this isnt a crack, to the contrary monkeys NEED to know their surroundings, so they understand basics "theres a tree here" "you can fall while swinging"

kids on the other hand do not have those types of curiousities, the classic question "where do babies come from" has nothing to do with knowing your surroundings, its a tangent process that is subjective in value. that question sustains the concept that humans have developed concious from very early on, where as chimps have no such useless curiousities. its a Darwinian fluke, so to speak.

as for play: its functions are base, it has little to do with learning or conditioning.

first of all they were specific "they look more like monkeys" "their culture are more base"
and second of all umbrella definitions CAN come in bad flavors (inferiority, stupid) but that doesnt mean all of them are (friendship, "love", honor etc.) and some of them are simply neutral (conciousness, dark, bright)

its not a term, its a description.
subjective as in not directly useful to us. knowing terminal velocity is a subjective item, whereas knowing people care would be objective, as it is of direct importance to you.

Capgras syndrom you twit.
take 2 seconds on google whydontcha?

if you think science is about defining your OWN terms instead of working on what is AGREED upon, well I hope you arent a scientist then.

because you have camera's in my room, right?

I'm working on a well founded theory based on the most prudent and best available evidence. YOU on the other hand, are drawing this and taht from a N O V E L I S T.

you have shown no real want to try and counter my point, your best counter so far has been that my definition has one small facet in common with bigotry, where the larger wholes have nothing to do with one another.

YES!
because while they are impaired they still fit all available parameters.

what you are obviously incapable of understanding (my mistake in thinking you had any level of intelligence of your own) is that chimps "learning" sign language is merely pavlov's dogs on a more sophisticated level, the chimps do not comprehend the concept of the words they are given, they merely connect the action with the sign they get. same exact way pavlov's dogs connected the ringing to food.
again, the difference between this and humans is that humans work in functions BEYOND immediate scope, such as working with science or politics.

again, you are working this debate on a level below which I'm working at, unless you catch up to speed your going to be stuck not noticing the obvious connections. I guess I overestimated your abilities, my bad.
no offense, you know. idiot.

again, it was merely a matter of connecting stick in hole to food, we on the other hand can use methods of thought beyond them. such as the concept of pressure, hence the development of blades that have gotten ever sharper and ever stronger.
the difference is a monkey connects while a person understands connections, monkeys have to build from the blocks up by chance, people learn by understanding structure and then working from a preconcieved plan.

and yes, they were shown how to do that, by their PARENTS
who learned from their PARENTS
who learned from their PARENTS
who learned by mistake. otherwise what they would do would be to dig up a tunnel of their own rather than stick in the ones already created.

you didnt look up sentience did you...
"the ability to understand the world in a subjective manner"
while one can try and argue that chimps down to bees and shrimp do, there has been no evidence that doesnt crumple rather easily.

you severly twisted the evidence so that its restrictions are severly lowerd, for example the wakefulness definition is not as simple as "are they awake", its about there being thought processes decyphering the world beyond a simple cause-effect relationship. bugs do NOT pass that, neither do chimps or shrimp. dolphins and squid are the best examples of creatures that might cross that defining line, as dolphins have the capacity to seriously problem solve.

excuse me? mr: "umbrella definitions are like racism"
you do nothing that isnt a smokescreen, even when you tried to pick apart the definition you payed NO attention whatsoever to the circumstances under which the words were used, you applied them to their lowest possible denominator: wakefulness yes can mean that an animal is active and percieves the world, but what THEY meant was that it percieves the world and works problems out of it, thinks on a problem-solving, not problem-learn-solution basis.

if and only if we work under your drastically lowered definitions, which we do not work under.

by your definitions a phone is concious, because it fits in with "percieves surroundings"
I dont thinks so.

your point is absolute bs. I havent seen anything you have said not severly twist my words into stuff about hatred and bigoted racism, or severly twisting the context of the definitions. as far as any level of thought is concerned you have not even scratched my podia of evidence, you've merely attempted to distract and do a "compare to a simpler target and attack" manuver, which does not hold up in any level of non-childish discussion.

you are so high and mighty... if you will lecture people for being rude, dont do it and then place a disclaimer at the end.

completely a fair point, and one I believe is true. the problem is that you want to make your argument completely untouchable by attacking a powerfully held concept by only attacking similar but very very different points.

where in the past 20 years has there been a paper supporting IQ tests... everyone in the field I've ever herd of believes they are rediculously outdated. not only are the tests very narrow in scope, but there are so many factors going into both the test (food, concentration at the time, background events) and intelligence (counter-norm thinking, understanding of patterns on a mathematic level, creativity, all of that is ignored, and those are generally understood as part of intelligence)


anyway I just want to point something out: Karma you are dragging the words out of context by your teeth, there isnt a single definition which you havent torn appart and attacked its pieces, or ignored the context of the word used entirely. if you really want me to, and I will, I can go through and point out every last one of your falacies
that said I really REALLY do not want to do that, I'll be here for a while.

yeh, my IQ test said i was SMRT!!!

see? that in itself is enough evidence.

ok, I meant that IQ tests were dysfunctional... but take it as you will

trust me, i will

Is one of the main parameters the ability to drool?

The inability to ask a question does not mean they're not thinking about it. Furthermore, for all you know coco the gorilla did ask those sorts of questions. This is a language test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chantek

Both these primates learned ASL. Koko knows over 2000 words. Both of these creatures knows how to lie. Both have demonstrated an ability to "make" new words or combinations. Koko for example didn't know the word for "ring" and so referred to it as a "finger bracelet". Another primate that was taught with Koko even described the last time he saw he mother when he was just a baby... the poachers killing her with a gun.


Let me guess… it’s all a trick? Smoke and mirrors? They’re puppets?



Play is one the most important parts of learning for humans and all primates... you should know that.


Their reasons all sprang from one observation. Their civilizations are weaker and less advanced then ours are... so they must be less intelligent. Whether they stated that openly or not. Everything that came afterwards was an attempt to come to that conclusion. Asians for example were ranked between whites and black at that time because their civilizations were seen as superior to the black ones but inferior to the white ones.


It's a question of predetermined biases and then going out and finding proof of it instead of scientifically examining the situation. Much like religious figures that assume church doctrine to be correct and then look for evidence to support it. Such as the great flood happening.


You're working off a preconceived bias... it's painfully obvious.


So if an ape learned how to paint... that would be subjective? I mean... the ape doesn't have to learn how to paint. Cus' we have lots of primates in captivity that have learned how to paint. Furthermore, they all acquire skills not needed for survival. They're monkeys... they play around.

Maybe it just enjoys painting. And children learn terminal velocity in school because if they don't they'll get a bad report card and then their parents will be upset. Which means negative consequences.


Say uncle... in fact... say monkey's uncle.


Hmmmm... so severally crazy people are conscious? But Apes that can carry on conversations in sign language and tell you what they're thinking are not?


more threadbare by the moment.



First, science is not about consensus but about facts. Politics is about how many people agree with you. Science is about who is right. Having more people on your side doesn't make you more or less right.

Furthermore, defining terms is important to understand what you're actually talking about. If you don't define your terms you're just playing with yourself.


I've heard you desperately flop around for a toe hold for pages now... clawing at any threadbare and sometimes completely bunk point to hold your position together.


there is little other conclusion i can draw from that.


Well founded? Would that well founded theory be the fuzzy theory that actually backed up my statements instead of yours?

You've cited nothing that's backed you up. Your whole position is bankrupt. As to the novelist (Asimov and his three rules of robotics), I was simply showing that rules need not preclude consciousness. A point I won by showing you that I have rules I cannot break yet I remain conscious. As I said, I cannot kill my family. I cannot do it. I would sooner die. Much like Asimov’s robots that would sooner die before killing a human I follow programmed rules set down in my childhood and reinforced by my biological programming (DNA). Yet despite these restrictions I remain conscious. Again, because it just can’t be said more forcefully… I completely dominated that point. Reliving this point if anything reinforces my position.


You're just citing points you've already lost... what's strange is that you don't seem to remember that.


I have countered all your points. I've laid into them and annhilated all the ones that I disagreed with almost completely. And the ones that aren't completely obliterated only remain because they were so poorly defined in the first place.



*is amused by the irony*


You’re missing the point. The complexity of the task isn’t as relevant as the fact that they reasoned out a tool. They were not shown. They figured it out. They also showed an awareness of how the ants would respond to an invading stick… and how to exploit that.


I’ve never said they were smart. Quite the contrary… but you don’t have to be smart to be conscious as you’ve proven in several ways already. The most relevant to this discussion being that you said that severely mentally impaired humans would still qualify as conscious.



The monkey understood the relationship between the stick and the ants. It didn’t have a preconceived plan before it figured that out. After it figured it out you can say it’s preconceived. But then so is 90 percent of the things people do after the age of 30. Most of the things you do by that point you’ve either done before or seen someone else do.


The fact that you have no proof for that point and yet have no doubt of it just backs up what I said about bias.

You’re making this too easy.


They defined that as responding to sensations.

Read again.


No, I placed the highest burden required by each definition as written. Don’t blame me you don’t like the results it’s your own silly citation.

The wakefulness qualification specifically said this:

That means that entities that are not exercising their consciousness are not at that moment at least conscious.

You can try to read anything you like into that… but that’s actually what it meant. It was disqualifying sleeping or knocked out entities from being classified as conscious at that moment.


I USED YOUR OWN DAMN CITATION AND INTERPRETED IT PERFECTLY!

Dear god man… just wow.


Phones don’t have wills… which is required for consciousness. The phone must act of it’s own volition. Furthermore, you need to meet ALL the requirements of consciousness… not just one. Remember? Are phones self aware? Do the pass the mirror test? If I played back a phone to it self… would it notice itself?

So… give phones their own violation and make them self aware and you might have a conscious phone. Until then you’re not passing anything but some spiteful off the cuff standards you created purely to make a rather crude insult. Which is silly… crude insults only shame the person making them… Like a poorly made bow and arrow against steal armor… it’s just a little silly.

For a little levity… you remind me of the black knight from MP and the HG:


*leaves limbless knight along the road and rides on*, Karmashock.

no, but it is all objective learning. more pavlov's dogs stuff.

oh really? where did you divine this information from?
the only smoke and mirrors here is in your argument...
although, what you lack in using facts you are quite good at with using fallacies, misdirection, ad hominem arguing etc.

its functions are BASE: it has to do with muscle memory and fitness, nothing more.

no, it also came from physiology, color of skin, cultural differences.

says he who is only here because he wants to prove he can make safe concious computers!
I'm the only one between the two of us who's argument stands a damn, yours is so full of hot air and indignance at the failure of your preconcieved notion, that so much as poking your argument with a stick makes it pop! nothing whatsoever except your nice wordplay has half a foot in reality.

because we condition them with treats, its the same situation under different stressors. tell me you arent such an idiot as to not notice.

we dont just walk in one day and see them spontaneously painting, we give them a paintbrush, an eisle and then say "paint". if they do anything sensicle we give them a treat, if they do nonsense they get nothing. so then they connect the two and walla! you have painting monkeys.
its no different then elephants performing at the circus, same principle, same treat, same effect.

you are so wrapped up in yourself.
I'm done noting how you cant put two and two together, you just keep coming up with fancy distractions that take away from simple truth. its like playing with a marionette.

if the monkey's talked about their paintings, or talked about what they would like to do in the future, or in general anything that can be considered a "conversation" then yes, I would have to admit that they are concious.

on the other hand, crazy people are fully capable of carrying out conversations about desires and feelings and subjective matter, all monkeys talk about is what their instructors have force fed them.


WRONG! science is ALL about concensus, concencus about what the FACTS mean, your threads have neither of either!

the word is fuzz, how monkeys and apes think is more or less very well known, and thats all thats relevant.

I repeat, the only source you've sited is a novelist with no academic history that we're aware of, yet you state things that make no sense (like that monkeys force fed sign language have in fact, developed it on their own) and call it fact that supports a very very nondescript theory of yours! oh PLEASE!

you have countered NOTHING, you've been playing a game of tag where each supposed assault on my points is nothing but a faked ruse of a cleverly similar, but nonetheless different circumstance.

so you have FINALLY gotten the irony? I've been BLEEDING that through the last 2 pages now.

what you're missing is the fact that there is no evidence tehy have reasoned anything! just because they act doesnt mean they have in fact, developed that action on their own. again, I repeat: if they had reasoned sticks as utensils rather than stumbled upon it, they would have reasoned something slightly more complex, like the idea that if you dig into the mound you will find more ants.

quite the opposite! they are VERY smart! but the thing is smarts does not beget conciousness. reasoning does, and they have not shown any evidence of independant reasoning skills. all we've seen them do is either a passed down parlor trick or was taught to them through conditioning by US.

again, show me definative proof. you have none because we've never seen a completely isolated chimp make the relationship apparent on its own, all we've ever seen are chimps in preformed societies that more likely than not learned it from their ancestors

you may be able to work a computer, but that doesnt mean you could build one from the ground up. I need to reach into very complex grounds because you know how to reason other things on your own, monkeys, as far as we've ever seen, do not.

of course i dont have evidence about that! the thing is neither do you and yet you somehow think the assumptions are miraculously different. now do you see waht I mean when I say you arent basing in fact? just because it seems the more likely scenario to you, doesnt mean it is the only scenario.

I like that you fell for my ploy, I feel ever smarter now.

and they defined responding to sensations as something beyond twitch manuver which even a jellyfish does, though it has absolutely no thought process whatsoever.

like hell you did, "wakefulness" you defined as... being awake, thats not hte full extent the word develops to. in fact the farthest definition of wakefulness would define even a sleeping person as awake in that they are still processing and thinking, while as a chimp, who does not think in the subjective manner, would not be in a wakeful state.

hardly, it would define REM sleep as a wakeful state. it would define anything without an appreciably sized frontal cortex as not being in one.

see its only perfect in so far as you defined it. thats exactly the hump you cant seem to get over.

oh really? and exactly where is that definition, because in using "wills" I could definately decimate your whole point about chimps etc. as they have no "will" to do anything, simply an evolutionary imperative.

if it has an interference blocker, one could certainly argue yes.
see why I dislike how you defined things? anything goes when you use the words to the point where you might have well said "diddly diddly bong bong boo" and accomplished as much.

and you remind me of this guy


because you really say nothing of intelligable quality.

I say, good man, thats a good choice

I fart in the knights general direction!!!

oh yeah, you both are VERY mature. maybe I should rescend that part about humans bearing conciouness at all...

Humanity, however much I doubt it, does include you too Schem

humanity is a generalization, I belong to something slightly higher. or at least, it REALLY appears that way.

Again, how do you socialize in real life. Cuase I swear if I had direct contact with you I would actually try to kill you just to prove that you arent some kind of god.

like I've said a thousand times, this is a massively characturized version of my ego. I dont act like this in real life because I'm not like this in real life.

I am sure you arent, people are people no matter what they are doing.

Yes I am sure some of it is part character, but you actually have to act somewhat like this in real life. Either that, or you have multipersonallity disorder and you use this as an outlet for one of your personalities.

I guess I will leave you to chose.

well obviously I am somewhat arrogant, but not nearly to this extent.

I am, however, pushy and bossy.

Well its good to see some honesty.

Why cant you act like this here then, it be quite a nice change for all of us

oh here we go, I'm finally cooling down and you have to go and be a jerk.

I'm always honest here.

I'm the jerk?

Take it easy Schem, I was just being myself

ur both screwy ho's, and karma is... well.. different...

Were the ho's and Karma the pimp, you gotta problem with that squirel boy?

well...
yeah, pretty much.

if you want to be a ho, you do that. I'll go stand

WAAAaaay over there.

I am not the name caller/ stuborn idiot



Right, youll work that corner, and I will work this corner.

*starts striking sexual poses*

emperor palpatine in drag...