pz

Except that every species is terribly effective at obtaining the things that it values. The ones that aren't are extinct.
Again, you are imposing human values on other organisms. I suspect that wolves would not want to be that fast if it required climbing into a big metal box, or worse, building the technological infrastructure necessary to build the big metal box. Likewise, sheep might think that climbing into an even bigger, bulkier metal box destroys the thrill and the point of a sexual competition.

GeoTheo

I doubt animals have values or make value judgements. They go from perception to perception.
It is very easy to anthropomorphize because are reasoning skills are so taken for granted.
I remain unconvinced that animals can make any kind of comparison about anything. This is very high order thinking. We are debating basically subjective vs. the objective. No animal has any concpt of this topic. Wolves know they must hunt. that's it. I doubt they have a way of rating themselves, because that involves stepping outside oneself.

Undercurrent

Are you suggesting that since a lion loses some substantial percentage of its offspring that it wouldn't value* a lower infant mortality rate? We used to be in the lion's position and had the same value. Nowadays (at least in the western world) we do have a much lower infant mortality rate, as a result of medicine, clean water, &c. In the same period, the IM rate for the lion stayed the same.

Low infant mortality is something that both we and the lion value. We're just better at attaining it, thanks to our technology, and thus, our intelligence.

m.

* As GeoTheo points out, you start to strain assumptions when you refer to animals as having "values". I don't think that it is too much of a stretch to say that at least a mother lioness experiences something homologous to "sadness" when one of its infants dies, and in that sense, would value not having infants die.

pz

Like I said, a species that is ineffective at obtaining something that it values, such as achieving a satisfactory replacement rate in its population, goes extinct.

Even among humans, babies still die. Does every dead baby mean we are ineffective at obtaining things we value?

Does the inescapable fact that our species will someday be extinct mean that we must be failures?

ksagnostic

I'll let Dr. S speak for Koko and the late Michael, but sure, there is plenty of evidence that non-human animals show conceptual intelligence.

Mathematics

Chimpanzees:
Boysen ST, Berntson GG, Shreyer TA, Hannan MB (1995).Indicating acts during counting by a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 109, 47-51

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=770506 0&dopt=Abstract" target="_blank">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=770506 0&dopt=Ab stract</a>

Orangutans:
Shumaker RW, Palkovich AM, Beck BB, Guagnano GA, Morowitz H (2001).Spontaneous use of magnitude discrimination and ordination by the orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115, 385-91.

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=118249 01&dopt=Abstract" target="_blank">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=118249 01&dopt= Abstract</a>

"Language"
Savage-Rumbaugh, S and Lewin, R (1994). KANZI: THE APE AT THE BRINK OF THE HUMAN MIND. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Pepperberg, I (1999). THE ALEX STUDIES: COGNITIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF GREY PARROTS. Harvard University Press.

The above is just the beginning. Language projects have been done, and success has been claimed, with every species of great ape. Insightful learning has been observed in chimpanzees since the teens and twenties (the pioneering work of Wolfgang Kohler and Nadia Kohts). Zookeepers have to be on guard for insightful learning all the time (especially with orangutans).

As for self awareness, I myself have seen orangutans easily pass the Gallup test (the mirror test first made famous with chimpanzees). We were the study site for Ethel Tobach's self recognition study with orangutans.

Recent neurological evidence is pointing to the conclusion that great apes are different in degree, rather than in kind, from us.

Plus, my own personal experience with great apes certainly has suggested to me, even on a subjective basis, that they are quite aware of themselves and others.

[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]</p>

Undercurrent

But the lions do have a satisfactory replacement rate. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't prefer
to have a lower infant mortality rate.

Yes. We are not perfectly effective that obtaining things that we value. We are still quite a bit more effective than the lion, though. Both us and the lion would like out IM rates to be zero. Both us and the lion fall short of that goal. We, however, are a lot closer to it than they are.

1) I contest that this "fact" is not inescapable.
2) Is the immortality of our species something that we, as a species, value?

m.

ksagnostic

Then you haven't looked in the right places. Sure, we may not be talking about philosophical comparisons, but the ability of some nonhumans to make comparisons has been so well documented that the debate is essentially over. I particularly recommend the works of Irene Pepperberg with African Grey Parrots (particularly Alex) and Sarah Boysen with chimpanzees.

pz

Get used to it. Like your own personal mortality, the eventual death of our species is inevitable, and I would argue, desirable. The alternative is stagnation. Life is a process of change, not stasis, and death is part of it.
If it is, then it is something we don't have and can't achieve.

Personally, I don't value it.

Doubting Didymus

I think a good analogy would be wings. Possibly you could compare the difference in 'kind' between human and chimp thoughts to the difference in 'kind' between dinosaur proto wings used for gliding and breif, flapping jumps and modern albatross wings, able to soar at high altitudes for extended timespans.

Certainly, if both specimens were alive today, we might consider the difference in flight ability to be differences in 'kind'. One can traverse continents, while the other flaps around vigorously just to get off the ground for a minute.

I think this is a good analogy for chimp and human brains. One comes close to comprehending space and time themselves, while the other can only be considered rudimentary by comparison.

Nonetheless, as archeoraptor ascends into albatross, so chimplikle brains may ascend into humanlike brains.

Undercurrent

Is there some reason why we couldn't send ourselves off into space, populate this entire galaxy and others, and be sitting pretty until the heat death of the universe? I've heard people assert that all species have life spans and eventually we'll be gone before, and certainly it is possible that we will all go extinct, but I've never heard any reason why it should be inescapable.

(Of course, I don't see any reason why individual personal immortality is unattainable with approprate technology either.)

As for the stagnation bit, I know several people who would be completely happy with stagnation. We're not all conquerers and explorers.

m.