Subject:
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Are humans animals? Are humans MORE than animals?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 31 Jul 2000 21:43:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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188 times
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Yes, Yes...
That hunting/eating/cockfighting thread is huge and hard to navigate.
However Dave Schuler said this:
" If you can produce an animal that generally demonstrates free will, I won't
eat it. "
which I think is the crux. I've been watching for a while and I sense some
thrashing and some hostility. Play nice, people!
My two cents at this point.
Humans are animals. But many (not all, and not all the time) members of the
human species are more than just animals, they transcend animalness. That's
why it's not OK to eat them unless they're consenting to the matter.
What that transcendence is, is debatable. Christians will say it's the soul. I
say its the ability to reason and to exhibit free will (with the implications
of being able to manipulate the environment instead of reacting to it.) since
I don't hold with the existence of a soul.
I don't eat dolphins because I suspect they're exhibiting sentience and free
will. I might be wrong but I don't want to risk it. If aliens come in space
ships I won't eat them either (but I might, with their permission, eat their
food animals...).
I am starting to have second thoughts about pigs from what I hear but I am
pretty safe eating cows and chickens as far as I am concerned. They are
SToopid.
Deer? Deer are just big rats and I have no qualms about eating them either. I
just don't like the way they taste very much. But certain deer had better stay
out of my lilies or there WILL be deer on the menu.
To me animalness means reacting to stimuli based on programming. That's what
deer do. I think you can very well explain why they eat apples instead of
poison ivy, they are programmed to eat good things and programmed with a
threat/benefit evaluation mechanism to decide that when it's guarded by wolves
it's a bad bet.
Transcending animalness means breaking out of the programming and becoming
self actualized. We got lucky somehow and we did. I think it's because of
connections in our brain and the density of them, and the number extra beyond
what is needed to handle autonomous and instinctive stuff... I fondly believe
that if we can reproduce the connection density/count we might get lucky and
get a self aware computer. Wishful thinking, no proof for it, but fun to
speculate about.
Note that you can connect my stance on eating dolphins and my stance on
abortion quite easily. I don't support abortion after the first trimester
except in "choose the mother or the child, you can't have both" situations,
because I think there's a chance that a 4 month old fetus is exhibiting free
will (I think the line REALLY is more around 5 or 6, but I want to be safe).
In those "choose" situations I tend to choose the mother unless the mother
herself chooses the fetus, although getting into whether a fetus is worth more
than a mother is a bad place to go discussion wise.
++Lar
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