regarding the idea of dualism and demonstrating that dualism has any support at all. These two links show that the statement is incorrect. This thread is not about dualism so I will attempt to steer clear of the topic as best I can.

 

 

This is a materialist explaination, and based on scientific (and objective) evidence. As this answers your question and only uses materialism, your conclusions that materialism can't explain subjective experience is false (and just saying it doesn't won't actually prove you right - you have to show where the evidence I have provided is wrong or how my conclusions are wrong).

 

As I indicated in the previous post, materialism is not a even logically coherent. Hand waving about some sort of feedback mechanism that magically leads to subjective experience is not a scientific description of any specific processes in the brain that would derive or invoke subjective experience. Your description is not scientific. If these processes were actualized as you claim, then we could reproduce them with a machine, but we can't. You set out to prove materialism but you failed. It is an opinion you hold and very little more. It is not my purpose to prove that dualism is correct, as that is a different topic. Those who claim that materialism has all the bases covered and materialists have demonstrated that the human mind and processes of the mind are no different than the brain of animals are overreaching.

 

We know that humans are sentient, we don't know if animals poses sapience but the empirical evidence and direct observation strongly indicates otherwise. The fact that we can clearly detect a difference, as pioneer has illustrated multiple times now seems to say it all.

[Incendia]

I do not see how religion is relevant...

The dictionary gives us the meaning of words. Just because religion has its own personal definitions of what animal means does not change its actual meaning.

 

Therefore you argument is both redundant and irrelevant.

 

Nice try but humans are animals...

Yes cypress...dualism is also irrelevant...

Edited November 25, 2010 by ProcuratorIncendia

[needimprovement]

A person is one who thinks and loves. Both these activities are far beyond the range of animals.

Another thing that differentiates us from the animals is Super Ego.

[Edtharan]

Surveys and interviews provide an objective means of discovering the range of human characteristics for a population, and the results of these largely contradict the view promoted by AzurePhoenix. The ability for humans to communicate a broad range of ideas and concepts allows for an objective means to understand human character, but this barrier makes it impossible to use the same technique for animals. This is why AzurePhoenix is unable to provide objective measures for animals.

"Surveys and interviews" are not objective measurement. Sory, your arument fails in the first 3 words.

 

We also ahve eviedence that some animals can use language, even complex abstract language. Ther are many cases of chimpanzees, bonobos, and even african gray parrots able to use language in complex and abstract ways that indicate internal awareness. SO your argument that we don't have any evidence for this is again, false.

 

Just because you are not aware of them (or bother to follow links) does not mean that these don't exist, it just means you either don't know about them or don't want to know about them.

 

So you didn't read the article. I think you are missing the purpose of the response also. AzurePoenix insisted there are no objective scientific studies regarding the idea of dualism and demonstrating that dualism has any support at all. These two links show that the statement is incorrect. This thread is not about dualism so I will attempt to steer clear of the topic as best I can.

I did read the article, and like so many of your posts it actually disproves what you claim.

 

So from that I can guess that you didn't read the article.

 

As I indicated in the previous post, materialism is not a even logically coherent. Hand waving about some sort of feedback mechanism that magically leads to subjective experience is not a scientific description of any specific processes in the brain that would derive or invoke subjective experience. Your description is not scientific. If these processes were actualized as you claim, then we could reproduce them with a machine, but we can't. You set out to prove materialism but you failed. It is an opinion you hold and very little more. It is not my purpose to prove that dualism is correct, as that is a different topic. Those who claim that materialism has all the bases covered and materialists have demonstrated that the human mind and processes of the mind are no different than the brain of animals are overreaching.

You are right, if such feedback systems exist, then we should be able to reproduce them in machines. But this has been done.

 

Here is an article where theya re simulating parts og the human brain on computers: http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/out_of_the_blue/

 

Part of the problem in getting consiousness is one of scale. The human brain is around 10 to 15 years away from being able to be simulated on a computer. So an absolute difnitif proof is still a way off (so making claim that it can't be done is way too early). However, in certain limited cases, it has been shown that the type of feedback loop I describe does indees give the system some measure of self awareness (although very limited).

 

Some of the features that self awareness gives us, such as the ability to be aware that the self is different from the environment, have been done. Actually this is essential for robots. Without this feedback loop, and if the feedback loop did not provide the functions I claimed, then almost all modern robotics, from car manufactur to the Asimo and beyond would not work.

 

Also, as I said, this feedback loop has been directly measured functioning in the human brain, even down to the time it takes to operate (aproximately between 0.2 to 1.5 seconds).

 

You can even experience a malfunction in this feedback loop yourself (it has been monitored occuring in an fMRI machine by accident, but it does confirm it). If you have ever felt Deja Vu, this is a malfunction in the feedback loop.

 

In Deja Vu, there are two circuits, one a quick circuit with low information content used for emergancy reactions, and a slower, more information rich circuit for analysis.

 

IF the quick circuit is not needed, the slower circuit over writes the low information circuit and you never become aware of it (ie you are not concious of it). If an emergency situation occur, then the slower circuit is cut off, and you become aware of the faster circuit. As conciousness occurs after the fact, this is what would be expected.

 

however, sometimes there is a glitch and the quick circuit reaches the concious feedback loop before it is overwritten. In these situations you recieve two concious experiences of the same event, but after the event. As the quick circuit will seem to occur first (arround 0.2 seconds), and it is of low information content, you won't have a clear recolection of it, it will be hard to pin down any details of it, including when it exactly occured.

 

The slower circuit is more information rich and thus provides more content for you to be aware of (and this will be around 1.5 seconds after the event). As you sudden;y become aware of an event that you were just aware of, you get Deja Vu.

 

We know that humans are sentient, we don't know if animals poses sapience but the empirical evidence and direct observation strongly indicates otherwise. The fact that we can clearly detect a difference, as pioneer has illustrated multiple times now seems to say it all.

No we don't by your own claim. You are making two conradictory claims here. Can we or can't we know if other humans are sentient?

 

Also, pinoer was shown to be wrong and has not actually provided evidecne of the claims. So basing your claims off what pioneer has posted is not a good idea.

[needimprovement]

Cypress, don't argue with animals. :lol:

[Incendia]

Did anyone read my post?

 

Intelligence is Irrelevant.

The dictionary's definition of animal is the only definition of animal. Religion's views are irrelevant. Personal views are irrelevant. Intelligence is irrelevant. The dictionary has the only right answer.

[insane_alien]

Incendia, dictionary definitions are rarely rigorous and there are often multiple meanings of a single word (including animal).

 

Scientific definitions are what we go by. and the scientific definition includes us humans.

[Incendia]

...*facepalm*...The scientific definition is in the dictionary...[i have 3 dictionaries here, and there are several free ones online. Most have the scientific one in the...At least all the ones I went on had it.]

[Marat]

Considering the matter in a purely biological sense, of course humans are a type of animal. But considering the matter in terms of law, ethics, culture, and philosophy, an enormous difference exists between humans who have rights against other humans and animals who have no rights. By playing simultaneously on these two different senses of the statement, "are humans animals," all the paradoxes of the question emerge.

 

Generally, we simply stipulate for reasons of culture, religion, and law that humans are beings with free will, while animals are beings which are completely causally conditioned by external forces and internal drives, hormones, chemicals, and instincts. We can determine our actions by our free choice to do what we believe is right on rational and moral grounds, while animals can only do what the forces within and around them make them want to do. Now from the point of view of natural science, everything is determined by laws of causality, so there really is no free will, but still, the assumption that some species do have free will while others do not is central to our belief system which puts humans in a special place.

 

The temptation is great to assume that there must be some scientific reason which justifies the sharp distinction we make between humans and animals, but of course there is not, since in terms of intelligence, capacity to feel emotion and pain, ability to act in support of communal interests, ability to sacrifice our own interests to save others, we are on a continuum with animals. But still, I will suffer life imprisonment if I kill an anencephalic infant with no intelligence whatsoever, but I will only get a light sentence for destruction of property and animal cruelty if I murder the world's most intelligent ape.

[pioneer]

Humans are animals, even though some animals are cold blooded. To help create a further distinction, humans are included with the mammals to help distinguish us from the cold blooded animals. Humans are also bi-peds. This helps to distinguish humans from quadra-ped mammals. Humans also have free will, which is another subgroup. Religion created another sub-category to distinguish humans from the bi-ped, mammal, animals that lack this feature. To stop the sub-division at animal-mammal-bi-ped is completely arbitrary and lacks insights into other possible distinctions by which we can sub-divide and catalog life.

Edited November 28, 2010 by pioneer

[Marat]

For a number of years humans were distinguished by the physical attribute of being the only featherless bipeds, but then some counter-examples were found. Ultimately, the distinction between human and animal is physically arbitrary but not arbitrary within our system of cultural values.

 

Thus if you want to use intelligence as a way to distinguish what should have human rights from what should not, then an anencephalic infant, which has no intellect beyond that of a reptile, should be able to be murdered with no legal consequences, while killing an ape would attract serious penalties. But we don't do things that way, since we assume that humanness per se without any further features attracts special legal and moral status.

[Mr Skeptic]

For a number of years humans were distinguished by the physical attribute of being the only featherless bipeds, but then some counter-examples were found. Ultimately, the distinction between human and animal is physically arbitrary but not arbitrary within our system of cultural values.

 

Thus if you want to use intelligence as a way to distinguish what should have human rights from what should not, then an anencephalic infant, which has no intellect beyond that of a reptile, should be able to be murdered with no legal consequences, while killing an ape would attract serious penalties. But we don't do things that way, since we assume that humanness per se without any further features attracts special legal and moral status.

 

It would be very impractical to do it any other way. The laws we have are largely to protect ourselves, and someone being able to kill one of "us" and get away with that is dangerous. This is why we must be a bit overly aggressive in ensuring that all of "us" is covered and there is no threat to "us". Even if legally allowed, killing a braindead person will still be repulsive to us, because of their similarity, and that is likewise why killing apes is more repulsive than killing bugs.