Programmer said:
I don't *know*, but I consider the idea far fetched in the extreme.
No doubt they consider the idea of your being able to do higher math equally
far fetched. They know they're right. How will you prove it to them, since
you are ignorant of their rather intricate symbology?
Until I see clear evidence cows have any sense of mathematics, let
alone higher math, I'll bet the obvious.
The obvious is that you don't know either way.
Yes I do. I assume any intelligence desires to communicate.
I see no reason to make that assumption. Just because humans are chatty,
that doesn't mean that all intelligent creatures are chatty. Nor does it
mean that humans are intelligent, by the way.
An appearance on Letterman, at the very least.
And how would that benefit the animal?
All seriousness aside, I think it would change the course of
human history.
Sure, with possibly catastrophic effects on the relevant species, whatever
it might be. An intelligent species might be able to predict this, and stay
the hell away in the first place.
Some perhaps, but clearly there are people with a strong desire
that animals are sentient, so I have to assume the message would
get through eventually (if not, in fact, instantly, which is my
guess).
Only if the animal wishes to communicate. My point is that this would be
against the animal's best interests.
Surely you jest? Miss the opportunity to become one of the most
famous people on earth? The tv rights alone would set you up for
life.
There's a great cartoon about a singing frog. Warner Brothers, I think. This
guy discovers a singing frog in a box. The frog does the whole
top-hat-and-wand song-and-dance routine, and has a remarkably fine singing
voice. Excited at the prospect of fame, the guy takes the frog to a
theatrical agent, where the frog just sits there going "ribbit". Whenever
the guy is alone, the frog will perform, but /only/ when the guy is alone.
My point? Simple really - don't make the mistake of thinking that an animal
that made the mistake of communicating with a human would be obliged to
repeat that mistake.
Again, I disagree completely. If I walked into any animal research
facility with a talking dog, once it were established the dog does
in fact talk, *history* would be made.
Not if the dog doesn't want to talk. And, if it is truly intelligent, it
won't say a word, even if it has the vocabulary and linguistic skill of
Shakespeare himself.
Very possibly, but the whole scenario makes a silly assumption:
that no animals are intelligent until one suddenly becomes
intelligent, looks around, figures out the ramifications of
revealing intelligence and decides to tell no one.
No, it doesn't make any such assumption. It certainly doesn't make the
assumption that no animals are intelligent. Rather, it attempts to
demonstrate that, if some animals are intelligent *and* capable of
communicating that intelligence to human beings, evolution could easily
have selected against those that chose to succumb to that temptation. In
other words, if you're stupid enough to talk to people, you don't live long
enough to breed.
Richard, I think you've got old Occam spinning like a dervish in
his grave! (-:
On the contrary. I'm making no assumptions whatsoever. You are making the
fundamental assumption that, if animals were intelligent, they would
attempt to communicate with us in such a way that we could understand.
Note that this is a self-defeating assumption, since mankind has made very
few genuine attempts, and possibly no successful attempts, to communicate
with animals in such a way that /they/ could understand. Therefore, if
using your arguments, an intelligent animal would have to deduce that
humans are not intelligent.
Consider: if *an* animal is intelligent, and if this is "normal",
then doesn't this require that many animals be intelligent?
Yes.
And
what is the likelyhood of them *all* deciding to play mum?
High. After all, have you heard from any? No? Well, then. (This is your own
argument, played back against you.)
What
is the likelyhood that *none* of them get the message through?
High. For a start, they might be too bright to try. Secondly, we're not
really listening terribly seriously. Thirdly, we don't actually know their
language (if they have a language).
What is the likelyhood that *all* of them fool *all* of us *all*
the time (and there is a *saying* about THAT idea!).
I think that, if some animals are intelligent, the vast majority of those
animals fool the vast majority of us the vast majority of the time, and
that's enough.
But you provide no sensible reason for this silence.
Oh, come on. Look at the problems:
1) Self-preservation. Any animal successfully communicating with us would
become an instant research project, almost certainly resulting in the loss
of liberty and, perhaps, the eventual death-in-captivity of the animal. Bit
of a downer.
2) Apathy. We don't speak KomodoDragonese or DuckBilledPlatypian, and nobody
seems to be making any serious attempts to learn those languages. If we
can't be bothered to communicate with animals, what makes you think they're
bothered about communicating with us?
3) Cultural differences. We place a high value on communication because
we're good at communicating. Perhaps an intelligent animal might have a
very different set of values. For example, it might consider our fetish for
communication to be a sign of /non/-intelligence. ("For heaven's sake,
mankind, how can you sneak up on an antelope if you're yapping all the
time?")
That would suggest they needs be *much* more intelligent than us,
since it's manifest that humans can't keep a secret.
Well, being much more intelligent than humans wouldn't be hard, I'm afraid.
What are
the chances this intelligence was able to evolve and surpass us
without our noticing it?
High. Humans not only can't keep secrets, but also are very unwilling to
notice anything that they weren't expecting to notice or don't want to
notice. For example, most of us refuse to believe that we are governed by
self-serving idiots, because to believe that would be to understand that we
were pretty dumb for putting them in charge, and nobody likes to think of
themselves as dumb. In the same way, we rather like being the only
intelligent species on the planet, and we'd really rather not share the
honour. Of course, you can find quite a few humans with more intellectual
honesty than that, but they are surprisingly rare.
Actually, some scientists are quite concerned about our seas.
Oh, I know. I'm not saying we can't do it. I'm just saying it's taking
longer than usual.
But in any event, what are you suggesting here? That a species
*decided* to return to the sea? Or *decided* to never leave it?
Perhaps the latter. Perhaps, even, the former.
Pretty neat trick--deciding to evolve in a given direction!
Humans do this already.
Agreed. But the odds and the evidence suggest there isn't.
I must disagree here. The odds are not capable of calculation because we
lack data. As for evidence, I think it's trivial to interpret the
observable facts as evidence for, or evidence against, the intelligence of
animals, depending on what we wish to believe.
Also agreed, but to imagine small chances into larger probabilities
is wishful thinking at best.
Whoever said anything about small chances? As for wishful thinking, I don't
recall claiming that I want to show that animals are intelligent. In fact,
I hope for their sake that they are not, in a way. I'm just trying to show
that the arguments presented so far against the idea are not even remotely
compelling.
A favorite contemporary SF author, David Brin, wrote a collection
of essays and SF shorts, called OTHERNESS. His theme is the
tendency in Western thought to bend over backwards to accommodate
off-beat "It could be true, you never know" ideas.
A big part of his point is that, yes you often can't know for
sure, but action requires picking a position until that position
is shown to be wrong somehow.
Yes, that's fair enough, but you should not then consider the fact of
picking a position to constitute evidence that the correct position was
picked!
Until someone demonstrates more than wishful thinking about cows
doing higher math or entire species conspiring to conceal themselves
from us--admittedly we being in a position to do great harm to them,
but also being in a position to provide great help--I'm going to go
with what *appears* now to be real.
Until someone demonstrates more than wishful thinking about animals being
mere automata put here for no other reason than to give us something to
prod and poke at, I'm going to go with what appears now to be real. I've
seen alertness, curiosity, playfulness, and even mischief in animal
behaviour; it seems very clear to me that animals are self-aware,
intelligent to at least some degree, and very definitely conscious. Prove
that they aren't, and I'll cheerfully acquiesce. So far, you have advanced
no proof, so I have to go with what seems self-evident.
.