Thread

1. georgemcbay · 1789884732 · focus · HN ↗

   Blows my mind that so many people just have this hardened internalized idea that we're somehow significantly different than any other animal.

   Sure, we've got them beat on language and planning, but we're currently in the process of being passed up on both those fronts by multi-dimensional arrays of floating point numbers sitting inside of sand. So, like, how special is that then, really?

   1. vor_ · 1789894858 · focus · HN ↗

      > Blows my mind that so many people just have this hardened internalized idea that we're somehow significantly different than any other animal.

      But we are significantly different, and there's always a danger of anthropomorphizing other species to explain behavior that we assume we understand because it reminds us of how we feel about things. That's why the paper calls for more study of "post-mortem attentive responses" in animal behavior to gain more insight into their cognitive capabilities.

      1. alpineman · 1789894973 · focus · HN ↗

         So by your logic we should not treat humans with impaired cognitive abilities as equals?

         1. card_zero · 1789896459 · focus · HN ↗

            Babies, the comatose, people currently asleep ... this one is something about universal human rights, a protection against anybody appointing themselves judge and trying to micromanage who is or isn't an equal, which only causes trouble.

            1. sethammons · 1789897241 · focus · HN ↗

               Holy category error Batman!

               Why do you put baby brain activity next inactive coma or sleep?

               It sounds like, "Rocks, sand, turtles: these don't experience $things." I don't see why babies belong in your list as much as turtles don't belong in mine.

               1. TeMPOraL · 1789902856 · focus · HN ↗

                  Category error started at "we should not treat humans with impaired cognitive abilities as equals".

                  Yes, there's a good chance that whatever combination of metrics gets accepted to draw the consciousness/moral weight boundary in the future, it'll have some overlaps like in that infamous quip about "smartest bears" and "dumbest tourists". Applied to a spot measurement, it'll likely put some subset of people - drunk, cognitively impaired, sleeping, children under N months, etc. - below the "conscious/sentient" threshold, and below some animals.

                  Which is why such criteria only make sense at population lifetime level, not individual level. That's both aggregate and temporal ranges. Temporal, because children grow up, drunk people sober, impaired people may get better and may have been better in the past. Aggregate, because once you go down to individual level, you invite most horrible crimes ever committed.

                  1. sethammons · 1789904646 · focus · HN ↗

                     A baby's brain is in super-sponge mode. They lack experience and control. Just because they don't yet speak doesn't mean they would not have something to say.

                     That a drunk person shouldn't make critical decisions and nor should a toddler is different than equating a baby's experience to someone asleep or in a coma.

                     My 2yo had memories from over a year prior. She would bring up things that surprised us. She later forgot that stuff, but she always had a larger window of experience to pull from than we expected.

                     Treating kids like coma patients ignores that experience and window of memories. You bet your ass you could traumatize / condition a baby to fear. You cant do that to someone in a coma. I doubt you can condition someone purely in their sleep too fwiw.

                     We should assume a rich experience until proven otherwise.

                     1. TeMPOraL · 1789905657 · focus · HN ↗

                        I 100% agree. My point is that approximately all humans will go through these phases/episodes, and spend some small fraction of their lives below "conscious/sentient/sapient" threshold of whatever metric one could propose - and we should not classify individuals by where they happen to be on that scale at the current point in time.

                        (In contrast, every bacteria and every amoeba will clock below threshold of any reasonable metric 100% of the time.)

                     2. jonhohle · 1789916729 · focus · HN ↗

                        Expand this to 1-minute before birth, 1-month, 4-months, keep going. Fetal brain development is mature enough by 6 weeks that reflex and movement start.

                        Sleep and hypnotic conditioning are a thing.

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