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08/10/2006 10:45:48 AM · #601 |
| Yes, but not the only "animal" that knows when someone is displeased with their actions. |
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08/10/2006 10:50:20 AM · #602 |
So only humans can express guilt or shame, but my example of dogs is weak either because they're not WILD animals, or because the apparent guilty behavior is the result of human influence or my own misinterpretation of the behavior? Interesting. Let's tackle those...
1. Wild or not, a dog ain't human, so that should be a non-issue when we're discussing which creatures have the ability to express guilt.
2. It's true that a dog may not understand that peeing on the floor is bad until he learns it from others, but neither does a toddler show remorse for a wet diaper or hurting a playmate until he learns that behavior, so I don't see any difference as far as human influence goes.
3. Isn't guilt a product of knowing you've done something wrong? Of course there's a fear of punishment! See number 2 above... if a kid doesn't learn that stealing is bad and leads to punishment, then why would he feel guilty for doing it?
Your charges of anthropomorphism are essentially what I alluded to earlier in this thread: non-scientisits dismiss any evidence that contradicts their commonly accepted view as flawed. Jane Goodall once wrote, "When, in the early 1960s, I brazenly used such words as 'childhood,' 'adolescence,' 'motivation,' 'excitement,' and 'mood,' I was much criticized. Even worse was my crime of suggesting that chimpanzees had 'personalities.' I was ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman animals and was thus guilty of that worst of ethological sins--anthropomorphism." If you really think that only humans are capable of expressing higher emotion, try reading THIS!
Message edited by author 2006-08-10 11:16:08. |
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08/10/2006 11:15:48 AM · #603 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I believe that atheists do have standards and ethics, but they are ultimately based on nothing more than "what I feel" (no matter how many layers of complexity lie in between). |
(For the purposes of this discussion Iâll use the Trinitarian Christian âGodâ.)
I think you fall into the same quandary by appealing your morality to an external God. Is ârightâ ârightâ because it is declared ârightâ by God or does ârightâ exist independently of God? If ârightâ is dependent upon God, doesnât ârightâ become arbitrary in relation to God? For instance, when God commands the Israelites to kill the Amorites (men, women, children and their cattle, keeping the virgin women for themselves - if I'm wrong on the details, I hope someone will correct me) does killing Amorites become ârightâ? Is this ârightâ a universal ârightâ (existing at all times in all placed) or is it an ad hoc ârightâ (for a specific place and a specific time)? If killing Amorites is ârightâ in some circumstances and âwrongâ in others, doesnât the definition of ârightâ in relation to God become arbitrary dependent upon the whims of God?
If ârightâ is independent of God, then a person can behave ârightlyâ independently of God. If ârightâ is dependent upon God, then ârightâ is relative to God and can be used to justify killing children such as when God ordered the Israelites to killing the children of the Amorites.
Is killing Amorite children âwrongâ or ârightâ?
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08/10/2006 11:24:26 AM · #604 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Is killing Amorite children âwrongâ or ârightâ? |
Add in slavery, stoning people to death, and a number of other activities given a hearty thumbs up in the Bible, but considered evil now. Current Christian standards and ethics are thus based on what exactly? |
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08/10/2006 11:37:57 AM · #605 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
So only humans can express guilt or shame, but my example of dogs is weak either because they're not WILD animals, or because the apparent guilty behavior is the result of human influence or my own misinterpretation of the behavior? Interesting. Let's tackle those...
1. Wild or not, a dog ain't human, so that should be a non-issue when we're discussing which creatures have the ability to express guilt.
2. It's true that a dog may not understand that peeing on the floor is bad until he learns it from others, but neither does a toddler show remorse for a wet diaper or hurting a playmate until he learns that behavior, so I don't see any difference as far as human influence goes.
3. Isn't guilt a product of knowing you've done something wrong? Of course there's a fear of punishment! See number 2 above... if a kid doesn't learn that stealing is bad and leads to punishment, then why would he feel guilty for doing it?
Your charges of anthropomorphism are essentially what I alluded to earlier in this thread: non-scientisits dismiss any evidence that contradicts their commonly accepted view as flawed. Jane Goodall once wrote, "When, in the early 1960s, I brazenly used such words as 'childhood,' 'adolescence,' 'motivation,' 'excitement,' and 'mood,' I was much criticized. Even worse was my crime of suggesting that chimpanzees had 'personalities.' I was ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman animals and was thus guilty of that worst of ethological sins--anthropomorphism." If you really think that only humans are capable of expressing higher emotion, try reading THIS! |
Fascinating. Now to the second question I posed. You assert that animals share these same feelings of guilt/remorse/shame - why? What purpose do they serve and why would animals have evolved these feelings?
On a tangent - anthromorphism is the religion of science. Plenty of non-testable assertions about the supposed emotional state of mind of a beast. |
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08/10/2006 12:05:37 PM · #606 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
You assert that animals share these same feelings of guilt/remorse/shame - why? What purpose do they serve and why would animals have evolved these feelings? |
I thought I already covered that already. In order for group living to have a survival advantage, social animals would have to "know" what's good or bad for the group, thus we see things like the honeybee examples I posted. Guilt, regret, etc. are natural byproducts of knowing the difference between right and wrong, and tend to reinforce behavior that's good for the group and discourage behavior that's bad. Any animal capable of making a decision should be capable of making a bad decision, and if you feel guilty for making a bad choice, you're not as likely to repeat it. Conversely, if a social animal didn't feel bad for making the wrong decision, then they're more likely to repeat the behavior and the group suffers. Simple. |
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08/10/2006 12:11:15 PM · #607 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by routerguy666:
You assert that animals share these same feelings of guilt/remorse/shame - why? What purpose do they serve and why would animals have evolved these feelings? |
I thought I already covered that already. In order for group living to have a survival advantage, social animals would have to "know" what's good or bad for the group, thus we see things like the honeybee examples I posted. Guilt, regret, etc. are natural byproducts of knowing the difference between right and wrong, and tend to reinforce behavior that's good for the group and discourage behavior that's bad. Any animal capable of making a decision should be capable of making a bad decision, and if you feel guilty for making a bad choice, you're not as likely to repeat it. Conversely, if a social animal didn't feel bad for making the wrong decision, then they're more likely to repeat the behavior and the group suffers. Simple. |
No sense of morality is required for behavior to be driven by what is good for the group or bad for the group. A honeybee fans its wings to keep the hive cool so that the hive does not perish. That is a survival motive. Same with pack hunting, same with culling out the weak members of a herd. None of these actions take place due to the good or evil nature of those actions. Yet humans are capable of behaving with a sense of morality being the SOLE motivator behind their decisions.
This again begs the question, if animals have feelings of guilt/shame/remorse - which are indicators of an awareness of the morality of their actions in a setting of good vs evil - why would evolution have brought these capabilities into being. I'll answer for you - evolution did not and has not produced an awareness of good and evil in animals. They are motivated by the sort of things I have mentioned - survival, reproduction, etc. It is only man who has this sense of right and wrong that transcends the base functions of existence. It is not some arbitrary construct of civilization - it has existed in the mind of man so long as man has existed. And this is why it becomes very hard to accept that evolution/natural selection is the be-all end-all explanation for how human beings act.
Message edited by author 2006-08-10 12:12:37. |
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08/10/2006 12:37:55 PM · #608 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
evolution did not and has not produced an awareness of good and evil in animals. They are motivated by the sort of things I have mentioned - survival, reproduction, etc. It is only man who has this sense of right and wrong that transcends the base functions of existence. |
Then explain this, smartypants: "Capuchins who witnessed unfair treatment and failed to benefit from it often refused to conduct future exchanges with human researchers, would not eat the cucumbers they received for their labors, and in some cases, hurled food rewards at human researchers."
Your depiction of animals as essentially pre-programmed automatons without feelings or awareness just doesn't match up with what we can readily observe: capuchin monkeys refusing a treat because they perceive unfairness, animals caring for an orphan of another species, etc.
Message edited by author 2006-08-10 12:51:24. |
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08/10/2006 12:41:11 PM · #609 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Is killing Amorite children âwrongâ or ârightâ? |
I have heard this argument quite often. The easiest answer is to point out you are setting up a version of Christianity on the level of a six year old. Of course that is gonna be easy to knock down.
Nobody is claiming morality is simple.
But back to your original point. God's actions are Right by definition. He is the ultimate standard. He is the measuring stick by which theists can claim absolute Truth.
Scalvert's beehive story is great except the queen is far from equivalent to the "weak and elderly". The queen is, naturally, the be-all-end-all of the hive. The only way the hive's genes will be passed on is through the queen. It's only natural to expect the bees to defend and provide for her.
I did get a little smile when routerguy said he liked the arguments Shannon was providing up until the exact point he started to contradict routerguy's own post. Human nature at it's best. ;)
If we want to escape Morality and Ethics (which we can also continue), I can go back to naturalism and point out other problems. The atheist should be a strong naturalist. That is, if we were smart enough and knew enough about the starting conditions of the universe, we should be able to predict every following event. Every cause has a predictible effect (again if we were smart enough). There is no person with a pool cue standing around whacking the billiard balls once they start their motion. This seems to be fine and well until we look at ourselves. Every fiber of my being tells me I have Free Will. I can choose to jump or not jump, love or not love, leave or stay. However, under strong naturalism Free Will does not exist. It is, at best, a mere illusion. I am sitting here typing this post because the atoms of the big bang dictated that I do so. I have no say in the matter; consciousness trapped in a cage. But nobody walks around thinking this and thus the atheist lives with a paradox he/she is happy enough to ignore. |
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08/10/2006 12:58:53 PM · #610 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Then explain this, smartypants: |
This has been a good discussion to date. Generally when one side starts resorting to name calling it's becuse they have nothing beneficial to add, so if you're done just say so.
Originally posted by scalvert:
"Capuchins who witnessed unfair treatment and failed to benefit from it |
You explained the motivator behind this behavior yourself quite aptly. They witnessed a circumstance that was detrimental to their continued existence and reacted accordingly.
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08/10/2006 01:02:12 PM · #611 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Every fiber of my being tells me I have Free Will. I can choose to jump or not jump, love or not love, leave or stay. However, under strong naturalism Free Will does not exist. |
Where'd you get THAT from? A cat can choose to jump or not jump. A raccoon can choose to leave or stay. You have the ability to make decisions for yourself because you have a big brain that evolved from smaller brains with diminishing capacity to make decisions. Just because chimps don't visit Starbucks doesn't mean they aren't capable of independent thought or abstract reasoning. Where does anybody claim that evolution precludes free will? |
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08/10/2006 01:12:58 PM · #612 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
They witnessed a circumstance that was detrimental to their continued existence and reacted accordingly. |
Excuse me? If there's no sense of fairness, how would the monkey know the event was detrimental? If I get ice cream every time I sing Moon River and see you give ice cream to someone else who doesn't sing, why would I react at all if I have no perception of fairness? If it's just the fact that desirable food was given to someone else, then I should react the same way whether the other guy was singing or not.
P.S.- "smartypants" is hardly name calling. I thought Achoo's "scalvert, the pious" was funny. Would you prefer "explain this, person of obvious great intelligence...?" ;-)
Message edited by author 2006-08-10 13:13:53. |
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08/10/2006 01:17:43 PM · #613 |
I answered based on a very limited and apparently incomplete description of the scenario.
Originally posted by scalvert:
"Capuchins who witnessed unfair treatment and failed to benefit from it often refused to conduct future exchanges with human researchers, would not eat the cucumbers they received for their labors, and in some cases, hurled food rewards at human researchers." |
I assumed that the monkeys were somehow being screwed out of getting a reward for some action. Therefore expending energy and gaining nothing from doing so. This is one of the fundamental laws of the wild, you do not expend energy unless you can benefit from the expense. Throwing shit at researchers would be driving away the source of a problem in this regard.
Message edited by author 2006-08-10 13:18:29. |
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08/10/2006 01:29:02 PM · #614 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
"Man is the only animal which blushes ... or needs to." |
Although I would note that our understanding of animal psychology is very limited. For example, whereas we have long thought of animals as being instinctive creatures, without the capacity for passing on knowledge from generation to generation (perceived to be a distinctive human trait), it has recently been observed and experimentally demonstrated that meerkats teach their young how to deal with difficult prey (Thornton A, McAuliffe K. 2006. Teaching in Wild Meerkats. Science 313:227-229.).
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08/10/2006 01:30:11 PM · #615 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Every fiber of my being tells me I have Free Will. I can choose to jump or not jump, love or not love, leave or stay. However, under strong naturalism Free Will does not exist. |
Where'd you get THAT from? A cat can choose to jump or not jump. A raccoon can choose to leave or stay. You have the ability to make decisions for yourself because you have a big brain that evolved from smaller brains with diminishing capacity to make decisions. Just because chimps don't visit Starbucks doesn't mean they aren't capable of independent thought or abstract reasoning. Where does anybody claim that evolution precludes free will? |
Because if I am truly free as an Agent, I can choose two different actions for the same scenario. This is anathema to Naturalism (or Materialism). How can one physical process possibly lead to two different results if the starting conditions are the same?
I don't know if animals have free will or not. I don't even know if YOU have free will or not. You may all be automatons which only appear to have free will. I have no inside information to your state of being. However, the one place I do have inside information is in ME, and that information tells me I have choice. I am not merely a product of molecular interaction. This is known as Dualism and basically says that there is a ghost in the machine which can interact and change the outcome. Materialism (the notion that all events have a natural explanation) and Dualism are mutually exclusive. Atheists are by necessity Materialists, Theists are Dualists. Free Will is a product of Dualism not Materialism.
Message edited by author 2006-08-10 13:32:17. |
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08/10/2006 01:35:48 PM · #616 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
I assumed that the monkeys were somehow being screwed out of getting a reward for some action. |
No they were still getting rewarded consistently. They just got upset when they saw someone ELSE get rewarded for nothing. |
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08/10/2006 01:41:48 PM · #617 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Every fiber of my being tells me I have Free Will. I can choose to jump or not jump, love or not love, leave or stay. However, under strong naturalism Free Will does not exist. |
Where'd you get THAT from? A cat can choose to jump or not jump. A raccoon can choose to leave or stay. You have the ability to make decisions for yourself because you have a big brain that evolved from smaller brains with diminishing capacity to make decisions. Just because chimps don't visit Starbucks doesn't mean they aren't capable of independent thought or abstract reasoning. Where does anybody claim that evolution precludes free will? |
I'm with DrAchoo with this one. There is an argument that all particle and wave interactions act according to scientific principle: the reaction can be predicted. If the outcome of every particle and wave interaction is predictable (ie acts in accordance with scientific principle), then the history of the universe would have been set in motion on a definite (inconceivably complex but predictable) path at the time of the big bang. If this were true, then free will is illusory.
Message edited by author 2006-08-10 13:43:21.
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08/10/2006 01:48:14 PM · #618 |
| I'm not gonna get a statement for billable hours for this am I beagle? |
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08/10/2006 01:49:07 PM · #619 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'm not gonna get a statement for billable hours for this am I beagle? |
Send me your bank details...!
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08/10/2006 01:50:27 PM · #620 |
Originally posted by legalbeagle:
There is an argument that all particle and wave interactions act according to scientific principle: the reaction can be predicted. If the outcome of every particle and wave interaction is predictable (ie acts in accordance with scientific principle), then the history of the universe would have been set in motion on a definite (inconceivably complex but predictable) path at the time of the big bang. If this were true, then free will is illusory. |
Quantum Mechanics specifically contradicts this statement. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that interactions at this level cannot be predicted (and not just because of limitations in our ability to measure them). Therefore, modern science considers the universe at it's finest levels to be non-deterministic. |
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08/10/2006 01:50:33 PM · #621 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
But back to your original point. God's actions are Right by definition. He is the ultimate standard. He is the measuring stick by which theists can claim absolute Truth. |
How do you know what the "Word of God" is? How can you "prove" it's the word of God? |
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08/10/2006 01:53:15 PM · #622 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
How can one physical process possibly lead to two different results if the starting conditions are the same? |
It's called chance. If a high-speed particle hits a cell, it might cause a mutation that eventually leads to an evolutionary breakthrough or it might not. It could depend on any number of factors- the energy and size of the particle, the angle and location of impact, the age, type and condition of the cell, and so forth. I don't believe all natural events events are required to be completely predictable (indeed, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle says they can't be). |
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08/10/2006 01:56:03 PM · #623 |
Originally posted by eqsite:
Originally posted by legalbeagle:
There is an argument that all particle and wave interactions act according to scientific principle: the reaction can be predicted. If the outcome of every particle and wave interaction is predictable (ie acts in accordance with scientific principle), then the history of the universe would have been set in motion on a definite (inconceivably complex but predictable) path at the time of the big bang. If this were true, then free will is illusory. |
Quantum Mechanics specifically contradicts this statement. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that interactions at this level cannot be predicted (and not just because of limitations in our ability to measure them). Therefore, modern science considers the universe at it's finest levels to be non-deterministic. |
This doesn't help get us out of our quandry. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle just states we cannot KNOW with certainty the outcome of events at a certain atomic level. This is because we alter the events by probing them, not because they are random. Even if they were random, however, we would be left with saying Free Will is a product of a chaotic system instead of an ordered one. How does that help us at all? |
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08/10/2006 01:58:56 PM · #624 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
How can one physical process possibly lead to two different results if the starting conditions are the same? |
It's called chance. If a high-speed particle hits a cell, it might cause a mutation that eventually leads to an evolutionary breakthrough or it might not. It could depend on any number of factors- the energy and size of the particle, the angle and location of impact, the age, type and condition of the cell, and so forth. I don't believe all natural events events are required to be completely predictable (indeed, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle says they can't be). |
I disagree. Your "chance" is merely ignorance. You point to a whole bunch of factors as being unknown. But if we knew them with enough precision we would know the outcome. See my other post about y'alls misinterpretation of the H.U.P. |
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08/10/2006 02:03:22 PM · #625 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
This doesn't help get us out of our quandry. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle just states we cannot KNOW with certainty the outcome of events at a certain atomic level. This is because we alter the events by probing them, not because they are random. Even if they were random, however, we would be left with saying Free Will is a product of a chaotic system instead of an ordered one. How does that help us at all? |
This is actually a common misconception about quantum mechanics. It is not that we can't know the outcome, it is that the outcome is unknowable. There is a big difference. The quantum effects are still occurring whether they are probed or not, so while our probing them does affect the outcome, it does not in itself cause the uncertainty.
As for Free Will, what does it matter whether it is a gift from God or the product of a chaotic system? The observable nature of free will remains the same either way, so there is no way to prove or disprove either. I know this doesn't add much to the conversation, so I'll get out of it now. I just didn't want the classical/deterministic characterisation of science to stand unchallenged.
Message edited by author 2006-08-10 14:03:57. |
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