Are sapient species "people"?

[Leeham991]

Really an opinion gatherer here.


Of the species on this planet Earth, Humans and many species of Cetaceans are Sapient life forms.
Now what I been wondering, is the highest form of complex intelligence enough to make "people"? And are humans, as a generalization "people" or must they 1st act in a certain way. And would this mean that perhaps an individual dolphin could be a person above a human based on his actions? Does this put the average 9 to 5 worker on the same level as a roaming whale?

What makes a person?

[godol shmok]

The only "sapient" species that I know about living on this planet now, is homo sapiens. But I would also believe that animals can have personality in some form or another and that we should extend animal rights in a fashion that is appropriate to the needs of them. It has been done a lot in recent years in favor of zoo animals and now we should do more for wildlife, e.g. by relocating parts of roads under the ground when the roads cross the trails of animals or creating opportunities where animals can savely breed in our urban enviroments, e.g. by installing pigeonries in cities. To come back to your question, one could probably say that people (we) and animals as species, groups, individual animals stand in a close relation and that these relations require our efforts to let animals be what they are in a modern, urbanized enviroment. The "person" of the animal is then what we allow it to be in relation to us, an effort from our side. To generalize: a "person" is made by what it appears in relation to other persons - a freedom. Such a freedom can be a hedgehog that can savely cross a road because we have made the road in a fashion that is friendly to his kind.

Interesting and good topic.

[Helm]

I'd say yes though I'm not sure if Cetaceans are quite on our level I'd still class them as animals.

[Copperknickers II]

Imo, people means homo sapiens.

[KingDave]

Really an opinion gatherer here.


Of the species on this planet Earth, Humans and many species of Cetaceans are Sapient life forms.
Now what I been wondering, is the highest form of complex intelligence enough to make "people"? And are humans, as a generalization "people" or must they 1st act in a certain way. And would this mean that perhaps an individual dolphin could be a person above a human based on his actions? Does this put the average 9 to 5 worker on the same level as a roaming whale?

What makes a person?

The idea that dolphins are intelligent is greatly outdated. Sure. They have big brains (due to a lack of size constraints in the ocean). Big brains that are comparable in terms of structures to most ruminants. Whens the last time someone implied a cow was intelligent?

For you geeks out there. Dolphins = Commodore 64. Humans = Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition.

[Helm]

The dolphins brain actually looks to have more crinkling of the cortex than a humans. Not that that proves anything but still.

[Ummon]

The dolphins brain actually looks to have more crinkling of the cortex than a humans. Not that that proves anything but still.

The density of grey matter cells is far lower.

[Elfdude]

The density of grey matter cells is far lower.

Uh, men have 650% the grey matter of women. Doesn't seem to make a difference. Neural plasticity trumps physical design. The question really is whether these animals can continue to acquire more and more information causing a societal evolution. From an outside perspective you would notice no real difference between apes and hominids except that hominids lived on the plains and liked to use tools. This is what took humans 100,000+ years to accomplish to the point that we were at all definable from chimps or gorillas intellectually.

Our morality and logic that we think so highly of are products of our society and when society breaks down they are indeed the first things to go. What makes humans humans isn't our incredibly different or better physiology, but rather our society. Thus anything that is capable of building a society that evolves as the people learn and adapt would in my opinion be called sapient. I would avoid harming those 'less than sentient' creatures (such as space dolphins or space chimps) but I don't think I'd treat them with equal respect as a society.

[Claudius Gothicus]

No, but let's imagine that many years from now we discover a sapient species in a prehistoric or Early Ancient stage of development in a distant planet, we should respect their rights to exist because being different does not make them less.

[S.L.I.G]

No, but let's imagine that many years from now we discover a sapient species in a prehistoric or Early Ancient stage of development in a distant planet, we should respect their rights to exist because being different does not make them less.

Wtf? How did this diversity so infest humanity that it has wiped out logic? Yes they are less, if they are prehistoric in society. And yes they are less, if they arent human. And yes we should treat them as such [actually, just exterminate them] because a genuinely intelligent species is a competitor to our own...

[Fiyenyaa]

Wtf? How did this diversity so infest humanity that it has wiped out logic? Yes they are less, if they are prehistoric in society. And yes they are less, if they arent human. And yes we should treat them as such [actually, just exterminate them] because a genuinely intelligent species is a competitor to our own...

And I guess if some super-advanced species comes over here and drops a huge bomb on your house you should be perfectly fine with that too? Ever heard of the ethic of reciprocity?

You'll change your mind. (yes it is that good of a movie)

It may be a great action flick, but the moral underneath it is waaay to simplified to be of much use to adults, to be honest.

[Phier]

No, but let's imagine that many years from now we discover a sapient species in a prehistoric or Early Ancient stage of development in a distant planet, we should respect their rights to exist because being different does not make them less.

Unless of course they have...unobtanium!

[A Fistful Of Dollars]

Chimps are the ONLY other animal that will kill other Chimps for pleasure, or just because. They even use rocks to beat them to death. I say we are more related than we think

[Elfdude]

Chimps are the ONLY other animal that will kill other Chimps for pleasure, or just because. They even use rocks to beat them to death. I say we are more related than we think

Well... kind of. Any animal that has been studied long enough has been seen to exhibit the least 'moral' behaviors of humans. For example a polecat might kill 100 chickens in one night and not eat any of them. Pointless killing is a part of that. On the flip side however almost every animal has been observed doing something moral that it would otherwise never do. Watching mercy from predators is particularly fascinating.

[John I Tzimisces]

I guess it depends on how you define sapience. We are the most intelligent as far as we know and can be demonstrated at this point in time.

On a more specific level, we are the only animal on the planet that seems to be able (discounting extinct human ancestors and their extinct relatives) to communicate in tenses other than the present (this includes everything from bees to birds to dogs to our cousins the great apes).

I think chimpanzees have some form of human rights applied to them in certain countries though, which is logical given how closely related we are (I am quite well aware of the various anatomical differences ranging from pelvis shape and orientation, the angle of their femurs, cranial capacity, blah blah blah) and the level of intelligence they display (said to be similar to that of small children).

So, I guess, given that, if we're going to consider any other species as people, it might as well be the species that has the most recent common ancestor with us.

[Helm]

You should see what we ended up doing to less advanced cultures belonging to our own species throughout history.

[Oswald von Wolkenstein]

*

[Morkonan]

Really an opinion gatherer here.


Of the species on this planet Earth, Humans and many species of Cetaceans are Sapient life forms.

First, before anything else, you must define the word "Sapient."

Now what I been wondering, is the highest form of complex intelligence enough to make "people"?

You and a lot of other people have been wondering about that question.

This wiki on intelligence has a very brief description...

One cornerstone that some believe is uniquely necessary is called the Theory of Mind.

That, by necessity, requires Self-Consciousness or the ability to discern "self."

That, requires elements of cognition

All of that requires elements of Phenomenal Consciousness.

And.. these don't even cover all the various ideas revolving around human level intelligence.

And are humans, as a generalization "people" or must they 1st act in a certain way.

Well, a human is an organism based on human DNA, among other things. Otherwise, a human acting like a dog would be a dog if all we based it on were their actions. So, "Actions" is not a proper way to examine whether or not someone is human. It is, however, appropriate to observe behaviors to determine their mental capacity/intelligence.

And would this mean that perhaps an individual dolphin could be a person above a human based on his actions? Does this put the average 9 to 5 worker on the same level as a roaming whale?

No. Actions are meaningless without the appropriate context. They're impossible to interpret other than attributing some descriptive to them that may, or may not, actually be true. Is a dolphin "saving" someone from drowning actually "Saving" them or is it just responding to an instinctual drive to push any struggling, living, non-food item up to the surface?

What makes a person?

Good question. Fortunately, I think it is one we will never be able to answer fully.

What is your definition of "Sapient?" Start with that. Sapient implies "understanding" and that implies knowledge which could be impossible for a species of animals to have.

Animal intelligence differs remarkably from humans. That much is obvious. But, even where human level intelligence seems to be shared with animals, that can differ remarkably.

For instance, some species of monkey appear to have a knowledge of "self." They appear to understand themselves as a separate entity. They can evaluate their position within a complex social hierarchy. They can take steps to mitigate problems in that hierarchy and they can recognize matriarchal lines (families) on which that social hierarchy is based and take actions based on those complex relationships. Clearly, they have a concept of self. However, put a mirror in front of them and they obviously think its another monkey... Why is that? Why can a monkey have a very complex understanding of "self" and "others" yet can't understand what a reflection is? Is it the test itself the monkey doesn't understand when confronted with the magical technology of a mirror? Or, is it something more basic and fundamental that is going on?

So, our understanding of human level cognition isn't exactly applicable across species. Even the most basic understanding of "self" isn't fully comparable. Can we then expect other behaviors that are clues to intelligence necessarily mean the same "thoughts" we experience are being mirrored in another animal? I don't think so.

[Dracula]

Really an opinion gatherer here.


Of the species on this planet Earth, Humans and many species of Cetaceans are Sapient life forms.
Now what I been wondering, is the highest form of complex intelligence enough to make "people"? And are humans, as a generalization "people" or must they 1st act in a certain way. And would this mean that perhaps an individual dolphin could be a person above a human based on his actions? Does this put the average 9 to 5 worker on the same level as a roaming whale?

What makes a person?

The human soul has 3 components - reason, spirit and willfull part. First being the ability to think; second the ability to recognise good and evil and to be in communion with god; to the willfull part there are the feelings and aspirations that move the soul to a certain action. Each part penetrates the other but are not mixed. Yet you take out one of them and you don't have a person any more.

[Bovril]

There is a myth that dolphins and whales have a mental life similar to humans. This is simply false. They have no language, and their communication is less sophisticated than some species of small monkey. They seem to have about the same cerebral life as dogs. Humans really are massively different from any other species. Chimps are certainly the closest to humans, but their emotional, reasoning and comunication skills are miniscule compared to those of a five year old human, let alone those of an adut human. A huge corpus of experimental litterature amply demonstrates this. I won't speculate in this post on the exstential nature of humanity, but I will say that the idea that there are other species currently living that have mental lives anything like humans is simply false.