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 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
evolve from animal origins and overcome it's animal nature, something humanity is at best struggling to do, and survive to become a nature intelligent species

With all due respect, you reeeeallly don't understand that subject.

You make an assertion without showing any proof.

You reeeeaaalllllyyyy don't understand how to make a valid point.

We are primates, related to but not evolved from "monkeys", but we come from a common ancestor. We have many tendencies in common with animals. The survival instinct, the urge to reproduce, the desire to be the 'alpha", to dominate others, the tendency to use force to get our way, etc. the human brain has parts under the cerebellum that resemble the brains of lower animals.

Our DNA is ~98% identical to other primates. Our brains are slightly more sophisticated but of largely identical structure. We do have animal origin and are driven by many of the same needs and desires that are common in animals.

I think I've proven i reeeeeeally understand the subject after all.

See here I was going to provide proof and you went and did it for me.


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 Overread wrote:
Yes but you've not really elaborated on your concept of "nature intelligent species". Which I suspect is the issue. This concept that you've presented that humanity can evolve away from being "an animal".

Even the concept of "overcoming our animal nature" is nonsense to begin with. It does not mean anything outside of pop culture. "Animal nature" does not mean anything outside of culture. It has no scientific basis. He might as well have said humanity is struggling to align our inner thetons.

No.

First off i consider your comparing what i said to the vile drivel spewed by scientologists to be extremely offensive and insulting. I'm usually not the type to go running to mod so i'm telling you it was over the line personally.

Secondly, yes we have an animal nature, to take what we want/need by force, to use violence to get what we want, to reproduce as much as possible due to the genetic imperative to spread our DNA, to dominate others, etc. We have the same drives found in many mammals and other primates. Our brain's lower levels are very similar to those of prior classes of animals, like the 'reptile brain' at the base of our brains. It gives us violent urges, like the one i felt when i saw you comparing what i said to the ravings of scientologists.

What makes us different is that aeons of evolution as a collective species whose survival depended on cooperation lead to the development of traits that facilitate cooperation, like empathy and communication. Our primate ancestors who had the trairts for empathy and even compassion tended to survive better than the more selfish individuals, and so those traits were fixed and reinforced in our genepool as we evolved.

We still have our animal instincts and rives, but we have evolved things like mirror neurons to resist them. Among humans as a collective the ability to feel empathy for other humans wasa positive survival trait when we were little more that slightly brighter than average primates in the african veldt.

I could go on but it's likely given the snarkiness you've shown in you last comment re me that it would likely be a waste of time. I maintain that 'animal urges' are a real thing in humanity and we constantly struggle to overcome them, to at best modest levels of success unfortunately.

I dislike the notions of "high and lower" as generalist concepts since they often promote a concept of a linear scale where something is inherently better than another. As if its a test and one has scored higher/done better.


Also you seem to be leaning heavily on the idea of cooperation and unity and empathy as traits superior to "base animal" ones; yet multiple animals other than humanity show empathy and cooperate and work together.

 Overread wrote:
I dislike the notions of "high and lower" as generalist concepts since they often promote a concept of a linear scale where something is inherently better than another. As if its a test and one has scored higher/done better.


Also you seem to be leaning heavily on the idea of cooperation and unity and empathy as traits superior to "base animal" ones; yet multiple animals other than humanity show empathy and cooperate and work together.

Yes, it's common among mammals and many mammals have the mirror neurons that humans do, presumably an evolved trait that aided survival among them.

If you're going to talk about social insects, they're a different thing altogether. Many social insects, like ants and bees, work together, yes, but have no empathy. In their case it's because the individual ant or bee is in some ways not a complete living organism by itself but part of a hive organism. Most ants and bees cannot carry out an essential function of being considered a complete organism, they cannot reproduce (Yes mules can't either, different case) on ther own and are not fully functional living organisms in the clinical sense as they cannot propagate.

A beehive or ant colony as a whole can reproduce. Thus a beehive or ant colony can be considered a fully functional living organism, and in a sense the individual ants and bees cooperate in the same sense as the cells of your body do, without empathy or individual awareness and sentience.

So social insects and many mammals survive by forms of cooperation, but among mammals empathy seems to be a requirement. Among social insects instinctive behavior that is basicaly genetic programming is all that seems necessary.

But that isn't talking about humanity separating itself from its animal base, instead its simply reinforcing that we are indeed animals and that we are indeed mammals.

If UFOs were time-travelling future humans instead of aliens, I'd like to think at least one of them would have attended the time-travellers party that Stephen Hawking threw in secret. Instead of, you know... buggering rednecks...

 Overread wrote:
But that isn't talking about humanity separating itself from its animal base, instead its simply reinforcing that we are indeed animals and that we are indeed mammals.

Yes, we are of animal origin, but we have intelligence and we can, at least some of us, choose to try not to act like animals.

Hey, kirk's speech to anon 7 in 'a taste of armageddon" summed it up pretty nicely.

https://youtu.be/lbsXklGF_WM

Also, the line in forbidden planet where Adams says "Morbius, we're all part monster in our subconscious, so we have laws and religion!"

Yes, we have out monsters from the id, the mindless animal, the savage, it's part of what we are, where we came from. We also have minds, and we can at least try to choose to be more than animals.

And this is likely going to be my last exchange with you on the subject. no matter what i say you juat keep saying "no, that's not the point!" basically.


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Crispy78 wrote:
If UFOs were time-travelling future humans instead of aliens, I'd like to think at least one of them would have attended the time-travellers party that Stephen Hawking threw in secret. Instead of, you know... buggering rednecks...

Who knows? Maybe they did and hawking realized he had to keep it on the QT to avoid changing the future.

We also have minds, and we can at least try to choose to be more than animals.

Other animals are superior to us in infinite ways. We'd be better off learning more from them, not casting ourselves as somehow above them.

If drives for violence and reproduction are part of this so called 'animal nature' that must be overcome then dam fething sea sponges must be ascended beings for lacking the complexity to have drives in the first place.

And for that matter, empathy is a strictly selfish trait. Natural selection does not care. Nature does not care. The whole pop culture concept of a harmonious 'natural order' is in reality a stalemate between countless opposing parties, every single one of which is trying to hoard as much as they can for themselves while denying it to everything else. Every single species in existence would overpopulate just like we have if given the chance. Even the idea of a static balance is flawed, drawn from the limits our lifespans impose on perceiving change over time. Nature is constant, unrelenting, and utterly merciless competition at every level.

So how did empathy evolve then? Because some organisms have adapted such that the group is more than the sum of its parts. When a group of humans works together every individual gets more than they could alone. The most selfish possible thing to do is to work as a team. Empathy is a thoughtless emotion, it is not at a higher level than anger or fear. It ONLY exists to give creatures an instinctive desire to work together when they aren't intellectually developed enough to consciously put together that concept themselves.

If 'rising above' such base urges was truly the goal, one would advocate for emotionless logic. That would include identifying empathy at the same level as those drives we label more 'savage'. By trying to elevate it as something more refined, you are quite ironically demonstrating how mired in those very drives you are. And even that is operating under the assumption that such an ascension is a good thing in the first place!

You want to be taken seriously? Start by understanding that emotions are not a lower level. Your believe that 'animal drives' are something to be transcended is entirely based on those drives. A strictly logic-based approach would conclude that logic itself only exists as a means to serve emotion.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Overread wrote:
But that isn't talking about humanity separating itself from its animal base, instead its simply reinforcing that we are indeed animals and that we are indeed mammals.

Yes, we are of animal origin, but we have intelligence and we can, at least some of us, choose to try not to act like animals.

You literally use your animal brain to act like an animal when you decide to "not act like an animal". You cannot choose to not act like an animal, you are an animal. Your animal nature is to use your brain and it's fancy intelligence to solve problems and make choices.

We're looking at a three way agreement between radar on ship, radar and inferred on aircraft, and the eyeball mark 1. I can see one of these being fooled. Indeed, in one case the aircraft were brought in because the objects were detected on ground based systems, in order to verify what the operators on the ground were seeing.

It starts to seem to me to be the greater stretch claiming these to be weather balloons or some atmospheric phenomena than to suggest they're powered craft of some sort. Very unusual powered craft at that. They do not seem to conform to our current understanding of generating lift, at least, not based on their apparent performance.

Which I find more interesting and on topic than watching everyone here rehash the Fermi paradox.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
We're looking at a three way agreement between radar on ship, radar and inferred on aircraft, and the eyeball mark 1. I can see one of these being fooled. Indeed, in one case the aircraft were brought in because the objects were detected on ground based systems, in order to verify what the operators on the ground were seeing.

It starts to seem to me to be the greater stretch claiming these to be weather balloons or some atmospheric phenomena than to suggest they're powered craft of some sort. Very unusual powered craft at that. They do not seem to conform to our current understanding of generating lift, at least, not based on their apparent performance.

Which I find more interesting and on topic than watching everyone here rehash the Fermi paradox.

If they are indeed aliens, then well...we have final proof that we're just not very interesting, they decided not to talk.

There could be many, many reasons for them to avoid direct contact even if they think we’re interesting. Perhaps they want to avoid cultural contamination, or they have a prime directive, or want to see how we deal with this kind of outside context mystery. Perhaps “Primitive cultures speculate on our motives” is a highly profitable genre.

Netflix have just released an interesting doc on black holes.

While it doesn't directly feed into this topic, I think it's an excellent illustration of how tenuous out understanding of physics is, and how very little of what we take to be "known" would need to be inaccurate for some reason to upend the whole apple cart.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Netflix have just released an interesting doc on black holes.

While it doesn't directly feed into this topic, I think it's an excellent illustration of how tenuous out understanding of physics is, and how very little of what we take to be "known" would need to be inaccurate for some reason to upend the whole apple cart.

Right here, being a purveyor of Dodgy Docus?

Are those behind it actually qualified astrophysicists with experience in that specific field of their studies?

I’m not having a pop at you, my dude. Just that Netflix has proven a poor moderator of its own content. And possibly pseudo science begins with a whiff of plausibility.

Beware of blanket statements. Beware of statements said, but not supported. Be very aware that highly complex physics, when broken down for the mass market can seem silly - especially if it’s someone who specialises, because being super knowledgeable doesn’t mean they’re a good teacher.

Seriously not having a pop at you yourself. You shared info, and you’re not responsible for the quality of that info


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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
There could be many, many reasons for them to avoid direct contact even if they think we’re interesting. Perhaps they want to avoid cultural contamination, or they have a prime directive, or want to see how we deal with this kind of outside context mystery. Perhaps “Primitive cultures speculate on our motives” is a highly profitable genre.

That, and the rate we’re going?

Why bother with a complex and costly invasion when there’s every chance we’ll send ourself extinct in a few decades? We’re only ever a few idiots in the wrong place from that fate.

If aliens can cross galactic space? Pretty sure they can hoover and dust whatever we do to make it all clean and spanky new, without having to exterminate the natives.

Why, I don't understand how explaining quantum physics as "when things are really small they exist in two places at once until you look at them" does not adequately summarize it in a manner consumable by the average person

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Why, I don't understand how explaining quantum physics as "when things are really small they exist in two places at once until you look at them" does not adequately summarize it in a manner consumable by the average person

Ahhhh! But being SciFi nerds, we likely first encountered the term, then looked into it.

Look back at your post, and consider someone with no basic knowledge might interpret it? Someone with no knowledge to extrapolate from.

Are those behind it actually qualified astrophysicists with experience in that specific field of their studies?

Well one of the guys is this rather talented chap, sadly (spoilers) he dies halfway through.

Stephen something...

But thanks for the condescension and assumption I can't tell the difference between solid info and a History channel sensatio-doc.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Why, I don't understand how explaining quantum physics as "when things are really small they exist in two places at once until you look at them" does not adequately summarize it in a manner consumable by the average person

Ahhhh! But being SciFi nerds, we likely first encountered the term, then looked into it.

Look back at your post, and consider someone with no basic knowledge might interpret it? Someone with no knowledge to extrapolate from.

Was being sarcastic, as indicated by the "" because that would make no sense whatsoever to someone without prior knowledge. Even the scientists who study it say it doesn't make sense!


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 Azreal13 wrote:

Are those behind it actually qualified astrophysicists with experience in that specific field of their studies?

Well one of the guys is this rather talented chap, sadly (spoilers) he dies halfway through.

Stephen something...

But thanks for the condescension and assumption I can't tell the difference between solid info and a History channel sensatio-doc.

Dude he specifically said twice that he meant it in good humor and was asking, not judging.

Yeah, I should have started my response with "with all due respect" so I made it clear I was responding in kind.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If drives for violence and reproduction are part of this so called 'animal nature' that must be overcome then dam fething sea sponges must be ascended beings for lacking the complexity to have drives in the first place.

And for that matter, empathy is a strictly selfish trait. Natural selection does not care. Nature does not care. The whole pop culture concept of a harmonious 'natural order' is in reality a stalemate between countless opposing parties, every single one of which is trying to hoard as much as they can for themselves while denying it to everything else. Every single species in existence would overpopulate just like we have if given the chance. Even the idea of a static balance is flawed, drawn from the limits our lifespans impose on perceiving change over time. Nature is constant, unrelenting, and utterly merciless competition at every level.

So how did empathy evolve then? Because some organisms have adapted such that the group is more than the sum of its parts. When a group of humans works together every individual gets more than they could alone. The most selfish possible thing to do is to work as a team. Empathy is a thoughtless emotion, it is not at a higher level than anger or fear. It ONLY exists to give creatures an instinctive desire to work together when they aren't intellectually developed enough to consciously put together that concept themselves.

If 'rising above' such base urges was truly the goal, one would advocate for emotionless logic. That would include identifying empathy at the same level as those drives we label more 'savage'. By trying to elevate it as something more refined, you are quite ironically demonstrating how mired in those very drives you are. And even that is operating under the assumption that such an ascension is a good thing in the first place!

You want to be taken seriously? Start by understanding that emotions are not a lower level. Your believe that 'animal drives' are something to be transcended is entirely based on those drives. A strictly logic-based approach would conclude that logic itself only exists as a means to serve emotion.

I am talking about people choosing to act on their intelligence or this instinct, and you make a comparison to sponges.

I'm not responding to any posts you make anymore, because i just can't keep reading them. They hurt my brain too much.

There ya go, mystery of why UFOs don't talk to us solved.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Are those behind it actually qualified astrophysicists with experience in that specific field of their studies?

Well one of the guys is this rather talented chap, sadly (spoilers) he dies halfway through.

Stephen something...

But thanks for the condescension and assumption I can't tell the difference between solid info and a History channel sensatio-doc.

Is it this one?
https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81343342
If you'd have listed the documentary, we'd have known that it was made by Peter Galison:

Galison received his Ph.D. at Harvard University in both physics and in the history of science in 1983

Netflix isn't known to have much of a scientific grounding, so info like this would have helped up front.

It does look to be worth a watch. There's a lot to be learned from a good docu.

 Matt Swain wrote:


I am talking about people choosing to act on their intelligence or this instinct, and you make a comparison to sponges.

I'm not responding to any posts you make anymore, because i just can't keep reading them. They hurt my brain too much.

Instinct as a term isn't even that well established in the non-scientific community*. Don't forget for a long time many animals were considered almost purely instinctual. It's only in more recent times that we have woken up to the fact that animals are not born knowing all they need to know. Heck there's been more than one re-introduction of a species or animal that died because it had zero actual survival skills in the natural world because it grew up in an enclosure. It led to a huge change in dynamics and approach to the whole concept.


What many consider instinct is simply impulsive behaviour. A well thought out action can still be "instinctual". I also dislike that you're still generally drawing a negative line to things; here presuming that many "instinctive" actions are violent/hostile or otherwise lesser to "intelligent" responses




* I say that only because I don't know enough to know if they really have a formally universally agreed upon concept for it.

He admitted he doesn't understand and bowed out of the discussion. A bit snarky about it but it is a fair move to make and I respect that, probably best to let that particular line to dialogue die.

Ooohh some really cool discussions.

I think a lot of arguments of the Man v Animal and Mans Ascension beyond being "just an animal" really comes down to definitions and language.
You'd have to define what is intelligence and what an animal is. And what the pre-exquisite for an intelligent life form are. Acording to "the internet": Intelligent life form = Sapience, wisdom or the ability of an organism or entity to act with appropriate judgment.

A crow/ parkeet being able to problem solve a lock faster than average person or a chimp having a perfect eidetic memory does not necessarily mean they are sentient or intelligent in the same capacity as us. Or does it? ​
Not sure what the consensus is on the matter. But as far as I'm aware we haven't recognised any animal as "human".
I think the closest thing are whales/dolphins. Octopus seem pretty dang smart too and creepy as hell.. However we are all still slaves to biology.

I think humans will only truly be able to set themselves apart from other animals when we remove the biology from consciousness. I.E. A human mind in a computer/machine devoid of biological constraint. But then again that would no longer be a human I believe.

IMO any extra-terrestrial beings coming planet side are likely to be some sort of AI or Drones. I doubt any sentient being capable of real spacefaring would risk their "person" to come see us. We can be pretty destructive.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
He admitted he doesn't understand and bowed out of the discussion. A bit snarky about it but it is a fair move to make and I respect that, probably best to let that particular line to dialogue die.

NO I DID NOT!

I said i could no longer deal with your posts in which you brought up a mindless sponge in a discussion on intelligent creatures choosing how to behave. I also could not longer stand your demeaning and condescending tone. I certainly did not 'bow out", I withdrew in disgust.

 Matt Swain wrote:
I'm not responding to any posts you make anymore, because i just can't keep reading them. They hurt my brain too much.

Well if the first one was a lie I suppose it makes a sense the second statement was too. Is it really so hard to imagine that I read that and legitimately thought you were leaving this line of discussion, and that 'they hurt my brain' meaning you were struggling with comprehension?


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 Matt Swain wrote:
I said i could no longer deal with your posts in which you brought up a mindless sponge in a discussion on intelligent creatures choosing how to behave.

"Animal behavior" a sponge is an animal. It has behavior. This is why I come across as demeaning, because I need to explain that if you want to have a discussion on a scientific level you need use the language of the scientific level. You repeatedly demonstrate that you do not understand the subjects, and simply ignore us calling it out in favor of making emotional responses to perceived slights.

 Argive wrote:
Ooohh some really cool discussions.

I think a lot of arguments of the Man v Animal and Mans Ascension beyond being "just an animal" really comes down to definitions and language.
You'd have to define what is intelligence and what an animal is. And what the pre-exquisite for an intelligent life form are. Acording to "the internet": Intelligent life form = Sapience, wisdom or the ability of an organism or entity to act with appropriate judgment.

A crow/ parkeet being able to problem solve a lock faster than average person or a chimp having a perfect eidetic memory does not necessarily mean they are sentient or intelligent in the same capacity as us. Or does it? ​
Not sure what the consensus is on the matter. But as far as I'm aware we haven't recognised any animal as "human".
I think the closest thing are whales/dolphins. Octopus seem pretty dang smart too and creepy as hell.. However we are all still slaves to biology.

I think the concept of intelligence is marred by its scientific history. In the past, for example the Victorians, there was a lot of science, but also a lot of religious impact as well. Lets not forget Darwin spent a long time getting his ideas accepted (and remembering he wasn't the only scientist who developed evolution theory or at least the concept of it). All through a lot of history there have been social, religious and just general species preference aspects which shape our perception of things. Heck even the language we use when working with animals can define this in a subtle way.

We don't "teach" dogs/horses etc... we nearly always train them.
Even though most of the teaching process is based on the very same principles as teaching humans - repetition coupled with reward/punishment.

We also have perception issues that we are only now coming to really understand. Things like how animals see and hear differently to us and thus might react to the same stimulus in a different way - eg a dog missing a coloured ball on a grass field we might see as the dog being silly, but in actuality whilst we can see the coloured ball, the dog can't so easily because of how they see colours and light.




I think today we are steadily starting to have more acceptance, at least at the scientific end, of animals having far more complex thinking and emotional states. That essentially humans might be one of the most intelligent animals, but that its more that we have an edge rather than a vast fundamental difference.

But as far as I'm aware we haven't recognised any animal as "human".

That is based purely on bias, not any scientific reasons. The difference is quantitative, not qualitative. A crow that learned to drop nuts on the road and then taught it's offspring to do the same is doing exactly the same thing as a human that teaches it's children how to make a spear. A chimp using a right-shaped rock is no different to our early ancestors doing the same thing. There was no magical point at which we were imbued with Spark of Sapience, we just continued to select for tool usage.
The outlook that "humans aren't animals" is the same as "fish can't feel pain" or the racist idea that "black people have thicker skin and don't feel pain as much as whites" which some medical professionals STILL believe. A human is an animal that specialized in tool use, not the pinnacle of evolution.

That, as we all know, is the crab.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
He admitted he doesn't understand and bowed out of the discussion. A bit snarky about it but it is a fair move to make and I respect that, probably best to let that particular line to dialogue die.

NO I DID NOT!

I said i could no longer deal with your posts in which you brought up a mindless sponge in a discussion on intelligent creatures choosing how to behave. I also could not longer stand your demeaning and condescending tone. I certainly did not 'bow out", I withdrew in disgust.

I think Ninth's point was that you were using behavioural traits to define a "higher" state of living/evolution. Ninth was then showing you a species which could be ascribed those same behavioural traits, but which many would argue is a "lesser" order of life (by varying metrics). The point was to show that your perception of superior living/intelligence was based upon concepts which are not unique to a species moving "toward a higher state of being" and that some species already had such behavioural traits.