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Animal consciousness

rick said:
The language barrier exists, obviously, and it's massive.

Right, but it at the same time illustrates the ways in which some apes have become 'partly human'. To some extent, we are the social relationships in which we're embedded.


I know may cat wonders what he's going to have for dinner because when i make the noise for food time, he comes running and he'll be trying to see in the bag.. if i pull out a tin he loses almost all interest whereas if i pull out a pouch he's loving it..

I think that this, however, is a more clear example of operant conditioning. We have no access to the cat's subjective experience of this conditioning, but I would expect it to fall short of "wondering". It could just be that the cat finds himself impelled to seek in a certain manner in response to certain stimuli, lacking all awareness of why.

ebola

ebola
 
How does it differ from the barrier between two people sharing a particular language? What about comparison with exchange by humans with different native tongues? This might be a good (re)starting point.

ebola
 
Well there wouldn't be a language barrier between two people who spoke the same language ;)

Interesting. I'd hypothesise that if a person was kept as Kanzi was / is and was treated in the same way, that they could become a very similar being (consciously).

It'd be interesting to work out what part/s of the brain are active when asking questions like "why?" and then looking for a similar pattern in active regions of great apes when asked "why?" provoking questions..

They have the same neuronal structures as us so i fail to see why they wouldn't experience consciousness on a VERY similar level to our own.
 
I tend to agree with Foreigner.

I have a "pet" that I consider more a friend and member of family. He is my boy! :D

I'm pretty sure that there are many people that feel similarly about their animal companions.

:)
 
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