snatchbalance

Ierrellus,

Well, I've been privaledged to know some dogs over the years.

While I can't say that I know what it's like to be a dog, I would have to say that some kind of dog thoughts are going on in there.

Emotions and traits observed:

anger
curiosity
chagrin
overwheming joy
jealosy(not much, harder to detect)

I think many dog owners would agree with me if I said that you can know your dog much better than you can know another person. There's not much guile, or hiding of emotions, and that kind of thing going on.

Have more to say, but ,Have to run.

SB

snatchbalance

I think a dogs olfactory senceis somewhat on par with human vision. I can try to imagine what it's like to be able to detect aromatics in the range of 1part/billion, or something like that. The details available must be amazing.

(How small of an object can humans resolve, acouple of microns? The details are amazing.)

Or, back to dogs, how about being able to smell a bitch in heat from 3 miles away; I've seen it happen. Some dogs will go fucking wild to get the bitch. Is that analogous to how I feel when I see a beautiful woman? Do I know how a dog feels?

I think Wittgenstien would love this. There are no words for any of it.

This is why is there is religion; strong, strong feelings, but the lauguage to describe them dosen't exist.

SB

snatchbalance

Or, dngle a string in front of cat, it reacts. Dose it want to kill the string? No, movement triggers the reaction. It's automatic.

How many of my reactions are automatic? Do I know what it feels liketo be a cat? Does language exist to describe the feeling? Of course not.

You and I are fucking animals, don't forget that.

SB

snatchbalance

Excuse please, but I hve to go howl at the moon now.

SB

Ierrellus

tronvillain,

When I introduced the analogy of a "tree of life", I specified that it had to do with a genetic continuum. The main tree trunk would be the genetic dispositions that favored life of any organism. Your response: "There is no main tree trunk under any reasonable interpretation of the phrase that I can see." Hence, no genetic continuity.

In the older biology books there was a picture of several creatures, walking. The first was humped over, had a large jaw, etc., but you could still tell it had human characteristcics. The next one stood a little straighter and so on until the last was a modern human. This picture showed a developmental scale according to physical structure. In objection to words "higher" and "lower" on the scale you said, " figment of your fevered imagination". And, "Do you wite these things because they sound good?"

I simply placed your denials of these gradual changes at their ultimate logical conclusions.

If the first ever bacterium was sensitive to light and/or touch and these traits helped it survive, the traits would have remained in the gene pool, as they have, and would be modified in other organisms according to the unique survival
needs of each of those organisms.

Am I fantasizing again?

Ierrellus

PAX

[ June 28, 2002: Message edited by: Ierrellus ]</p>

Ierrellus

Nial,

Quote: "If I had told you that I'm thirsty, should you have believed me?"

Yes, and I would fetch you a glass of water. If you poured it out in front of me and grinned, I wouldn't believe you the second time. Washoe, the chimp, had a sense of humor and could have dumped out the water just to get a rise out of me.


Ierrellus,

Pax

Ierrellus

snatchbalance,

My brother and our dog could really harmonize, howling at the full moon. Can we understand dogs? If one licks me in face, I understand he isn't hungry; and if he humps my leg. . .well. .
(edited for a PS}

Napoleon used to write to Josephine and ask her not to bathe for the next few weeks, he would be coming home then.

Ierrellus

PAX

[ June 28, 2002: Message edited by: Ierrellus ]</p>

tronvillain

Ierrellus:
The evolutionary "tree of life" is commonly understood to be a representation of species branching over time, and was the only diagram in <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/cl.dar.html" target="_blank">The Origin of Species</a>. There is a genetic continuum because of common descent, but talk of trunks or branches of genetic information makes no sense within the specified framework.

*chuckle* Except that the words "higher" and "lower" appear nowhere in what I was responding to:
There simply is no such thing as "the evolutionary scale" - as far as I can tell, it exists only within your imagination. Oh, you are free to arbitrarily define a scale based on intelligence or complexity or resemblance to modern humans, but there would be no justification for calling it "the evolutionary scale." Also, as I have mentioned before, simply being higher on any of those scales does not imply an understanding of those lower on the scale.

You know, you never really responded to my point about the processing that likely goes on in a bat's brain that humans are probably completely incapable of doing. Where a bat would extract meaningful information, humans would probably just hear noise.

snatchbalance

Tron,

This brings a couple of thoughts to mind:

1. Of course, humas do do not have the organic "equipment" to send or recieve the type of sonic signals required for "sonic mapping", so to speak. But it's kind of funto imagine what it would be like. Send out sound waves, recieve the reflections, translate them into a "picture" of one's surounding. What would it look like?

2. Through some pretty simple electronics, we can do just that. Sonar mapping is fairly common. We can "see" the sea floor on our CRT's. I guess that a bat can pick out more detail than we can.

SB

Laurentius

AVE


This question reminds me of the this type of dialog one can sometimes hear in soap operas or the kind:

Some character has experienced a "tragedy" and looks sullen. The protagonist makes an attempt to comfort her.
HE: {Concerned.}Look, Jane. I think you should stop avoiding people, and especially your friends. What happened to you is a terrible thing... I know what it is like...
SHE: {Offended.} No, you don't, Tom. (Accusingly.)You don't have slightest idea what it's like. (And leaves full of indignation and bitterness.)

The implication, which I've always found exaggerated, is that Tom could never know what it is like to be in her place because HER suffering caused by HER "tragedy" can be accurately felt only by HERSELF. The others don't have a clue how exactly it feels. It is an exaggeration, in my opinion, because people have, roughly speaking, equivalent sensorial, emotional and intellectual perceptions and responses, and Tom, using a simple analogy, could imagine how Jane must be feeling.

But could Tom imagine how a bat chased by a predator really feels? The analogy he should use in order to imagine that would need a greater effort and might result in real distortion.
And then, could Tom imagine how a cockroach running for its life really feels? I think the jump required by the analogy would be too high. (In fact I wonder if Tom would really want to imagine that, I know I wouldn't.) I've just heard that the survival instinct of cockroaches is so strong that they can mate and bear lots of offspring even in the middle of a fire. Can Tom imagine what that is like?

It is not a mere matter of the intellect. If I recall it correctly, bees, for instance, are not able to see certain colors we can, while it can perceive others, which we aren't able to see. Intellectually Tom could try to imagine what that is like, but I think that, sensorially speaking, he won't have the slightest idea about how it really feels.

AVE