dh@. wrote:

Dogs, cats, cattle, almost all animals "lower" than the
great apes have no sense of self.


You are the last person who would know if they do Goo, that's
for sure. They indicate by their behavior that they do, and there is
absolutely no reason at all to believe they don't.


Even a broken clock can be right once in a while. I would urge you to
look at the following objective studies on self-awareness:

The "mirror test" at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

Scientific American article on empathy:
http://geowords.com/lostlinks/b36/7.htm

In a nutshell, the vast majority of animals cannot truly make a
psychological distinction between themselves and their environment.

- Logic316



"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't."

****wit David Tub of **** Harrison lied:

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 Rudy Canoza wrote:


****wit David Tub of **** Harrison lied:


On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 05:25:50 GMT, Rudy Canoza wrote:



NanK wrote:


Yes, they do! When they see you outside the tank, don't they wiggle
with anticipation of being fed???

No. That's stimulus response, *not* anticipation.


That stimulus response *is* anticipation Goobernicus.

No, ****wit, you idiot, it isn't anticipation.
Anticipation is THINKING about something BEFORE the
stimulus is present.


Not always Rudy.

ALWAYS, you stupid tub of ****.

Rudy Canoza wrote:

Not always Rudy.


ALWAYS, you stupid tub of ****.


You folks ever consider taking this to private e-mail? I doubt anybody's
interested in these personal issues.

- Logic316


"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't."

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 11:32:26 -0400, Logic316 wrote:

dh@. wrote:

Dogs, cats, cattle, almost all animals "lower" than the
great apes have no sense of self.


You are the last person who would know if they do Goo, that's
for sure. They indicate by their behavior that they do, and there is
absolutely no reason at all to believe they don't.


Even a broken clock can be right once in a while. I would urge you to
look at the following objective studies on self-awareness:

The "mirror test" at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

That's not a test to see if animals have awareness. It's simply an
effort to get them to realise that what they view is somehow a
representation of themselves. It's not surprising that a dog can't
learn it, but it could certainly pass a test of awareness of its own urine
marking its own territory:

"...there is also debate as to the value of the test as applied to animals
who rely primarily on senses other than vision, such as dogs."

which to me means the same thing as it would if they passed the mirror test:
they are aware of themselves.

Scientific American article on empathy:
http://geowords.com/lostlinks/b36/7.htm

In a nutshell, the vast majority of animals cannot truly make a
psychological distinction between themselves and their environment.

- Logic316

Just because they don't recognise themselves in a mirror doesn't
have anything to do with an inability to be aware of themsevles.
I saw nothing on the empathy page to indicate that either, but if you
think it's there I'd be interested in exactly what you're referring to. So
far I've seen only evidence that they are aware of themselves, and
nothing to indicate they are not. Just the fact that they recognise other
individual beings, even of different species, is proof to me that they
are aware of other individuals, and almost certainly aware that they are
an individual as well.

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 23:19:29 -0400, Logic316 wrote:

Rudy Canoza wrote:

Not always Rudy.


ALWAYS, you stupid tub of ****.


You folks ever consider taking this to private e-mail? I doubt anybody's
interested in these personal issues.

No one's going to learn anything from Goo. So the only
way I'll learn anything from ngs about this stuff, is to include
other people. I wondered if there were any other people
who had similar beliefs about animal awareness for example,
and you provided some significant info and ideas about it.
Do you think I'd ever get anything like that out of email with
Goo? I sure don't.

Goo ****wit David Tub-of-**** Harrison lied:

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 23:19:29 -0400, Logic316 wrote:


Rudy Canoza wrote:


Not always Rudy.


ALWAYS, you stupid tub of ****.


You folks ever consider taking this to private e-mail? I doubt anybody's
interested in these personal issues.


No one's going to learn anything from Rudy.

A reasonably sensible and open-minded person could
learn a lot from me, ****wit, but you're neither
sensible nor open-minded. You're a stupid, lying,
Southern cracker, and a stinking tub of ****.

dh@. wrote:

That's not a test to see if animals have awareness. It's simply an
effort to get them to realise that what they view is somehow a
representation of themselves.

Au contraire. When something recognizes itself as an individual and
distinct entity, it WILL recognize a visual representation of itself.
Self-awareness MEANS creating and maintaining a visual image of yourself
in your mind. This is a function that requires a specially-evolved
cerebral cortex that simply doesn't exist in most other animals.
Incidentally, I am puzzled as to why "animal-righties" take it so
personally when somebody states that a particular species (human)
possesses a unique ability (which specifically evolved to help it
survive in it's environment) that other species do not.


It's not surprising that a dog can't
learn it, but it could certainly pass a test of awareness of its own urine
marking its own territory:

So it is territorial and is aware of the scent of it's own urine. That
is a purely instinctive process, so I don't see how that is particularly
relevant here.


"...there is also debate as to the value of the test as applied to animals
who rely primarily on senses other than vision, such as dogs."

Either one of two things happen when you put a dog in front of a mirror
- it usually ignores it (probably because the reflected image has no
scent), or it might get frightened off by it. But even if you somehow
arrange it so that the dog can SMELL the image in the mirror, and it
smells just like it does, it will not see it as a representation of
'itself'. A self-aware creature like a human realizes that the
reflection in the mirror looks just like him and is doing everything
exactly as he does (since the image in the mirror matches the image of
the self contained in the higher brain). A dog would simply think that
it's another dog, and would either try to play with it or get angry and
attack it to try to chase it away from its territory.


which to me means the same thing as it would
if they passed the mirror test: they are aware of themselves.

So just because you fail a test that might be flawed, that
*automatically* means you would pass a test if it was valid? Illogical.

What it comes down to, is that YOU have to show an experiment that
proves your assertion that animals are self-aware, not for skeptics to
prove that they aren't. It is nearly impossible to prove a negative, and
proof is always incumbent on the person making the claim. Otherwise,
your belief is more a matter of religion than science.

- Logic316



"I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers."
-- Thomas Watson, IBM boss, 1943

****wit David Tub-of-**** Harrison lied:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 11:32:26 -0400, Logic316 wrote:

****wit David Tub-of-**** Harrison lied:

Dogs, cats, cattle, almost all animals "lower" than the
great apes have no sense of self.


You are the last person who would know if they do Goo, that's
for sure. They indicate by their behavior that they do, and there is
absolutely no reason at all to believe they don't.


Even a broken clock can be right once in a while. I would urge you to
look at the following objective studies on self-awareness:

The "mirror test" at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

That's not a test to see if animals have awareness. It's simply an
effort to get them to realise that what they view is somehow a
representation of themselves.

That's what self awareness IS, you stupid unthinking uneducated
Southern hillbilly tub of ****.

dh@. writes:

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 11:32:26 -0400, Logic316 wrote:

dh@. wrote:

Dogs, cats, cattle, almost all animals "lower" than the
great apes have no sense of self.


You are the last person who would know if they do Goo, that's
for sure. They indicate by their behavior that they do, and there is
absolutely no reason at all to believe they don't.


Even a broken clock can be right once in a while. I would urge you to
look at the following objective studies on self-awareness:

The "mirror test" at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

That's not a test to see if animals have awareness. It's simply an
effort to get them to realise that what they view is somehow a
representation of themselves. It's not surprising that a dog can't
learn it, but it could certainly pass a test of awareness of its own urine
marking its own territory:

"...there is also debate as to the value of the test as applied to animals
who rely primarily on senses other than vision, such as dogs."

which to me means the same thing as it would if they passed the mirror test:
they are aware of themselves.

Well, no. It casts doubt on whether it's a good test for dogs. Note
that at this point it's quite well established that rubbing a puppy's
nose in its messes is useless in housebreaking the animal; this
implies that they aren't aware that they were responsible for the
mess. Whatever a dog's reaction to its own urine means, it's hard to
imagine it would imply real self-awareness.

It's hard for me to imagine my Golden doesn't have self-awareness at
some level when brings me a toy and bumps my elbow to know my hand off
the keyboard. But that's different from real objective evidence.
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
skype: jjpfeifferjr

"Rudy Canoza" writes:

That's what self awareness IS, you stupid unthinking uneducated
Southern hillbilly tub of ****.

Are you really this incredibly boorish in person? dh@ appears to be
trying valiantly to have a conversation, and your response is to paint
yourself as an idiot.
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
skype: jjpfeifferjr