Well, my name is Jamie and I'm just about fourteen, and I decided to make a subject where people can just tell the rest of the forum what they think about the world. I'm interested in hearing about some other people's philosophies about the meaning of life, and why they think what they do. I guess I'll start, then:
The thing that sets human beings apart from animals is control. We are afraid of the unknown, and anything that we can't understand. One of those things that we can't understand is the meaning of life, and how we came to be. Because it is part of our nature to want to have control over everything, we take a belief, like creationism or evolutionism, so that we can tell ourselves that we 'know' why we are here, and how we came here. I hope you guys get what I'm trying to say.
Anyways, lets hear about everyone else's beliefs!
Your Beliefs
Moderator: Moderators
-
McCulloch
- Site Supporter
- Posts: 24063
- Joined: Mon May 02, 2005 9:10 pm
- Location: Toronto, ON, CA
- Been thanked: 3 times
Re: Animal intelegence
Post #11That would not be a valid conclusion. It could very well be that ants and birds have severely limited intelligence evolved to deal with their natural environments. Are humans the only animal that can discern the consequences of their actions? I know of some dogs that seem to discern the consequences of some of their actions.Greatest I Am wrote:Animals, except for their hard wired survival instincts are dumb.
[...]
I must conclude that man is the only animal who can sometimes discern consequences for his actions.
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John
Post #12
\I will agree with one stipulation: in bed I don't want control.
You're being too literal. In bed, you have control and that's why you're OK with it. If you were getting raped, then you wouldn't be in control, and you wouldn't be happy about it.
Well, you're right in a sense. All animals manipulate their enviroment to one degree or another otherwise they wouldn't be able to surivive. Humans, on the other hand, desire infinite control over their enviroments. We don't stop at building houses and setting traps against intruders. Once we figure out something about the world, we exploit it. To this day we're still figuring out things we can do with electicity and programming, and we'll continue finding out new stuff about the world until the end of time.As for animals not trying to control their enviroment you are wrong. They attempt to control their surroundings in many ways. They build homes, mark territories, and even set traps against intruders. Tell the beaver he does not try to control the stream.
Don't forget, look at the word "control" more broadly. Almost all the time, we are in control.con·trol /kənˈtroʊl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuhn-trohl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -trolled, -trol·ling, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command.
2. to hold in check; curb: to control a horse; to control one's emotions.
3. to test or verify (a scientific experiment) by a parallel experiment or other standard of comparison.
4. to eliminate or prevent the flourishing or spread of: to control a forest fire.
5. Obsolete. to check or regulate (transactions), originally by means of a duplicate register.
When you go for a walk, you are controlling your walk. When you play a video game, you are in control of playing that video game. Read a book, ride a bike, have sex...name something.
Some situations when you AREN'T in control are: when you break a bone and are far away from the hospital, when you pee your pants by accident, when your friend is angry at you and has cut off all contact from you, etc. In these situations, you do not have control. Your leg is broken, there's nothing you can do to un-break it. Get it?
Post #13
Animals apply to all of that except for maybe 5. The "We have control and animals don't" part of the argument still fails.Soxors wrote:Don't forget, look at the word "control" more broadly. Almost all the time, we are in control.con·trol /kənˈtroʊl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuhn-trohl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -trolled, -trol·ling, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command.
2. to hold in check; curb: to control a horse; to control one's emotions.
3. to test or verify (a scientific experiment) by a parallel experiment or other standard of comparison.
4. to eliminate or prevent the flourishing or spread of: to control a forest fire.
5. Obsolete. to check or regulate (transactions), originally by means of a duplicate register.
Post #14
That is my theory. I never said that "we have control and animals don't." Think about what kind of world we would have if animals had control over nothing?Animals lack the drive to want [complete] control of their surroundings and the questions of life.
Post #15
Well then how are you able to tell how much control an animal wants? I think my hedgehog would like to control the sun so that it stays dusk all the time. As far as control goes I still do not see the difference between them and us.
Post #16
How am I able to tell how much control an animal wants?
Humans the only ones to have discovered:
You say that your hedgehog would want to control the sun. Well, humans destroy animals' habitats. If you hedgehog wants to make it dust all the time, don't you think that animals would want to keep their homes?
So why don't they? Why don't all the bears, and wolves, pop out of the forest when the construction crew gets there and start tearing out throats?
Animals are able to do this, but they don't, because they are not afraid of a lack of control over their enviroment.
We could tear down the whole forest and there would be no animal uprising...because humans want control, and animals don't.
Humans the only ones to have discovered:
- Fire
- Electricity
- Advanced Shelter
- Religion
- Society
- Unity
You say that your hedgehog would want to control the sun. Well, humans destroy animals' habitats. If you hedgehog wants to make it dust all the time, don't you think that animals would want to keep their homes?
So why don't they? Why don't all the bears, and wolves, pop out of the forest when the construction crew gets there and start tearing out throats?
Animals are able to do this, but they don't, because they are not afraid of a lack of control over their enviroment.
We could tear down the whole forest and there would be no animal uprising...because humans want control, and animals don't.
Post #17
That is a marker of intelligence. Not desire to control something. Also, some of the things on your list animals are far better than humans.Soxors wrote:How am I able to tell how much control an animal wants?
Humans the only ones to have discovered:
- Fire
- Electricity
- Advanced Shelter
- Religion
- Society
- Unity
The inability to make changes does not remove the desire. This can be applied to humans as well as animals.Why? Why are we united and controlled, with our society and religion and moral codes and discovories, and the animals aren't?
You say that your hedgehog would want to control the sun. Well, humans destroy animals' habitats. If you hedgehog wants to make it dust all the time, don't you think that animals would want to keep their homes?
Or ,maybe, they are just more moral than you. Or perhaps they are smart enough to know that they would not have a chance against a bunch of humans with machines and weapons.So why don't they? Why don't all the bears, and wolves, pop out of the forest when the construction crew gets there and start tearing out throats?
Animals are able to do this, but they don't, because they are not afraid of a lack of control over their enviroment.
We could tear down the whole forest and there would be no animal uprising...because humans want control, and animals don't.
No matter how many times you watch it on SciFi, you are not the Beast Master.
-
Cathar1950
- Site Supporter
- Posts: 10503
- Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:12 pm
- Location: Michigan(616)
- Been thanked: 2 times
Post #18
What an interesting pet.There is also a bird in the far north, I have forgotten their name, who follow each other over a cliff to their death. Not to bright.
I was just reading about an ape that makes a spear and kills bush babies with it to eat.
-
Cathar1950
- Site Supporter
- Posts: 10503
- Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:12 pm
- Location: Michigan(616)
- Been thanked: 2 times
Post #19
I hope this is the right thread.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070222/sc_ ... nting_dc_1
Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
Thu Feb 22, 12:50 PM ET
Chimpanzees have been seen using spears to hunt bush babies, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a study that demonstrates a whole new level of tool use and planning by our closest living relatives.
Perhaps even more intriguing, it was only the females who fashioned and used the wooden spears, Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani of Iowa State University reported.
Bertolani saw an adolescent female chimp use a spear to stab a bush baby as it slept in a tree hollow, pull it out and eat it.
Pruetz and Bertolani, now at Cambridge University in Britain, had been watching the Fongoli community of savanna-dwelling chimpanzees in southeastern Senegal.
The chimps apparently had to invent new ways to gather food because they live in an unusual area for their species, the researchers report in the journal Current Biology.
"This is just an innovative way of having to make up for a pretty harsh environment," Pruetz said in a telephone interview. The chimps must come down from trees to gather food and rest in dry caves during the hot season.
"It is similar to what we say about early hominids that lived maybe 6 million years ago and were basically the precursors to humans."
Chimpanzees are genetically the closest living relatives to human beings, sharing more than 98 percent of our DNA. Scientists believe the precursors to chimps and humans split off from a common ancestor about 7 million years ago.
Chimps are known to use tools to crack open nuts and fish for termites. Some birds use tools, as do other animals such as gorillas, orangutans and even naked mole rats.
But the sophisticated use of a tool to hunt with had never been seen.
Pruetz thought it was a fluke when Bertolani saw the adolescent female hunt and kill the bush baby, a tiny nocturnal primate.
But then she saw almost the same thing. "I saw the behavior over the course of 19 days almost daily," she said.
PLANNING AND FORESIGHT
The chimps choose a branch, strip it of leaves and twigs, trim it down to a stable size and then chew the ends to a point. Then they use it to stab into holes where bush babies might be sleeping.
It is not a highly successful method of hunting. They only ever saw one chimpanzee succeed in getting a bush baby once. The apes mostly eat fruit, bark and legumes.
Part of the problem is this group of chimps is shy of humans, and the females, who seem to do most of this type of hunting, are especially wary. "I am willing to bet the females do it even more than we have seen," she said.
Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods.
"That to me was just as intriguing if not even more so," Pruetz said.
The spear-hunting occurred when the group was foraging together, again unchimplike behavior that might produce more competition between males and females, she said.
Maybe females invented weapons for hunting, Pruetz said.
"The observation that individuals hunting with tools include females and immature chimpanzees suggests that we should rethink traditional explanations for the evolution of such behavior in our own lineage," she concluded in her paper.
"The multiple steps taken by Fongoli chimpanzees in making tools to dispatch mammalian prey involve the kind of foresight and intellectual complexity that most likely typified early human relatives."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070222/sc_ ... nting_dc_1
Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
Thu Feb 22, 12:50 PM ET
Chimpanzees have been seen using spears to hunt bush babies, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a study that demonstrates a whole new level of tool use and planning by our closest living relatives.
Perhaps even more intriguing, it was only the females who fashioned and used the wooden spears, Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani of Iowa State University reported.
Bertolani saw an adolescent female chimp use a spear to stab a bush baby as it slept in a tree hollow, pull it out and eat it.
Pruetz and Bertolani, now at Cambridge University in Britain, had been watching the Fongoli community of savanna-dwelling chimpanzees in southeastern Senegal.
The chimps apparently had to invent new ways to gather food because they live in an unusual area for their species, the researchers report in the journal Current Biology.
"This is just an innovative way of having to make up for a pretty harsh environment," Pruetz said in a telephone interview. The chimps must come down from trees to gather food and rest in dry caves during the hot season.
"It is similar to what we say about early hominids that lived maybe 6 million years ago and were basically the precursors to humans."
Chimpanzees are genetically the closest living relatives to human beings, sharing more than 98 percent of our DNA. Scientists believe the precursors to chimps and humans split off from a common ancestor about 7 million years ago.
Chimps are known to use tools to crack open nuts and fish for termites. Some birds use tools, as do other animals such as gorillas, orangutans and even naked mole rats.
But the sophisticated use of a tool to hunt with had never been seen.
Pruetz thought it was a fluke when Bertolani saw the adolescent female hunt and kill the bush baby, a tiny nocturnal primate.
But then she saw almost the same thing. "I saw the behavior over the course of 19 days almost daily," she said.
PLANNING AND FORESIGHT
The chimps choose a branch, strip it of leaves and twigs, trim it down to a stable size and then chew the ends to a point. Then they use it to stab into holes where bush babies might be sleeping.
It is not a highly successful method of hunting. They only ever saw one chimpanzee succeed in getting a bush baby once. The apes mostly eat fruit, bark and legumes.
Part of the problem is this group of chimps is shy of humans, and the females, who seem to do most of this type of hunting, are especially wary. "I am willing to bet the females do it even more than we have seen," she said.
Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods.
"That to me was just as intriguing if not even more so," Pruetz said.
The spear-hunting occurred when the group was foraging together, again unchimplike behavior that might produce more competition between males and females, she said.
Maybe females invented weapons for hunting, Pruetz said.
"The observation that individuals hunting with tools include females and immature chimpanzees suggests that we should rethink traditional explanations for the evolution of such behavior in our own lineage," she concluded in her paper.
"The multiple steps taken by Fongoli chimpanzees in making tools to dispatch mammalian prey involve the kind of foresight and intellectual complexity that most likely typified early human relatives."
-
Greatest I Am
- Banned
- Posts: 3043
- Joined: Thu Jan 04, 2007 1:04 am
Re: Animal intelligence
Post #20McCulloch wrote:That would not be a valid conclusion. It could very well be that ants and birds have severely limited intelligence evolved to deal with their natural environments. Are humans the only animal that can discern the consequences of their actions? I know of some dogs that seem to discern the consequences of some of their actions.Greatest I Am wrote:Animals, except for their hard wired survival instincts are dumb.
[...]
I must conclude that man is the only animal who can sometimes discern consequences for his actions.
GIA wrote
I have often wondered if we train animals or if they are training us.
Discernment of consequences can be taught to animals, it does not happen in the case of unknown conditions. IE. If a person sees an electric wire hanging from a post and sparking as it touches the ground, He ore she is not likely to touch it. An animal on the other hand might be attracted by this cable and they will likely bite it. They cannot logically know that this is dangerous. Humans can.
Animal do have intelligence but not of the kind that can be compared to humans.
Their intelligence is hard wired instinct, ours is logic based.
Regards
DL
