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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    You mean other than the fact that you think rape, intra-group murder, and wanton killing are standard, normative behavior amongst the animals most analogous to humans?
    When the heck did "most analogous to humans" enter my point? I'm not referring to any one species, any TEN or HUNDRED species, any specific act or group of them. I mean that nature AS A WHOLE is viciously, cruelly True Neutral. It would just as soon annihilate countless organisms through a forest fire from a lightning strike, a tornado, an earthquake as provide wonderous beauty. It would just as soon force vicious, murderous competition as foster cooperation. Nature is literally incapable of giving a crap.

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    Let's try to avoid reference to specific religious stories...

    You know that "morality" isn't uniquely human, right? Some apes have a concept of ownership, and will punish one of their number who steals from another. Some ducks mate for life, and again will punish one who abandons a mate. And any dog owner can tell you about the look of guilt and shame.

    I think - and this is my suggestion for an answer to your original question - that all the things that are special about humanity can be traced from what we've done with language. As a species, our language skills are head and shoulders above any other animal, and that's what has enabled every notable thing we've done, from graffiti to city building.

    But that is very much a difference of degree, not of kind. Not all humans are capable of understanding complex metaphors, for instance. I think it's entirely possible that there exist many animals whose language skills are every bit as sophisticated as those of some (adult) humans. And if you follow the logic through, that would imply that those specific people are no "better" than those specific non-humans.

    Which is why I'm against drawing a sharp line between humans and non-humans. We should, to the very best of our ability, treat all animals "humanely", and yes I'm aware of the irony in that particular word. With humans it's easier, because we have a better understanding of what they want, so we have even less excuse for abusing them.
    Ffs I was trying to say I've come to terms with things with that post! That just because we got this complex first it doesn't mean that other creatures doing the same is impossible, and that I've found a way to be okay with that. Why are you still arguing against me? O_O
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lheticus View Post
    When the heck did "most analogous to humans" enter my point? I'm not referring to any one species, any TEN or HUNDRED species, any specific act or group of them. I mean that nature AS A WHOLE is viciously, cruelly True Neutral. It would just as soon annihilate countless organisms through a forest fire from a lightning strike, a tornado, an earthquake as provide wonderous beauty.
    Whereas we are capable of giving a crap, and bulldoze them anyway, 'cause we want another shopping mall. So yay us, I guess.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
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    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    Whereas we are capable of giving a crap, and bulldoze them anyway, 'cause we want another shopping mall. So yay us, I guess.
    Why do you want to crap on our potential? What cynicism.

  4. - Top - End - #124
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff the Green View Post
    Which appears to have nothing to do with either emotion. Dogs have just learned through operant conditioning that making that face means we yell at them less.
    How can we really tell the difference though?
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  5. - Top - End - #125
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnome Alone View Post
    How can we really tell the difference though?
    A rather clever study, actually. They had some owners of dogs order their dog not to eat a treat and then leave the room. Then the scientists either had the dog eat it and leave evidence, had the dog eat it and cleaned up the evidence and replaced the treat, had the dog not eat it but make it look like it had, or had the dog not eat it and do nothing else. It didn't matter whether the dog actually did anything wrong; they only ever looked guilty if their owner scolded them.

    Guilt and shame don't work like that. They're based on a comparison between self and a standard, not some external stimulus. Dog guilty looks are the equivalent of notpologies that an amoral politician gives when he wants to get out of a scandal but doesn't actually understand what he did that was wrong.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lateral View Post
    Well, of course I'm paranoid about everything. Hell, with Jeff as DM, I'd be paranoid even if we were playing a game set in The Magic Kiddie Funland of Perfectly Flat Planes and Sugar Plums.
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff the Green View Post
    A rather clever study, actually. They had some owners of dogs order their dog not to eat a treat and then leave the room. Then the scientists either had the dog eat it and leave evidence, had the dog eat it and cleaned up the evidence and replaced the treat, had the dog not eat it but make it look like it had, or had the dog not eat it and do nothing else. It didn't matter whether the dog actually did anything wrong; they only ever looked guilty if their owner scolded them.

    Guilt and shame don't work like that. They're based on a comparison between self and a standard, not some external stimulus. Dog guilty looks are the equivalent of notpologies that an amoral politician gives when he wants to get out of a scandal but doesn't actually understand what he did that was wrong.
    I mean...I pretty much only feel guilty when I get caught, but when I get caught it is "real" guilt.
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    I mean...I pretty much only feel guilty when I get caught, but when I get caught it is "real" guilt.
    Yeah, that's not real guilt; it's something like moral embarrassment. Guilt is The Telltale Heart, a spectre haunting you though nobody knows what you did. It's not a reaction to a conviction; it's what drives you to confess. It's often relieved by being caught.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lateral View Post
    Well, of course I'm paranoid about everything. Hell, with Jeff as DM, I'd be paranoid even if we were playing a game set in The Magic Kiddie Funland of Perfectly Flat Planes and Sugar Plums.
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    I don't know whether dog-shame is really analogous to human-shame, but, well, I feel like all that you could pretty much say the same things about little kids.

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Serpentine View Post
    I don't know whether dog-shame is really analogous to human-shame, but, well, I feel like all that you could pretty much say the same things about little kids.
    I'm not at all convinced that you're entirely human until like 12 or so. Kids' reasoning, particularly moral reasoning, is truly alien.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lateral View Post
    Well, of course I'm paranoid about everything. Hell, with Jeff as DM, I'd be paranoid even if we were playing a game set in The Magic Kiddie Funland of Perfectly Flat Planes and Sugar Plums.
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Re: the dog study, that is fascinating. I wonder how many breeds of dog they studied though. Because I wouldn't be surprised if the smarter ones, like collies or terriers, felt something akin to guilt. I don't really know how measurably canine intelligence fluctuates though. Hey I bet the dire wolves from Game of Thrones would feel bad.

    Re: little kids, I dunno, I think a lot of them have a pretty strong conception of justice. Why do you think they're so obsessed with what is "fair," right? Man do I hate it when adults tell kids "life" isn't fair. Overbroad much? Not to mention it's usually a convenient dodge around how the adult is doing something unfair. But anyway, I think there's recent research suggesting than even babies have some kind of innate moral sense.
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Donnadogsoth View Post
    Why do you want to crap on our potential? What cynicism.
    I'm being honest. Potential means nothing unless realized, and what is realized is what we do. Not what we might do, could do, should do, or like to pretend we do - or in the case of our much vaunted potential think we could maybe do at some undetermined future date. The actual actions we take in physical reality every single day, that is what matters. And what we do is bulldoze, pave, plough, burn, poison, melt and otherwise destroy the lives and habitats of the vast majority of other species on the planet.

    Which means it is quite honest to point out that when it comes to being red in tooth and claw, we're exactly zero steps above the rest of the natural world. And the only potential I'm crapping on by pointing this out is the delusion that a cheap hamburger at the food court makes us any better than a wolf killing an elk calf. The potential that actually matters - the potential to behave differently - depends on this honesty. One cannot do better until you know what you're doing wrong, and you'll never learn that by hiding in a comforting fable.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff the Green View Post
    Which appears to have nothing to do with either emotion. Dogs have just learned through operant conditioning that making that face means we yell at them less.
    Might also have been selective pressure in the domestication of dogs for that reaction. I don't know whether to feel bad that we've bred them to take the abuse, or taken advantage of that they've adapted to be better parasites.

  13. - Top - End - #133
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    My unscientific wild speculation:

    The difference between humans and other animals is a difference of degree, not of kind.

    But the effects of different degrees of sapience, communication, communal interaction, planning, memory, ethical awareness, etc., is non-linear, and once our ancestors reached a tipping-point in those things, it resulted in a massive leap in what we are capable off.


    I'd also point out that while certain animal "designs" have popped up numerous times in unrelated groups (e.g. the shark/dolphin/ichthyosaur design, the "crocodile" design, etc), the "primate" design has only happened once, and the "primate with human-like intelligence" has only happened once within that. So while it is hypothetically possible that something else could evolve to do everything we can do, it seems to be very unlikely, and if we, and all other primates got wiped out, the world might have to wait another 500My for "Humans II: The Revenge of the Bipeds With Hands".

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    I'm being honest. Potential means nothing unless realized, and what is realized is what we do. Not what we might do, could do, should do, or like to pretend we do - or in the case of our much vaunted potential think we could maybe do at some undetermined future date. The actual actions we take in physical reality every single day, that is what matters. And what we do is bulldoze, pave, plough, burn, poison, melt and otherwise destroy the lives and habitats of the vast majority of other species on the planet.

    Which means it is quite honest to point out that when it comes to being red in tooth and claw, we're exactly zero steps above the rest of the natural world. And the only potential I'm crapping on by pointing this out is the delusion that a cheap hamburger at the food court makes us any better than a wolf killing an elk calf. The potential that actually matters - the potential to behave differently - depends on this honesty. One cannot do better until you know what you're doing wrong, and you'll never learn that by hiding in a comforting fable.
    Honesty also means looking at our potentials and realising that we alone are capable of willfully transforming our practice to accord with truth, compassion, and justice.

    Also, will you answer my question?

    Are humans "special" and therefore not culpable for murdering cockroaches, or are they not special and therefore either culpable (if we extend human morality to all our "brothers and sisters") or not culpable (if we extend animal morality to humans)?

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Donnadogsoth View Post
    Honesty also means looking at our potentials and realising that we alone are capable of willfully transforming our practice to accord with truth, compassion, and justice.
    I never denied we had that potential. As I said though, potential unused is irrelevant to what is done, and what we are doing is not. Ergo I don't see any particular reason to celebrate.

    Also, will you answer my question?

    Are humans "special" and therefore not culpable for murdering cockroaches, or are they not special and therefore either culpable (if we extend human morality to all our "brothers and sisters") or not culpable (if we extend animal morality to humans)?
    Sure, the answer is none of the above. I personally do not see humans as "special" in the sense of being things of a separate kind from animals. I'm an animal, a wolf is a different sort of animal. Morality is a something we use to circumscribe human behavior towards other humans and to some extent members of other species. This is I think deeply rooted in human biology as expressed through environment and circumstance. It is emphatically not a realization of some greater transcendental truth.

    So if wolves had morality, it would necessarily be rooted in wolf biology as expressed through the current environment. Which means that wolf morality is under no guarantee to copy human morality, and may in fact be entirely incompatible with it. In which case I would argue that the moral thing to do - as a human - is to leave the wolves to their business as much as possible. One may obviously defend oneself if attacked by a wolf, but to attempt to remake wolves to conform to particular human standards fails to respect the human value of freedom.

    In conclusion, whether it is morally wrong to kill a cockroach - or a wolf - is a human question. My thinking is that it is not immoral, since humans are animals, and animals kill each other all the time, and I see little reason to separate ourselves in this regard. Whether the wolf is right to kill an elk (or us) is a wolf question. We aren't wolves and should leave well enough alone. Since wolves appear to enthusiastically kill and eat a variety of species (including on occasion each other) I conclude that insofar as wolf morality is a thing, it is entirely compatible to tearing things apart and eating them.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    I never denied we had that potential. As I said though, potential unused is irrelevant to what is done, and what we are doing is not. Ergo I don't see any particular reason to celebrate.
    The impressionable children will settle for not being told in a cynical fashion that humanity is nothing special.

    Sure, the answer is none of the above. I personally do not see humans as "special" in the sense of being things of a separate kind from animals. I'm an animal, a wolf is a different sort of animal. Morality is a something we use to circumscribe human behavior towards other humans and to some extent members of other species. This is I think deeply rooted in human biology as expressed through environment and circumstance. It is emphatically not a realization of some greater transcendental truth.

    So if wolves had morality, it would necessarily be rooted in wolf biology as expressed through the current environment. Which means that wolf morality is under no guarantee to copy human morality, and may in fact be entirely incompatible with it. In which case I would argue that the moral thing to do - as a human - is to leave the wolves to their business as much as possible. One may obviously defend oneself if attacked by a wolf, but to attempt to remake wolves to conform to particular human standards fails to respect the human value of freedom.

    In conclusion, whether it is morally wrong to kill a cockroach - or a wolf - is a human question. My thinking is that it is not immoral, since humans are animals, and animals kill each other all the time, and I see little reason to separate ourselves in this regard. Whether the wolf is right to kill an elk (or us) is a wolf question. We aren't wolves and should leave well enough alone. Since wolves appear to enthusiastically kill and eat a variety of species (including on occasion each other) I conclude that insofar as wolf morality is a thing, it is entirely compatible to tearing things apart and eating them.
    If there is "little reason to separate ourselves in this regard," why may a man not kill his neighbour? If you say, "because humans are social animals" or somesuch, that merely places a hurdle to be crossed. Why may a clever man not kill his neighbour if he can get away with it?

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    RE: Morality:
    Morality is basically just a set of rules (primarily contrived but with some root in evolved behavior) that allows a group of humans to function as a unit. With one human in isolation, killing another human isn't "good" or "evil" or "just" or "unjust". It's just whatever works best for individual survival. In a group, killing another human is "bad" because it's disruptive. It threatens the integrity and survival of the group as an entity.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff the Green View Post
    Yeah, that's not real guilt; it's something like moral embarrassment. Guilt is The Telltale Heart, a spectre haunting you though nobody knows what you did. It's not a reaction to a conviction; it's what drives you to confess. It's often relieved by being caught.
    Oh. Oops. Well...probably why I have some of the diagnoses I do. Welp.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnome Alone View Post
    Re: little kids, I dunno, I think a lot of them have a pretty strong conception of justice. Why do you think they're so obsessed with what is "fair," right? Man do I hate it when adults tell kids "life" isn't fair. Overbroad much? Not to mention it's usually a convenient dodge around how the adult is doing something unfair. But anyway, I think there's recent research suggesting than even babies have some kind of innate moral sense.
    To a kid, "fair" is just "what I want".
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Donnadogsoth View Post
    The impressionable children will settle for not being told in a cynical fashion that humanity is nothing special.
    Back when I was one of them there impressionable children, I distinctly remember feeling insulted and patronized whenever people went around telling me I was special just for existing. Or that I was special because I could have done something, whether or not I actually did it.


    If there is "little reason to separate ourselves in this regard," why may a man not kill his neighbour? If you say, "because humans are social animals" or somesuch, that merely places a hurdle to be crossed. Why may a clever man not kill his neighbour if he can get away with it?
    Because humans think it is wrong for a man to kill his neighbor. For certain values of neighbor. This is a very straightforwards point; human morality is a thing made by humans to govern human actions. Ergo it is immoral if it goes against human morality.

    (Well, human moralities; there's never been just one, and pretending otherwise is very dangerous.)
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    To a kid, "fair" is just "what I want".
    I never understood this. Do most parents not actively try to instill a sense of right and wrong and good judgement from an early age? Am I really that special?

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    In conclusion, whether it is morally wrong to kill a cockroach - or a wolf - is a human question. My thinking is that it is not immoral, since humans are animals, and animals kill each other all the time, and I see little reason to separate ourselves in this regard. Whether the wolf is right to kill an elk (or us) is a wolf question. We aren't wolves and should leave well enough alone. Since wolves appear to enthusiastically kill and eat a variety of species (including on occasion each other) I conclude that insofar as wolf morality is a thing, it is entirely compatible to tearing things apart and eating them.
    Humans, at least on the whole, possess moral reasoning and the ability to judge context and tell the difference between killing a random wolf in the wild, killing a random wolf that has ended up becoming a nuisance animal, killing a random wolf in defense of the self or another, and killing entire packs of wolves at a time in an expression of orgiastic ecstasy at mass-killing.

    Just as we can tell the difference between killing for sport, killing for food, and killing out of boredom or frustration.

    Pretending otherwise is silly and probably sophistry, or at the very least, flawed, just as surely as insisting that humans should become some kind of caricature of sharks crossed with psychopaths without holding ourselves to be entirely different from animals because we have souls is also extremely flawed.

    Quote Originally Posted by SiuiS View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    To a kid, "fair" is just "what I want".
    I never understood this. Do most parents not actively try to instill a sense of right and wrong and good judgement from an early age? Am I really that special?
    How old's the kid? How many siblings does the kid have? What are the parents like? Too many factors.

    Combined with the admission of non-neurotypicality on the part of the speaker earlier in that post, we don't know how much of this is talking from their recollection of their personal past and how much is grounded in their perceptions and experiences of children at the anecdotal level and how much is grounded in scientific inquiry into the ability and moral reasoning of children.
    Last edited by Coidzor; 2015-03-15 at 06:28 PM.
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnome Alone View Post
    Re: little kids, I dunno, I think a lot of them have a pretty strong conception of justice. Why do you think they're so obsessed with what is "fair," right? Man do I hate it when adults tell kids "life" isn't fair. Overbroad much? Not to mention it's usually a convenient dodge around how the adult is doing something unfair.
    Speaking as a parent, I see it more as a dodge around the fact that (a) explaining the full ramifications of what they think is "fair" is a long and complex discussion, and this isn't the time or place even if the kid does have the attention span, (b) it seems likely that neither one of us could really define what is "fair" to save our lives, and (c) as a parent, you have to pick your moments to educate, you can't be a pedant 24/7. "Fair" is one of those useful lies that we just want kids to believe in, in the abstract, without being too specific about it.

    I've never used that particular line (yet), but those who do - have nothing but sympathy from me.

    Kids' sense of justice is very self-centric. That's not the same as selfish - they will often take up someone else's cause, quite as fiercely as their own - but that "someone else" will be someone they, personally, can see and touch. The concept that there are other people, whom we don't even know about directly, who may also be affected by what they do - is something they won't really begin to appreciate until they're teenagers at least.
    "None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by SiuiS View Post
    I never understood this. Do most parents not actively try to instill a sense of right and wrong and good judgement from an early age? Am I really that special?
    You can try. My mum is the most stupidly honest and ethical person I know and if I were a bit less juvenile I'd probably admit that she's an amazing parent (and a single mother for half my life to boot). My brother inherited it from her. I picked up enough to be a more-or-less functional member of society instead of ending up in a mental institution or prison. My sister is still young enough that she hasn't grown out of her childish selfishness and she still constantly complains that things "aren't fair", ranging from me having a car (I paid nearly half the cost myself, and she's not anywhere near old enough to even get a permit anyway) to me getting a larger portion at dinner to my mother refusing to buy her a $1000 tablet PC on a whim.

    Edit:
    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    How old's the kid? How many siblings does the kid have? What are the parents like? Too many factors.

    Combined with the admission of non-neurotypicality on the part of the speaker earlier in that post, we don't know how much of this is talking from their recollection of their personal past and how much is grounded in their perceptions and experiences of children at the anecdotal level and how much is grounded in scientific inquiry into the ability and moral reasoning of children.
    I'm thinking primarily little kids, ranging up to ~14 years old, depending on various factors. Once they get past the worst part of puberty and start the long slog of growing a proper prefrontal cortex they start to become real people.

    I'm basing this in part on anecdotal observation of small children and primarily on my tween sister.
    Last edited by noparlpf; 2015-03-15 at 06:41 PM.
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    Back when I was one of them there impressionable children, I distinctly remember feeling insulted and patronized whenever people went around telling me I was special just for existing. Or that I was special because I could have done something, whether or not I actually did it.
    Now you've misplaced the point. No one said man was special "just for existing," man is special for his potential, and that potential is worth something, and it is a crime against human nature not to tell children about it, but instead raising them to wallow in their own hopelessness and cynicism about their species' incidents of succumbing to unreason.

    Because humans think it is wrong for a man to kill his neighbor. For certain values of neighbor. This is a very straightforwards point; human morality is a thing made by humans to govern human actions. Ergo it is immoral if it goes against human morality.

    (Well, human moralities; there's never been just one, and pretending otherwise is very dangerous.)
    What difference does any morality make, if there be any one or group whose morality differs? Some moralities love their neighbours, others eat them. What's the difference other than might making right?--or the admission that there is no morality after all and we might as well be like whatever animal we choose in our dealings with, or exploitations of, others?

  24. - Top - End - #144
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    You can try. My mum is the most stupidly honest and ethical person I know and if I were a bit less juvenile I'd probably admit that she's an amazing parent (and a single mother for half my life to boot). My brother inherited it from her. I picked up enough to be a more-or-less functional member of society instead of ending up in a mental institution or prison. My sister is still young enough that she hasn't grown out of her childish selfishness and she still constantly complains that things "aren't fair", ranging from me having a car (I paid nearly half the cost myself, and she's not anywhere near old enough to even get a permit anyway) to me getting a larger portion at dinner to my mother refusing to buy her a $1000 tablet PC on a whim.
    I know. There's the program language going in, and there's the hardware it has to root into.

    Ideally, I will teach my child to be someone I respect. I hope she inherits my justice gene or whatever it's called, but if not, I can fold that into my understanding of caste and be okay. Dismayed, but okay.

    Quote Originally Posted by Donnadogsoth View Post
    What difference does any morality make, if there be any one or group whose morality differs? Some moralities love their neighbours, others eat them. What's the difference other than might making right?--or the admission that there is no morality after all and we might as well be like whatever animal we choose in our dealings with, or exploitations of, others?
    This is a flawed argument because it assumes subjectivity means all things are equal.

    If nothing has any inherent value, then it has the value you give it. It can be demonstrated that the thought chain of "well might makes right is ultimately how this shakes out" leads to people being bad people. Optimally you will behave in a way you want others to behave. Physical might is not the only might, and an understanding of social and psychological mechanisms shows that this is a much more complex process than you imply.

    This is the danger of logic. You end up flattening everything out into excessively simplified and meaningless broad strokes. This is why logic is a part of rationality and neither the sole not most important part. You WILL have emotional and visceral reactions. They MUST be accounted for. You CANNOT have a purely logical system because a purely logical system assumes everything works in a clear and thought out manner. People are auboptimal. They do not compile.

    Morality makes a difference because if establishes different strata of association and socialization. It allows one to justify some things past the normal intolerance threshold. It allows one to exist as part of a society instead of an individual in a cluster of individuals. And this is likely inherited; other primates have similar functions.
    Last edited by SiuiS; 2015-03-16 at 02:09 AM.

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Hoooo boy, this is where we're going now? Okay... I'm going to try to only say these three things on this subject:

    1. There is nothing cynical about acknowledging the way things are, especially not when, as mentioned, honesty about reality is the necessary first step towards realising potential. Also, I don't think I've ever heard "but what will we tell the children?" used as a credible argument against anything ever.

    2. Experiments have already found that certain monkeys have a very strong sense of fairness, so we know the foundations of morality are not an exclusively human thing.

    3. Just because morality is subjective and evolved doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Subjective is not the same as arbitrary, and indeed the fact it's evolved (in both the biological and social sense) means it's almost certainly not arbitrary and rather serves some very important purposes. Beauty and love are subjective products of evolution too, but few but the most hard-line abstract-thinking nihilists and pragmatists would claim those are arbitrary and meaningless.
    Last edited by Serpentine; 2015-03-16 at 02:19 AM.

  26. - Top - End - #146

    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by SiuiS View Post
    This is a flawed argument because it assumes subjectivity means all things are equal.

    If nothing has any inherent value, then it has the value you give it. It can be demonstrated that the thought chain of "well might makes right is ultimately how this shakes out" leads to people being bad people. Optimally you will behave in a way you want others to behave. Physical might is not the only might, and an understanding of social and psychological mechanisms shows that this is a much more complex process than you imply.

    This is the danger of logic. You end up flattening everything out into excessively simplified and meaningless broad strokes. This is why logic is a part of rationality and neither the sole not most important part. You WILL have emotional and visceral reactions. They MUST be accounted for. You CANNOT have a purely logical system because a purely logical system assumes everything works in a clear and thought out manner. People are auboptimal. They do not compile.

    Morality makes a difference because if establishes different strata of association and socialization. It allows one to justify some things past the normal intolerance threshold. It allows one to exist as part of a society instead of an individual in a cluster of individuals. And this is likely inherited; other primates have similar functions.
    Is roach-squishing murder or not? If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred. That human life is sacred. If we're just primates, then morality is just a trick of social organisation, which we can dispense with at our pleasure.

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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Your "if X then Y" premises are false. There are many more options than the ones you put forward.

  28. - Top - End - #148
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Donnadogsoth View Post
    Now you've misplaced the point. No one said man was special "just for existing," man is special for his potential, and that potential is worth something, and it is a crime against human nature not to tell children about it, but instead raising them to wallow in their own hopelessness and cynicism about their species' incidents of succumbing to unreason.
    I believe you missed the second portion of that statement; that being praised for things I might have done, but did do also struck me as phony and annoying. Regardless, what do children have to do with this? I was under the impression this was a conversation among adults, or is the thread overrun with crouching toddlers and hidden nine year olds?

    What difference does any morality make, if there be any one or group whose morality differs? Some moralities love their neighbours, others eat them. What's the difference other than might making right?--or the admission that there is no morality after all and we might as well be like whatever animal we choose in our dealings with, or exploitations of, others?
    Different moralities impact people's lives differently, and therefore make real differences in people's lives. It is fallacious to suppose that simply because something fails to be universally or transcendentally true it cannot be locally and conditionally true.


    Quote Originally Posted by Serpentine View Post
    Hoooo boy, this is where we're going now? Okay... I'm going to try to only say these three things on this subject:

    1. There is nothing cynical about acknowledging the way things are, especially not when, as mentioned, honesty about reality is the necessary first step towards realising potential. Also, I don't think I've ever heard "but what will we tell the children?" used as a credible argument against anything ever.

    2. Experiments have already found that certain monkeys have a very strong sense of fairness, so we know the foundations of morality are not an exclusively human thing.

    3. Just because morality is subjective and evolved doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Subjective is not the same as arbitrary, and indeed the fact it's evolved (in both the biological and social sense) means it's almost certainly not arbitrary and rather serves some very important purposes. Beauty and love are subjective products of evolution too, but few but the most hard-line abstract-thinking nihilists and pragmatists would claim those are arbitrary and meaningless.
    Thank you for this, it's a very well written post.

    Quote Originally Posted by Donnadogsoth View Post
    Is roach-squishing murder or not? If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred. That human life is sacred. If we're just primates, then morality is just a trick of social organisation, which we can dispense with at our pleasure.
    Not at all. We're one variety of animal among many; with the advantage of large brains capable of considering long-term consequences, which allows us to do things other animals cannot. We also have an unusually high capacity for empathy, which when used and developed very often has the effect of improving our lives and the lives of others. These are entirely biological functions, but they are biological functions that are in scale and combination uniquely human, which gives us as a species unique capabilities and potential. The fact that our potential and capability is unique to us is itself not unique to us however; chickens also have unique potential and capability, as do centipedes, wolf spiders, antelope and so on.

    However being human, we need to be concerned with human actions. Which we judge by the plethora of human moralities, all of which are almost certainly rooted in human biology and then interpreted though circumstance and history. All of which are real things (or many real things, since we aren't all clones living out identical lives). Now I'd argue that it is in keeping with the traditions of human morality that have benefited the species greatly in the past to not run willy-nilly over the rest of the natural world, and that respecting its autonomy is a human virtue, and also to a large extent congruent with a long-term understanding of our self-interest. None of this requires some version of human morality to be universal, sacred or anything else, but instead is entirely consistent with an understanding of morality as conditional on human biology et cetera. Which in my view does nothing to reduce the importance of humanity, our morals or anything else.

    Arguing that if humans are animals our morality is 'just' a trick of our social order or otherwise dispensable is like arguing that humans are 'just' mammals, and therefore free to our breath for two hours and go diving for giant squid, because the sperm whale is 'just' a mammal too. It ignores what we are and our particular place in nature for a Denethor-like insistence on either having the one extreme of utter and unapproachable uniqueness or the other of complete exchangability and uniformity on the other.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  29. - Top - End - #149
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    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by Donnadogsoth View Post
    If there is "little reason to separate ourselves in this regard," why may a man not kill his neighbour? If you say, "because humans are social animals" or somesuch, that merely places a hurdle to be crossed. Why may a clever man not kill his neighbour if he can get away with it?
    I don't want to be killed by my neighbour (or anyone else for that matter). Almost everyone else thinks the same way. I'm pretty sure you don't.

    Most people don't want to kill their neighbour either*.

    Hence, people generally agree not to kill each other*, and to "deal with"** those who do.


    * Without good reason.
    ** This may or may not count as a "good reason" for breaking the more general "no killing" rule.


    I don't know of any society that has not had a "no killing each other (without good reason)" rule. Even people like the Vikings (or the Mafia) had or have rules against that sort of thing. No Viking would be willing to go out raiding (in their view, a "good reason" for breaking the no-killing rule) if they thought their neighbours would pillage their homes while they were away. If you walked into a Mafia base and robbed/killed some of the people, the rest wouldn't just say "This guy is a robber and a murderer, just like us - what a great guy!".

    No society that permitted random murder of its members could survive. It would either destroy itself, decide something else would be better, or be overthrown from within (or conquered from without) by people who agreed not to kill each other (but were prepared to work together to fight against the Random Murderers).

  30. - Top - End - #150

    Default Re: What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    Not at all. We're one variety of animal among many; with the advantage of large brains capable of considering long-term consequences, which allows us to do things other animals cannot. We also have an unusually high capacity for empathy, which when used and developed very often has the effect of improving our lives and the lives of others. These are entirely biological functions, but they are biological functions that are in scale and combination uniquely human, which gives us as a species unique capabilities and potential. The fact that our potential and capability is unique to us is itself not unique to us however; chickens also have unique potential and capability, as do centipedes, wolf spiders, antelope and so on.

    However being human, we need to be concerned with human actions. Which we judge by the plethora of human moralities, all of which are almost certainly rooted in human biology and then interpreted though circumstance and history. All of which are real things (or many real things, since we aren't all clones living out identical lives). Now I'd argue that it is in keeping with the traditions of human morality that have benefited the species greatly in the past to not run willy-nilly over the rest of the natural world, and that respecting its autonomy is a human virtue, and also to a large extent congruent with a long-term understanding of our self-interest. None of this requires some version of human morality to be universal, sacred or anything else, but instead is entirely consistent with an understanding of morality as conditional on human biology et cetera. Which in my view does nothing to reduce the importance of humanity, our morals or anything else.

    Arguing that if humans are animals our morality is 'just' a trick of our social order or otherwise dispensable is like arguing that humans are 'just' mammals, and therefore free to our breath for two hours and go diving for giant squid, because the sperm whale is 'just' a mammal too. It ignores what we are and our particular place in nature for a Denethor-like insistence on either having the one extreme of utter and unapproachable uniqueness or the other of complete exchangability and uniformity on the other.
    I'm not sure what we're arguing, that it's not just language difference. Man's uniqueness and moral supremacy is indeed rooted in his biology and the particular type of mind associated with that. What this amounts to is a species that has its own reason to exist: self-conscious existence for the sake of survival and creativity. Man is therefore his own measure of all things. We do not derive our morality from a chicken or centipede, but from ourselves and our own potentiality. So, that gives us a basis for morality and deciding that humans on the whole are worth more than non-humans, by virtue of what makes humans humans. And that's identical to calling man sacred.

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