“Cows look calm, but really they are gay nymphomaniacs"

[Elok]

Originally posted by Odin
I find it funny that the veggie-hippies get mad about us killing animals. HELLO!!!, animals eat other animals all the time. I don't see the veggie-hippies protesting when a troup of chimps catch and eat a monkey.

Well, duh. Only human beings take crap like that from others. Hippies can't fight. If they were to tell the chimps not to kill and eat a monkey, the chimps would merely drive them off with a bombardment of feces, thus solving the problem. So maybe we do have something to learn from animals after all.

Ogie: black obelisk thingy?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Elok


Well, duh. Only human beings take crap like that from others. Hippies can't fight. If they were to tell the chimps not to kill and eat a monkey, the chimps would merely drive them off with a bombardment of feces, thus solving the problem. So maybe we do have something to learn from animals after all.

Ogie: black obelisk thingy?

Space Odyssey 2001

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Odin
I find it funny that the veggie-hippies get mad about us killing animals. HELLO!!!, animals eat other animals all the time. I don't see the veggie-hippies protesting when a troup of chimps catch and eat a monkey.

Most vegetarians would protest bush-meat.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Elok


Well, duh. Only human beings take crap like that from others. Hippies can't fight. If they were to tell the chimps not to kill and eat a monkey, the chimps would merely drive them off with a bombardment of feces, thus solving the problem. So maybe we do have something to learn from animals after all.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Elok


Well, duh. Only human beings take crap like that from others. Hippies can't fight. If they were to tell the chimps not to kill and eat a monkey, the chimps would merely drive them off with a bombardment of feces, thus solving the problem. So maybe we do have something to learn from animals after all.

Ogie: black obelisk thingy?

Yes, well they fling it with their bare hands you know.

Besides, we have Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Jon Stewart, Triumph the Comic Insult Dog and etc., so what's the difference?

[Last Conformist]

Eating Rush Limbaugh

[Elok]

Eat Rush Limbaugh? Are you mad? With all that Oxywotsit built up in his system there's no telling what eating that meat could do to you. Maybe Strangelove knows.

Speaking of whom, to address DS's point, we don't necessarily have to use our bare hands; we can combine ape sensibility with human ingenuity for the best of both worlds. In my archeology class (where I learned all the crap about Homo erectus and such), we were introduced to a handy device known as the atlatl, invented by the earliest true humans, which lets you throw a spear twice as far as you could by hand. A copro-atl would not be unfeasible, I think, aside from the non-aerodynamic nature of the intended projectile.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Read the thread that spiffor linked too Boris (actually, don't just skip to the last couple pages - it's all the ****ing same), Kuci's argument all comes down to there being no free will, and that humans (including himself, apparently) incorrectly think that they have a free will as a result of their inheritely mentally retarded nature. Consciousness is just a state of being stupid.

Are you really that stupid? I've said over and over there is free will, and that it's consistent with determism.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Yes, I read your post, you seemed to have missed the point of mine--that your default assumption is groundless. By your logic, it would be just as reasonable to assume other humans aren't self-aware, that they're just automatons reacting to stimuli. Because the only "proof" we have of self-awareness is our own consciousness.

Eh, that's what I said. And we are just machines reacting to stimuli. I happen to *know* that I am a self-aware machine, because I'm aware of it (duh). I happen to think that this self-awareness is an emergent property of matter, rather than some dualist thing, and therefore it results from the manner in which my brain operates. This suggests that something that operates in practically the same way should also be self-aware. Moreover, I have very strong evidence of other humans being self-aware in that I'm not the first person to come up with the idea - and I find it highly unlikely that an intelligent but non-self-aware machine would come up with the concept of self-awareness. (By this reasoning, any being that claimed it was self-aware, I would probably believe, unless it was clearly just parroting words.) I have no corresponding evidence for animals, and their brains aren't as similar to mine as other humans' brains are, therefore I don't believe that they are self-aware.

To segregate humans out as the only assumed self-aware beings is silly, since we have *no* way of knowing whether anything else is self-aware or not.

And so we should assume that, unless something suggests otherwise, other things are not self-aware. Without evidence, no belief.

But, the fact that we do have self-awareness is, in and of itself, reason to believe that other species possess it, to carying degrees. As Ernst Mayr said, human consciousness is an evolutionary product that arose from animal consciousness.

Consciousness is binary. You are either self-aware or you are not.

I find it puzzling you are an atheist who believes in evolution, yet seem to think there is some magical "on" switch for consciousness that only humans have and other species don't. That doesn't make much biological sense.

Actually, it requires a leap of faith to assign consciousness to animals, since there really isn't much to suggest that they have it. Such things as demonstrating fear, emotion, etc. - even recognition of itself in a mirror - are not indicative of self-awareness, because a robot that exhibits these reactions to stimuli but is clearly NOT self-aware is easily conceivable.

(In fact, my theory is that it may have to do with the development of empathy to the point where humans can recognize arbitrarily large and arbitrarily organized groups as 'self', a trait that no other animal seems to exhibit.)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Odin
I am annoyed by the specieist "animals have no emotions, they are atomatons" argument.

Funny, no one in this thread has made that argument. In fact, no one in this thread except for you and Ludd has even considered emotions inconsistent with automatons.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Are you really that stupid? I've said over and over there is free will, and that it's consistent with determism.

It's all be said and done in the other thread, if you want to continue it, do it there, so it doesn't have to be done all over again.

[Last Conformist]

Who, incidentally, decreed that the possession of self-awareness confers rights?

[insert strawman about people sleeping or in a coma]

It occurs to me I don't have a clear enough idea what self-awareness is to know if it's binary or not.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
I was refering to the other thread, if you wish to continue it, you can continue it there... or, atleast, respond to what was said there.

And I said over there, and any time it's come up on these forums, that determinism and free will are consistent.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Who, incidentally, decreed that the possession of self-awareness confers rights?

Me at least, it's what I've always argued as the basis for morality.

It occurs to me I don't have a clear enough idea what self-awareness is to know if it's binary or not.

Either you have some sort of sensation of events beyond something registering in physical memory (or rather, you feel what is in that physical memory), or you do not.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


And I said over there, and any time it's come up on these forums, that determinism and free will are consistent.

The righteous kuciwalker has spoken.