: Whether or not you believe that, it doesn't matter so
: much. But I think consciousness or self-awareness
: should be considered separately from sentience, at
: veyr least because these terms all mean different
: things.
: I would argue that we only *know* of one species' ability
: to be aware of itself (and in certain areas of the
: United States, I'm not even sure that's absolutely
: true): Man.
: We might observe "complex" behaviors in other
: species, but that doesn't make them self-aware,
: conscious, intelligent, or sentient. It just means
: they exhibit complex behaviors. Heck, I think certain
: bacteria exhibit complex behaviors, it just happens at
: a physiological level, rather than at a gross
: mechanical one.
There's a few levels of complexity between what a bacterium does and what an apes does, however. And--as every first-year philosophy major learns--it's pretty much useless to discuss "consciousness" or "self-awareness." The only person you *know* to be conscious is you. Everyone else just acts like it. And the same behaviors you use to infer self-awareness in humans are expressed, to a greater or lesser extent, in other creatures. Humans can look in a mirror, see a green dot of paint on the reflection's forehead, and infer that there's one on their own forehead--but so can chimps and gorillas. Humans know the difference between "That man over there is sad," and "I am sad," and can express both--but so can chimps and gorillas, once taught the verbal tools to do so. Why draw an arbitrary line and say "Other humans are enough like me that they probably have self-awareness like I do, but apes aren't?"
: So perhaps it's best if we keep the definition of
: "complex" restrictive, so it retains some
: semblance of meaning. It might be argued that since
: certain skills must be communicated vertically, from
: parents to children, in chimp troops and dolphin pods,
: there is some kind of primitive culture. But come on
: SD, a complex one? You freaking hippie. :)
Notice that I said the *capacity* to possess a complex culture--the same way that we were capable of making fire, rockets and computers a million years ago, but hadn't done any of it. We know that chimps use various tools, that these tools are "standardized" within a given troop but vary in nature and construction from region to region, that some chimp cultures use synchronized drumming as a means of social interaction while others do not, that chimps can learn to communicate via sign language or keyboards if given the opportunity. We didn't do much better for the first million-and-a-half years of our species' existence.
: Unfortunately, short of Flipper or Bonzo raising their
: heads to their trainers and saying (in clicks or sign
: language, as it were) "Hi. I'm self-aware,
: where's my goddamn breakfast?," SD's assertion
: that these species are "intelligent" remains
: specious.
Would you settle for the "Where's my goddamn breakfast" part? A number of apes, at least, have demonstrated considerable skill at mastery of human-created languages. Koko the gorilla, for instance, has a vocabulary of over 1000 words in American Sign Language--and as it happens, she both curses and asks for food quite frequently and explicitly (as in "I've been good; can I have some raisins from the kitchen cabinet?"). I don't know if Dr. Patterson ever asked her whether she was self-aware, though. :-)
--SiliconDream
