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We wouldn't listen, anyway. (mander.xyz)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (15 children)

Well, curiosity comes in different stripes. Investigating your environment is one thing. Asking second-order questions is another.

“May I have food?” vs “Why am I here?” and “What is the nature of consciousness?”

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago* (4 children)

    "Why are we here?"

    "One of life's great mysteries isn't it? Why are we here? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence? Or is there really a God, watching everything? You know, with a plan for us and stuff? I don't know man, but it keeps me up at night."

    "What? I mean why are we here, in this box canyon in the middle of nowhere?"

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    if you wake up in a compound, catered to your every need by weird alien captors, “why am I here?” is a pretty obvious question.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    You ask the aliens why you are there, meaning the cell they imprisoned you, and they tell you how their species created humans and what humans purpose is. You immediately go catatonic by the revelation.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    They already understand the second order questions though. Why would they ask the humans?

    They know what's outside their enclosures, they know they're there because the humans want them there, they know strange humans like to see and interact with them through the glass. They just don't care, so long as they have their tribe around with things to do and they get tasty food

    Animals understand existence better than humans do. They understand life and death better than we to. Our higher intelligence makes second order questions complicated because we put ourselves through mental gymnastics

    We should be asking apes about the meaning of life, not the other way around

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (8 children)

    Second-order questions aren’t just the prosaic things any intelligent creature would ask, such as “why am I here?” or “what do you want from me?”

    but also the more esoteric, “what sort of creature are you?” And “what sort of creature am I?”

    Animals (and, indeed, most humans) don’t ask (or don’t really understand) second-order questions very well because that requires abstraction, which is the sort of reasoning that takes enormous amounts of education and curiosity.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (7 children)

    but also the more esoteric, “what sort of creature are you?” And “what sort of creature am I?”

    I agree, but that is the kind of question they do think about. Koko was "a wonderful gorilla person" in her own words

    There's a dog that uses one of those word button mats that thinks small dogs are cats, dogs are dogs, and that she's a human (or that her owner is also a dog, she's convinced she's the same as her owner and always gets confused when it's explained otherwise)

    They don't ask, because they already know what they think. They aren't confused about where they stand in the world, it's learning human categorization that confuses them

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

    I don't want to conflate the pragmatic use of tools or manipulation of the environment with questions about the meaning of life. Even most humans can’t do the latter. We have a lot of depressing research showing that most people can barely engage in abstract reasoning at all, let alone effectively.

    I think nearly every sentient creature can be depressed and understand how badly life is going. But that’s different.

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  • [–] -2 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    I don't think that's different, I think that's very related to the topic at hand

    And yeah, that's all true. All living things can suffer, down to single cells

    The real question here is where is the line between us and other animals. And I think you're almost there - you're on the verge of recognizing there is none, or maybe of internalizing that realization

    Most animals don't often think about the meaning of life, just like most humans. They don't think to ask us either, because we're honestly a pretty foolish species. We're powerful and intelligent, but not wise

    An orca, elephant, or corvid is probably the wisest being on earth right now. Possibly even a whole forest

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

    Elephants are wise in that they’re concerned with (some of) the things that matter most — social bonds and creature comforts. But, as far as we know, they can’t scrutinize these concerns in abstraction, or reflect on the nature of wisdom or the metanormative conditions of their own experience.

    We can do that — due to some freak accident of evolution that probably has to do with the recursivity of language and the self-referential nature of subjective experience. And again, when I say “we,” I mean some humans sometimes. Many “wise” humans are just like the elephants.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    What are you even saying? What evidence do you have?

    That sounds like a bunch of unfounded nonsense to me.

    Elephants seem to clearly understand life and death, cause and effect, who fucked them over and where they ran off to

    I'd bet the average elephant has a better grasp on the meaning of life than the average human

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  • [+] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    But that's exactly what I'm saying. There are elephants out there contemplating morality. Even dogs do it, even if it's massively based on the rules we impose on them

    Not math though. Math exists in the minds of humans, it doesn't even exist in the universe. There is no two of anything, there's one object and another similar object

    What does exist are ratios and harmonics, and animals have no problem understanding them

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)

    Math exists in the minds of humans, [not animals].

    This is incorrect. Every animal we’ve ever researched, including insects like bees, can do arithmetic.

    Anyway, not a single one of the examples you’ve given involves second-order reasoning. These are all prosaic interactions with the environment, which is how most animas (yes, including dumb humans) experience the world.

    First-order reasoning: “What is moral?” Second-order reasoning: “Do moral beliefs constitute knowledge claims?”

    First-order reasoning: “One plus one is two.” Second-order reasoning: “number theory is either inconsistent or incomplete.”

    First-order reasoning: “What does this word mean?” Second-order reasoning: “How do words connect with their meanings?”

    The examples I gave you are extreme, but to be fair so is your confusion.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago

    I believe that orcas are out there having philosophical debates and singing stories of their history and mythology that dates back even further than our own. I don't think they're doing math proofs, but if they are I'd be curious what base they use

    All the cutting edge science suggests we're not special. We are not different in kind from animals

    Since science became a thing, we've been drawing lines between us and animals since we could no longer gesture to the soul. We've progressively disproven every single one. I've had this debate over various lines so many times

    It's human arrogance

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