Corwin

E. Laugh at your ingenuity and give you a ticket anyway.

ohwilleke

Did you kill your dog? Is it in a coma? If not, I would say it is conscious.

Corwin

Let's also consider differences in TYPES of intelligence, rather than just 'power.'

If you could somehow increase a dog's intelligence, (through genetic engineering or some such...) it still wouldn't think like a human. Give it an IQ of 150 and it would still think like a dog, not a human. (Pack orientation instead of typical primate social interaction, lack of emotional maturity... we've tinkered with dogs a LOT...)

ohwilleke

Dogs are property, not persons, under the law (trick question on many law school exams). Dogs are also often a deadly weapon. You, therefore, have a deadly weapon on the passanger seat next to you and have admitted that it is not restrained. The officer is therefore threatened. Thus, the officer can shoot you. And, anytime a cop can shoot, he should. Right?

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: ohwilleke ]</p>

phaedrus

I dont the scientists/philosophers have forgotten the animals in their efforts to know what is to "know" Here are few links on the subject, first one is more generic in nature from pbs

<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/animalmind/" target="_blank">Inside the animal mind</a>

These two articles are from an old debate in Scientific American

<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/1998/1198intelligence/1198povinelli.html" target="_blank">Can Animals Empathize? - Maybe Not</a>

<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/1998/1198intelligence/1198gallup.html" target="_blank">Can Animals Empathize? - Yes</a>

This one sort of encapsulates the whole debate

<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/" target="_blank">Animal Consciousness</a>

Ofcourse there was that debate about Krishnamurti's Dog at Tuscon -

99Percent

Krishnamurti commented once that for the duration of an hour's walk not a single thought entered his mind -- this raises for us the problem of his dog, for whom we can assume the same state for the period of their walk. What then is the difference in consciousness between these two beings?

The difference is that Krishnamurti did in fact realize that not a single thought entered his mind, where as the dog is not even aware of its own lack of thoughts, even much less so of Krishnamurti's.

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: 99Percent ]</p>

phaedrus

How exactly do you know the state and characterstic of the dog's consciousness? Heard about Nagel's statement regarding the bats and us?

Marduk

"The difference is that Krishnamurti did in fact realize that not a single thought entered his mind, where as
the dog is not even aware of its own lack of thoughts, even much less so of Krishnamurti's"

and you know this how? Your'e not related to the "Animal Mind Reader" on TV are you?
Other than degree the only difference is that humans think verbally and dogs don't, like Helen Keller before she learned to sign.
It's easy to tell when a dog is thinking, mine will be taking a nap on the couch, suddenly get up, walk to the dining room and sort over his pile of bones, pick one, and start munching.
His thoughts "enough napping, time to play with the 'bone yard'.

Francois Tremblay

I think the source of confusion is between "X is conscious" and "X is volitional". That dogs are very unvolitional does not imply that they are not conscious. Those are two unrelated questions (except of course that one is dependant on the other).

ksagnostic

[quote]Originally posted by Corey Hammer:
<strong>No, extremely few. Nearly all people obtain the full range of object permanence (and other hallmarks) and are able to move beyond sensorimotor constructs into linguistic constructs. Only the extremely impaired fail to do so.</strong>[QUOTE}

Well, yes and no. True, the vast majority of people with developmental disabilities move beyond the sensorimotor stages. However, there are a fair number of people with profound developmental disabilities, and that number is increasing (mainly because of improved survival rates during early infancy). People with profound developmental disabilities, still have human brains, and are raised by humans in human environments. They will have the long developmental period of other human beings. However, profound developmental disabilities are due to substantial structural and functional abnormalities in the brain, that generally result in sensory and attentional irregularities. In other words, a person might be capable of learning language and concrete operations better than s/he does, but recurrent seizures, cortical blindness, or inability to regulate attention get in the way. Which is why structured early intervention is critical. I know, a little off topic. Off soapbox.

Don't think I can agree with you on that one. Dolphins (Louis Herman) and sea lions (Ronald Schusterman) have learned semantic symbolic gestures embedded in a simple grammar, and they probably don't have a Wernicke's or Broca's area either. Certainly, Irene Pepperberg's African Grey Parrots, particularly Alex, have learned to understand and reply to spoken words, and and simple semantic relationships, and they aren't even using their cerebral cortexes. On a more anectodoctal note, among the last three dogs we've had, I noticed that the dog we raised from puppyhood unambigiously seemed to understand the names of everyone in the family, and would get excited upon hearing us say the word "walk" regardless of the context during which we said it (and this started when she was a puppy, and she had gone for no more than two walks. On the other hand, the other two dogs, who we adopted young but still as adults (well, one was a pregnant eight month old), need to be trained to learn commands (and one of them is quite intelligent operationally, when Fred Harrington found a substantial difference between dogs and wolves in the ability to operate food puzzle boxes, this dog would have performed with the wolves). Dogs certainly demonstrate the hallmarks of intentional communication, particularly dual focus. What goes on in their heads as they do so, I don't pretend to know.

I wouldn't say I know either, but I think it is more than simple stimulus-response set. Dogs appear to be actively looking for the relevant precursors to those stimuli that are important to them, and that includes closely watching our behavior. Dogs, functionally, are outstanding non-verbal communicators in their interactions with humans. To what degree they are aware that they are doing, I don't know, but I think it is an interesting question.