nomash 🍪 on Warpcast

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

Strong opinion, loosely held: A century from now, our descendants will not look kindly upon how we treat other* animals today. I wager that within this century, a radical shift will occur in mankind's perception of animal consciousness, and with it, animal rights as well. We will eventually come to accept as obvious that Homo sapiens does not hold an exceptional place in the animal kingdom; that our qualia is not substantively different from that of other living fauna; and that an elaborate language, while a great multiplier for intelligence, is not a prerequisite for it. It will appear evident to our great grandchildren that other animals feel perceive, and think; and that if those qualia are difficult for us to imagine, it's only because of our own sensorial and brain limitations. The seismic change starts here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo * I eventually added "others" but my first human bias was to skip the word, as if we were not ourselves members of the vast animal kingdom

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abrikos 🎩 pfp

There are definitely degrees of "consciousness" within the animal kingdom. Bacteria are def not "conscious" in the common sense. Worms are less "conscious" than rabbits who are less "conscious" than elephants, etc. I put the word in quotation marks because no animal is as conscious as a human. What we understand and feel to be conscious can never be felt as us humans. We are truly unique and this has nothing to do with religious beliefs So even when humanity accepts the "consciousness" of animals it will not stop us from killing and eating them because it's a different "consciousness."

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nomash 🍪 pfp

Exactly. Consciousness is such a broad idea. I think everyone agrees that all animals are aware of and react to their surroundings to a certain extent, and you could say that is consciousness, but that’s not really what people mean in the context of these discussions. Then you have the awareness of the self, that you are a thing. Like you said, probably not all animals possess this. Next we have awareness of other minds, you can see this progression in human children very clearly as they reach a new level of consciousness once they understand that other minds exist the same as theirs. I think the big one is the concept of the future and the past, to comprehend, think about, and make decisions based on things that are not happening immediately. In my opinion this is what language enables, it gives us a theoretical world where we can describe, visualise, and order scenarios that have not occurred yet. I don’t think animals can do this (maybe to some extent when they dream?)

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abrikos 🎩 pfp

100% with you on this one @nomash . I can see how consciousness develops in my kids as they grow up. Animals just don't become as conscious as humans. It's neither good nor bad. It's just the way it is.

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nomash 🍪 pfp

Yep, and when you have humanities degree of consciousness it is a heavy burden! It’s kinda ironic that it might be a failure of our language that consciousness is viewed as an on/off switch I would also argue that we go long periods with a lesser conscious, our day to day activity has us at different levels all the time, a lot of the time we are probably only conscious in a similar way an animal would be. I’m sure animals also vary, so really we are talking about a peak consciousness, rather than ‘are they conscious’ What this means in terms of animal rights I don’t really know, but I agree, animals don’t become as conscious as humans

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