lpetrich

Most of the animal kingdom also manifests little, if any, evidence of consciousness, so most animals thus do not have minds.

How to detect consciousness from the outside is a difficult question; perhaps a key would be evidence of having some theory of self, such as the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror.

There are a few nonhuman species with that capability, like chimpanzees, orangutans, dolphins, and perhaps elephants. But chimps acquire that ability in their adolescence, while human children acquire that ability at about 2 years of age.

Most other species fail to develop that capability, despite the abundance of encouragement that some researchers have provided. There was once an experiment in raising a rhesus monkey in a place with mirrors in it; while the monkey could grasp the workings of mirrors, it could not recognize itself.

Doubting Didymus

Again I disagree. Your mirror proposal is a test of intelligence, not of conciousness.

Baboons, for example, never ever manifest the ability to recognise themselves in mirrors, but they are clearly concious creatures.

lpetrich

How does one come to that conclusion?

lpetrich

No, I was ranking other species by degree of similarity to our species, extending some of your earlier comments.

wade-w

Deifintion: A change in gene frequencies in a population over time.

Is that concise enough?

GeoTheo

Actually I heard they don't posess a sense of self. This is evidenced by the fact that mothers may drown their young while crossing rivers. The baby clings to the belly. The mother is not aware that it cannot breathe because she can breath.
Little human children who haven't fully developed a sense of self use similar logic. They somtimes think no one can see them when they hide their eyes.

As far as your other point. There is no reason to believe the image of God is contianed in the DNA we share with chimps. I am not at all making a divergence with Christian theology by saying the image of God is in our mind, will and emotions.
I would assume we could in a sense reduce this to naturalistic biological causes. But that does not take away from the fact that we are still unique and very distinct from chimps. I think the desire to bring chimps into the human family stems from a longing to fellowship with other personal beings.
Christians satisfy this longing by worshipping God, who we believe to be a personal being posessing a mind will and emotions like we do.
Others seek to communicate with the dead or with alien beings. We all see to share a longing for some way of knowing we are not all alone in the world.

Oolon Colluphid

So, to quote Mad Kally: God is Santa for adults.

Erm... why not?

Cheers, Oolon

GeoTheo

I open myself up for being mocked like that I guess. I claim to believe in God and you don't. So I have no similar way of mocking you. I do find it interesting that when I got over my belif in Santa at age three, I didn't spend the rest of my life seeking reassurance from other disbelievers in Santa that I am correct in my assumption. Did you?

DMB

GeoTheo: if that last post is aimed at members of this forum in general, I think you misunderstand what we get out of IIDB.

GeoTheo

prove it.