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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 5:59:00 PM |
The answer lies in setting guidelines for experimentation and enforcing them. Not in the cessation of experimentation.
Here lies the source of our disagreement (don't worry - I don't exactly hate you for it). We cannot confine a human for study without their willful assent. For a human, that's no problem; if we get it, we can "go to town", if we don't well, better luck next time. That's pretty cu & dried. With animals it becomes more of an ethical dilemma. They can't in general give their willful asstent. If we grant them the right to self determination as a living creature, then they have the right to remain undisturbed by us. If we "forcibly" (without thier informed and willful assent - which of course they can't give) relocate them for better study,say, we have violated their rights. By what authority may we do so? Who made us "God" that we can lord it over other sentient beings and determine what rights they can or can't have? | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 6:04:50 PM |
I'll confess to being better than them at chess (I usually win two out of three against the dog)
I'll confess that I used to have dog, whom I allowed to watch the "idiot box". He "appeared " to prefer "Animal Planet" to "Lifetime Movie Channel". But maybe I am projecting...  | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 6:21:47 PM | @ Diva
I used to let the dog do everything he wanted, including watching TV. I could stand "Lassie" (I think he had a crush on her), but when he got hooked on the news channels and started believing it, I drew the line and pulled the plug. The only downside to that action was that his chess game improved too much for my liking. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 7:10:20 PM | @ Dukky
That is why I suggested connect four... 
Back to topic...
if anything, a human being is a remembering animal for so much of what makes us special is what we remember, individually and as a culture.
But it can be argued animals "remember" as well. It is how they acquire "learned" behaviors. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 8:34:18 PM |  Forgive me I couldn't help but not read the whole topic. I feel this is very relevant to the topic. Its about a bonobo named Kanzi:
Kanzi learned to combine these symbols in regular ways, or in what linguists call"proto-grammar."Once, Savage-Rumbaugh says, on an outing in a forest by the Georgia State University laboratory where he was raised, Kanzi touched the symbols for"marshmallow"and"fire."Given matches and marshmallows, Kanzi snapped twigs for a fire, lit them with the matches and toasted the marshmallows on a stick.
Ok so its not the level of a 6 year old. But by this information (it may be propaganda) chimps "can" potentially communicate with humans on "our terms". Just thought it was interesting...
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/speakingbonobo.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bonobos/kanzi.html | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 9:24:17 PM | Greg, many thanks for your illumination of this subject. It's great to meet a fellow skeptic.
As for the OP, I do believe that apes have emotions and feelings as we do but humans can achieve more nuanced emotions due to more neurons. Greg has eloquently debunked the myth that apes are as close to us cognitively-speaking AS SEEN ON TV!
As far as using animals in research, there are tireless efforts underway for some time to circumvent any experiment that causes suffering in test animals or even their death. Such has not yet been found but I understand stem cells may hold an answer. Still, some ideologues would argue that stem cells have rights, too!).
Early in my career, my employer told me that the following week I was trading in my GC syringe for a scalpel as I would be doing animal testing. I walked in Monday morning with my residgnation letter in my back pocket. I didn't get to use it as I read the study protocol and my job was to pave the way for registration of a drug to treat childhood leukemia. Life is full of choices.
Very important to know that we are animals and still subject to the same physical needs as any other creature delivered to the present by evolution. One can cry the morality game all one wants but, in the end, you need to eat to live. That involves killing something. If you are at the top of the food chain, you can kill anything you damn well want to. One of my favorite quotes: "If god didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?" | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 9:29:54 PM | Exo, thanks for those links.. Kanzi is a prime example of what an intelligent ape can achieve if given instruction over time.. I've just watched a handful of videos on YouTube of him.... He's pretty focused on the task at hand and it's quite obvious that he understands spoken language (Kanzi, cut the onions with the knife/ Kanzi, pour the salt on your basketball) and definately communicates with the people who teach him.
I'm very ok with saying that an ape like Kanzi is smart, intelligent, clever (all three)... I think he is anyway ;). | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 9:59:39 PM | you are anthropomorphizing. Humans have cognition, hopes, dreams, aspirations. Animals exist in the moment. An animal does not understand that something is taken away from it when it dies. People understand the loss, thats the difference.
Yes! I had a very protracted argument with someone in a philosophy forum on facebook over the descriptor of civilisation, which some of the palaeoanthropology community (notably US) claim is represented by language development, whilst others (notably British) claim is represented by ritualistic burials (ie. protected graves which include adornments such as flowers and berries).
The big difference is that using language as a measure means arguably Homo Erectus, Homo Sapiens Archaic and Homo Neanderthalensis are all uncivilised, even though their tool construction and civilised trappings eventuated in a linear fashion roughly identical to native American minus the bows and arrows, complete with musical instruments, anoxic chemistry, semi-permament dwellings, hearths and in every respect identical to HS Sapiens (modern man) up to the disappearance of HS Neanderthalensis ca.25K BCE, according to the archaeological record.
Using ritual burial as a descriptor for modern civilisation rather than language puts HS Neanderthalensis at the very least as totally equivalent to modern man for the period 45-25K BCE, which would appear quite accurate since archaeologists cannot differentiate between Mousterian and Aurignacian technology without hominid fossils in the area to identify the find as Neandertal or modern man, their technology and civilisation is completely identical although Neandertal did not have very developed vocal chords (he could speak, but gruntlike with a very limited vocabulary and could not make certain vowel sounds necessary for complex language skills, according to the latest research including computer modelled vocal structure, ref: science daily).
But the fact remains Neandertal sat around hearth-ovens cooking food whilst a shaman dressed in a sewn cape played a diatonic 7-note flute, amid their lean-tos and religious altar, making birch glue to stick things together with and consciously burying their dead with flowers and berries, back in 70K BCE when modern man was still running around naked humping deer. It is fairly likely they represented stellar constellations in rough artwork, and it is known they collected fossils. If that's not civilisation irrespective of language skills I don't know what is. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 10:05:13 PM |
You are now cherry picking for evidence that supports what you believe, and ignoring evidence that doesnt. Read the article in the link i sent. It shows how Kanzi did this. He only picks out the two nouns in the sentence and combines then. He doesnt understand grammar.
When someone said booger booger booger ONION booger booger KNIFE, he would still cut the onion with the knife.
You didnt address the consent issue. howcome these smart monkeys cant give consent?
Thanks Brightspark,
@Greg. I read the article and found it very informative. I can't say I agree or disagree with either. I agree in the sense that Kanzi does not understand grammar and the conclusion of the experiment cannot be taken to mean that Bonobo's can understand language compared to humans.
As for these smart monkeys giving consent. It would depend on the particular meaning of consent. If consent can be implied then I would say that animals can and do give consent. For instance, in the wild if I come across a territory belonging to a wild beast and I do not have "consent" to roam its territory and it is aware of my presence, then you can bet there is a high likely hood I would be attacked by it. After all, I did not have consent to roam its territory much like an unwanted intruder does not have consent to roam my property.
Its a poor example but the thing I've been seeing popping up in a lot of the articles about animals and language smarts is that we ourselves do not completely understand how animals communicate or if they communicate at all. Have researchers tried to decipher bonobo language and learn how they communicate on their terms instead of humans?
Maybe there is more to be said about smart monkey and social intelligence (society) rather than their ability to understand human language. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 10:18:57 PM | Who was that couple in Africa (South African researchers maybe) that brought up a chimp living in their household as a regular family member from birth to seven or eight years IIRC.
Their published findings I recall reading on the web several years ago was that normal human development was approximated from 0-6yrs according to their observations, whereby any further development abruptly halted. But the chimp was always prone to tantrums, during which time it couldn't really be worked with at all for that day. And the findings were inconclusive about whether any cognitive function was being learned, or this was the result of the present influence of the household environment (ie. it would regress immediately if walked outside and left alone, or placed in an unfamiliar social environment).
One of you guys surely knows the case I'm referring to? My memory good on these conclusions? | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 10:25:21 PM | As far as rights issues goes, it would appear most relative to our own sensibilities, how we feel about various species and appropriate treatment for them. We're in the unfortunate position of complete discretion about it until any other species walks up and starts an argument about it.
But I think a fair descriptor of civilisation is ritualistic burial, and in the unlikely event that a species of wild dog begins ritually burying its dead and adorning the graves with morsals of food (a rather unnatural seeming act) and something for which dogs find odour pleasant, say a bit of poo, we should then very seriously consider independent and humanlike legal rights for this species.
Otherwise it really appears up to how we feel about it all, which is going to vary by demographic. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 10:25:33 PM | Okay, I am one to play devil's advocate...  (even though I don't believe in the literal, interpretation of the devil).
He only picks out the two nouns in the sentence and combines then. He doesnt understand grammar.
When someone said booger booger booger ONION booger booger KNIFE, he would still cut the onion with the knife.
My son has broad spectrum autism with expressive/language disorder. He doesn't understand grammar, nor the syntax structure of a sentence, and has a limited vocabulary. His thinking might very well, fall along these lines, within the scope of language. However, he was reading at four, but the expressed comprehension of such was a struggle for him. And yet he started doing complex multiplication in first grade, but hasn't wowed his teachers since. His displays frequent moments of brilliancy, yet are unpredictable and inconsistent.
You could give him this same instruction, and he will only pick the words onion, and a knife, but remember seeing what his mother did with that knife to the onion.
how come these smart monkeys cant give consent?
Can down- syndrome children really give consent? Even when they don't understand the procedure that is being performed on them? Can schizophrenics give consent? Even though they are clearly mentally incapable of making an informed choice? What about multiple personality disorder?
Just some questions... | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 10:46:27 PM | 'greg'..//It shows how Kanzi did this//
Wouldn't the article just theorize on how Kanzi thinks?.. Surely no-one can say for sure what's going on in Kanzis head. You wouldn't claim to know for certain would you?.. I certainly wouldn't.
Anyway... I'm not cherrypicking Greg... What I believe and what I have said is that apes are clever and they display very human qualities in their behaviour.....and I asked the question 'what do you think?' in regards to these close relatives of ours being used as test subjects in experiments.. *shrugged shoulders*.. I haven't claimed that apes use fullstops and questionmarks as they sign out or react to a persons instructions. If that's the way it came across to you then I apologize for not being clear enough.
Instead of 'booger booger salt booger booger basketball'
Is it not acceptable to consider Kanzi registering 'booger booger KANZI booger booger POUR SALT booger booger ONTOP booger booger BASKETBALL'?.... Afterall, he doesn't throw the salt at the basketball or put the salt shaker next to the basketball nor pour the salt next to the basketball.
'greg'..//You didn't address the consent issue. How come these smart monkeys can't give consent?//
Your confusing me with the conversation you struck up with Dukky.
Edit: Don't mind me, the threads interesting ;) | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 11:08:20 PM | HAs anyone watched "Awakenings", or read the book by Oliver sacks? It talks about a group of people who suffered an outbreak of encephalitis lethargica and after a while became catatonic and for the most part immobile. Its a touching movie and one that questions the conscience of man, as the individuals (while catatonic) were not considered to be conscious.
Consciousness redux. What makes a man more conscious than a bacteria. Again the answer seems to lie in complexity. After all "Bees have group decision-making skills that rival academic and corporate committees in efficiency."
Its just too easy to write off animals when they don't seem to possess the capabilities us humans enjoy. Consent in the language of a certain species may have alluded us up until now but it does not give reason that certain species can't consent. Personally I think reaching a conclusion from the complex social interaction of animals is the best way to go. While Greg's test would be very illuminating, it is still measuring the animals from a point of view reserved for humans. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 11:25:24 PM |
Schizopohrenia equates to incompetency to make decisions??
Sometimes an untreated, unmedicated person does. We are talking about consent, and the intelligent reasoning behind it. An untreated mentally ill person, may not be in the right frame of mind to offer an informed consent.
Down-Syndrome equates to incompetency? Only if the IQ is low enough. Many Down's Syndrome patient's are quite smart. Many hold full time jobs. They can certainly give consent. If they are on the lower end of the IQ spectrum, they can not give consent. So a proxy does it for them.
An average Down Syndrome Child will have an IQ score between 70 to 85. Those with autism, and autism spectrum disorders, often test much lower. (I am not including Asbergers here.) So if a child is tested at 67, are they able to provide an informed consent on that alone? Doesn't it depend exclusively on the development of the child, which may or may not have the reasoning skills to say, "Hey, don't stick that needle in me?" But have reasoning skills and discernment that go far beyond some test?
What if your disability prevents you from doing that which the test requires? How does one work around that?
Some gorillas, (sorry, I can't cite my sources...I watch too much National Geographic on the idiot box), use leaves as cups to drink water. I have always thought that what separated man from the "animal" kingdom was the use of imagination, especially with the application of tools, to its fullest potential. Might simians be along the same path, but are a bit slower? Does that automatically make them "dumb"? I , myself, might have a biased opinion, though. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/24/2009 11:36:35 PM |
Its just evolution at its finest, and encoded in the bees genetics. But i love this, because when i first learned of it 15 years ago, its the first time i truly grasped evolution.
Isn't it amazing!  . What I am concerned with is the complexity (consciousness redux, and complex adaptive systems) and its possible applications. But its too complex for my not so complex mind to fathom at the moment. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/25/2009 3:05:39 AM |
By admitting they can't give consent, you are kind of admitting they have a far inferior intelligence, no?
No. I am admitting only that accurate communication cannot take place. The situation would be analogous to that of getting permission from a mute quadraplegic who couldn't even blink in Morse code. You don't know whether or not he can even think, but can't assume that he doesn't. You find yourself in the position of "having" to make decisions regarding his care. Do you have that right? How do you know you are doing what he would want you to do? What gives you the right to make any such decisions that may possibly be in opposition to the free will he cannot express?
I read the study protocol and my job was to pave the way for registration of a drug to treat childhood leukemia. Life is full of choices.
This is what I'm getting at. The presumption is automatic that a human life is worth more than an animal's life. We seldom give it a second thought. How often do we ask ourselves if that presumption is true? What is the criterion or criteria by which we make it, or do we just arrogantly assume human life to be more "valuable" because we are people ourselves? Is that not a specist assumption?
There are only some hundreds of tigers still living in the wild. Occassionally, they will eat people. There are six billion people on the planet. Should the people's lives automatically take precedence? Why? There are plenty of people to eat, and if it is a matter of necessity to the tigers and they face extinction otherwise, should we not give them people to eat? Why would we consider that immoral, when people are still crowding tigers out of their habitat and driving them to extinction in order to provide housing for people? Is that not immoral? Why not? Does the "fact" that people are smarter than tigers take away the tigers' right to life? Why does the presumption that people are so much more valuable than tigers dictate that it is morally preferable to drive them to extinction for our convenience, than to sacrifice some people as food to prevent that? (I'd offer myself as food, but I have a dentist appointment next Wednesday and won't be available for dinner.  )
Very important to know that we are animals and still subject to the same physical needs as any other creature delivered to the present by evolution. One can cry the morality game all one wants but, in the end, you need to eat to live. That involves killing something
You've just said it yourself; we are animals too. Nobody is saying there is no justification for killing of necessity. What has been called into question is just what makes one species more valuable than another. Humans seem to base that value on intelligence. Is that a proper criterion? Why? Says who? Why (for instance) should the criterion not be capability for love? A dog will love you unconditionally, so if we are using that as a criterion of value, a dog's life would be presumably more valuable than a human psychopath who is probably incapable of it. Should we not then have psychopath catchers and psychopath pounds so unowned psychopaths can be neutered & adopted, or destroyed? Why not? What's that ?...We can't own or destroy people?...Why not?...Rights?...If we grant them to psychopaths, why do we not grant them to dogs? | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/25/2009 3:19:10 AM | There are many living creatures who experience emotions we do - fear, adrenaline, contentment etc. But that does not stop people from experimenting on animals nor torturing animals, or abusing animals. There are obviously campaigners trying to stamp this out, but it's a mammoth task.
Humans assume a hierarchy over apes and other living creatures because they are seen to be superior - and have the power to do this to other animals. In truth some animals and mammals are probably more intelligent than some of the human race. But they are at a disadvantage, because humans have the upper hand in society.
Should apes and other intelligent creatures be treated with equal rights and respect as people? Probably. Will they be? Only in the world of idealists. Worth campaigning for but expect a long fight. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/25/2009 3:22:06 AM | I think a fair descriptor of civilisation is ritualistic burial
Why? As an atheist, I place no value on human remains, don't care what is done with the body of a dead loved one and never visit gravesites. Does this mean I'm not civilised? Am I to be denied my rights because of that? Does it mean that elephants who sometimes visit and caress the bones of their dead (and appear to grieve for them) are civilised beings?
that is due to delusions, not due to lack of intelligence.
Then you do assert intelligence (or human-like intelligence?) as the criterion of a life's value, if I read you correctly. Should we then treat people with sufficiently low IQ as animals? Should we be able to experiment (humanely of course) on them for instance? Why or why not?
Its just too easy to write off animals when they don't seem to possess the capabilities us humans enjoy.
Well put exo! You just put my argument in a nutshell.
Worth campaigning for but expect a long fight.
Whether the fight is long or short, or won or lost, if the cause is just, the fight must be fought. This is a just cause. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/25/2009 11:08:35 AM |
In truth some animals and mammals are probably more intelligent than some of the human race.
Another thread descending into the pit of absurdities. Dive...dive!  Why do I start to feel that this issue is like the god issue or any other supernatural/pseudoscience argument in this forum. It is interesting to see one of these issues where posters don't seem to fall on the side that one might expect, considering all the other threads here. Usually the people who argue on one side or the other are the same group. People who tend towards 'magical' thinking as Greg says, seem to do so in virtually every case. Here there are surprises. Fascinating. | |
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| Apes... Do they have emotions and thought processes like our own?
Posted: 8/25/2009 11:46:15 AM |
Why? As an atheist, I place no value on human remains, don't care what is done with the body of a dead loved one and never visit gravesites. Does this mean I'm not civilised? Am I to be denied my rights because of that? Does it mean that elephants who sometimes visit and caress the bones of their dead (and appear to grieve for them) are civilised beings?
Oh excuse me, the context was in relation to my previous post on page #2
some of the palaeoanthropology community (notably US) claim is represented by language development, whilst others (notably British) claim is represented by ritualistic burials (ie. protected graves which include adornments such as flowers and berries).
But yes I believe the sentiment behind the commonalities in schools of reasoning is a personal agenda among the American palaeoanthropologists of cultural/political views regarding explicit separation of the Church and State, ie. an aversion to any semblence of religious argument (there is no issue of religious instruction in Commonwealth schools, Parliament freely subsidises private religious schools and so state schools wind up with independent curriculums free of mainstream religious interest). Though there are exceptions (just these are popular university views, individual opinions will vary).
But the context of civilised behaviour is in response to a post by Greg remarking a view that humanlike intelligence would be to consciously recognise death as loss, the example of hominid ritualistic burial (ie. including otherwise irrational adornments such as foodstuffs and pleasant items), I related of some import in the palaeoanthropological community (as aforementioned in the majority among European universities and minority among American universities) as a descriptor of humanlike civilisation. | |
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