RE: Is God a logical contradiction?
February 17, 2020 at 1:57 pm
(This post was last modified: February 17, 2020 at 1:59 pm by Mister Agenda.)
Saying they 'know' is reaching, saying that the available evidence points supports that conclusion and there is no available evidence that points away from it justifies a tentative conclusion that at least certain animals have some degree of consciousness and are capable of experiencing things like attachment, pleasure, and suffering. The level of evidence you seem to be demanding for the consciousness of animals is also unavailable for humans; you have experience that you are conscious, but all you've got for the rest of us is our behavior and brain states.
The most obvious justification is that you have no particular reason to think you are so unique that you are the only human who possesses consciousness. However, there is no particular reason to think consciousness is absolutely unique to humans, either; so why accept evidence that other humans are conscious but reject evidence that other species are conscious?
A chimp or gorilla and some other animals can learn that their reflection is a reflection of them. That behavior was once thought to be unique to humans, as once was altruism and self-sacrifice, and tool use (and tool-making). The more we learn about animal behavior, the more we learn that our behavior isn't so unique, but more complex. That these things are not indicative of the same processes that we experience in our minds to some degree requires an assumption of the uniqueness of specifically human consciousness that isn't justified.
The most obvious justification is that you have no particular reason to think you are so unique that you are the only human who possesses consciousness. However, there is no particular reason to think consciousness is absolutely unique to humans, either; so why accept evidence that other humans are conscious but reject evidence that other species are conscious?
A chimp or gorilla and some other animals can learn that their reflection is a reflection of them. That behavior was once thought to be unique to humans, as once was altruism and self-sacrifice, and tool use (and tool-making). The more we learn about animal behavior, the more we learn that our behavior isn't so unique, but more complex. That these things are not indicative of the same processes that we experience in our minds to some degree requires an assumption of the uniqueness of specifically human consciousness that isn't justified.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.