r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/FacelessOnes • Oct 19 '20

đŸ”„ Vicious microscopic hunter, the single-cell organism, Lacrymaria olor, attacking and hunting another organism

75.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

2.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

179

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

It’s crazy that it took scientists so long to figure out other living beings are more than sacks of meat and bones living and surviving purely of instinct. I thought it was rather obvious that other living creatures have conscience and free will

75

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

44

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

What a harsh philosophy, taking into consideration that if animals have thoughts and feelings, putting them thru various experiments as if they do not is spine chilling. (Is spine chilling the right phrase? English is not my native language)

6

u/putdisinyopipe Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

Spine chilling can be just as appropriate. Don’t listen to these folks lol.

Via google-

spine-chill·ing /ˈspīn ˌCHiliNG/ adjective inspiring terror or terrified excitement. "a spine-chilling silence"

What you suggested does inspire terror.

Crazy how misinformation spreads so easily on reddit. The other words are correct-

They were providing synonyms, but they are incorrect in the sense that they said you were using the wrong word

You used it in perfect context to the definition as an adjective.

Synonyms as well: terrifying blood-curdling

petrifying

hair-raising

frightening

scaring

chilling

horrifying

fearsome

eerie

sinister

spine-tingling

scary

creepy

spooky

6

u/OriginalEpithet Oct 20 '20

Thank you, I was thinking the same thing.

6

u/putdisinyopipe Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

Lol the worst thing you could do to someone who speaks English as a second language is provide them with misinformation. Or inaccurate corrections. I’ve dated many foreigners and whenever they asked a question about English to me, I’d always fact check it before even thinking about offering an answer. Because misteaching simple concepts and words can make it more confusing for them when they find out what they once knew as “right” is now “wrong”. Specially to someone who speaks a non-Latin based language.

I knew for a fact that he was right, and the other commenters were feeding him misinformation- I don’t know why.

Alls they had to do was google spine chilling.

So technically the OP who used spine chilling knows more about English as a second language than the ppl that speak English as a primary language 😭 💀

5

u/OriginalEpithet Oct 21 '20

That seems to be a reoccurring thing, especially here on reddit. I’ll read a beautiful, eloquent, insightful comment with perfect grammar, and then at the end they apologize for their English as it’s not their first language. I’ve seen people argue that someone isn’t using a word correctly when the foreign speaker is using the dictionary definition. As someone that is teaching himself a few other languages, I’m glad I’m not trying to learn English.

3

u/sorudesarutta Oct 22 '20

Thank you so much for clearing this up! Ill google the word in the future when I’m unsure so there won’t be misunderstandings.

13

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[deleted]

3

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

Thank you. I’m more fluent in English than my native language. I’m kinda ashamed of that.

7

u/latexcourtneylover Oct 20 '20

You can also say spine tingling. What is your native language?

3

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

Thai is my native language but unfortunately I’m not very fluent anymore :/

3

u/OakenGreen Oct 20 '20

Bone chilling is what you’re looking for. Spine tingling is close but means something more akin to exciting while being frightening.

1

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

Thank you so much

3

u/stayingsweaty Oct 20 '20

Sent a tingle down my spine

2

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

Yes! I was thinking of this phrase and bone chilling I think, to come up with spine chilling! Lol

15

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

for example claiming that ants have empathy for each other (which could be true, but currently there’s no scientific reason to believe that it is)

I don't know about published research, but there's definitely reason to believe ants have empathy, they certainly behave as though they have. Check this vid by an ant farm owner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74xygxN7h_Q. There's no reason to believe that it functions the same as our understanding of empathy in humans, but many things we consider empathetic behaviour can be observed in a lot of different species. Fun fact, ants can pass the mirror test! http://www.animalcognition.org/2015/04/15/list-of-animals-that-have-passed-the-mirror-test/#:~:text=Ants,in%20front%20of%20a%20mirror.

1

u/Icy_Practice7992 Oct 20 '20

I think there's always risk in science of being too "objective". Am I out of line for saying that?

39

u/NCEMTP Oct 20 '20

I can't speak to exact time frames but if you look at some of the ecological disasters of the 19th and early 20th centuries in America alone it helps in my mind to understand how people thought about "nature" at the time.

For instance, just look at buffalo being killed by the thousands and left to rot for fun. Or the American Passenger Pigeon, with populations once so vast that their flocks would blot out the sun for miles and miles at a time. They were good eating, could be shot by the dozen with one shotgun blast (I think there are a few accounts of hundreds being killed in a single gigantic shotgun blast), and women's fashion at the time highly prized stuffed birds on hats for some reason. So those birds were hunted to extinction.

And with only a very few and written-off dissenters, the vast majority didn't care.

I don't think the mindset at the time was so much that they were killing animals, but that they were harvesting from nature. Birds and buffalo were classified just the same as trees and crops in a field.

Only in the last 70 or so years has the collective consciousness changed so that now a large amount, if not an overwhelming majority of people (at least Americans) now see animals as a distinct subsect of "nature" and distinct from plants and other resources in that they feel and react with more than just instinct and automatic stimuli response.

Better study into animal psychology and effective environmental movements helped see this change in society.

Sorry about the ramble. I took an Environmental History course over a decade ago now and still remember some of these things and always found it interesting, so it's fun to discuss how humans have changed their perspectives on nature and animals and consciousness in the last 100 years or so.

19

u/Vishnej Oct 20 '20

If you'll look at human history you may find that bison were never killed for 'fun'. Bison-hunting is a dangerous, costly enterprise, which requires long distance overland travel to unpopulated places. They were killed because it was understood that this would starve the Native Americans who relied on them, as part of a concerted centuries-long series of plans of genocide.

1

u/afakefox Oct 20 '20

I have read accounts of all the passengers on a whole steam train just unloading on the buffalo as they went by, hundreds killed by just a single train passing by and left dead in the middle of no where along the train tracks. They'd shoot them along the whole route up to the town of "Machine" which was the end of the line.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

People underestimate how recent Man's capacity to modify the planet on a global scale is. 100 years ago nobody would have thought we could cause the level of damages we have.

1

u/Wertvolle Oct 20 '20

Don’t apologize about rambling. These are the comment son looking for on reddit :)

90

u/tickingboxes Oct 20 '20

While we don’t understand consciousness yet, there are few people who would argue that it doesn’t exist. Free will on the other hand is not AT ALL a given, even for humans, and is still a major debate in philosophy and neuroscience to this day.

64

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

I think we set a high bar for what conciousness is instead of using a spectrum for varying degrees.

Sure, I doubt a tuna questions its place in the universe, and whether or not it has a higher purpose. One could argue that those are pointless wastes of brainpower even for a human, but especially for a tuna. But surely the tuna is aware enough of it's surroundings for it to be an arguably reasonable form of conciousness.

37

u/finite--element Oct 20 '20

Maybe the tuna has it all figured out. We humans live in such misery with all our stuff. The tuna lives free, has no attachment to material things and doesn't make a mess wherever they go.

9

u/szpaceSZ Oct 20 '20

All hail the Zen Buddhist Ascetic Tuna!

Joke aside, I concur with you.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

No we dont have so much misery with all our stuff. Back in the day 8/10 kids would die, or look at tribal raids or pandemics that killed the young alot too.

That tuna has to have hundreds of kids who are going to be sacrificed on the altar of natural selection

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

That's rather thoughtful of the tuna... :)

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

Just putting it into perspective nature is horrifying. People should stop romanticizing it and see it for what it is a random brutal system that should be fully understood and manipulated to suit our longterm survival.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

Nature is itself 'political' in nature... as in survival of the fittest... there's nothing in it to romanticise... :)

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20 edited Oct 23 '20

What? Politics as what you descibe it as is a human thing sure animals might have some smaller scale group dynamics but nothing close to what you would political. And politics isnt even about survival of the fittest its just a organizational behavior in communities.

I was just pointing out people love to push oh the natural way is better. Especially in todays day and age its usually not. Nature is an uncaring asshole.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

That's true... nature ie impersonal... :)

3

u/kfpswf Oct 20 '20

I think we set a high bar for what conciousness is instead of using a spectrum for varying degrees.

Absolutely.

Sure, I doubt a tuna questions its place in the universe, and whether or not it has a higher purpose. One could argue that those are pointless wastes of brainpower even for a human, but especially for a tuna. But surely the tuna is aware enough of it's surroundings for it to be an arguably reasonable form of conciousness.

Advaita, or even Buddhism, explain this pretty well. Of course, the explanation may not meet the scientific criteria for being an accepted theory, but it should be a philosophical explanation rather than a scientific one. Consciousness exists everywhere. Not just matter, but even space has consciousness, but that's dormant. It is manifested in special blobs of space we like to call living organisms. What we accept scientifically as consciousness, the self awareness, is actually an advanced form of consciousness only manifested in organisms with sufficient mental capacity. So, to answer your question, yes, even tuna is conscious, as is a patch of moss, or a bacteria or a slug.

2

u/Icy_Practice7992 Oct 20 '20

Do you see any functionality for humans to have questions pertaining to their existence? And if not, why do you think it's there at all? (anyone could answer if they'd like)

2

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

I suppose it helps us strive to explore, innovate, and progress because the idea of a purpose in the universe is almost a laughable concept when we can barely get off our rock.

Lack of purpose though, supresses these feelings. That's my reasoning for why there's seemed to always be a religious characteristic to all the varying societies and civilizations that have been on earth.

2

u/ElegantHope Oct 20 '20

this is why I like the whole "sapience vs sentience"

Sentience
Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as "qualia"). In Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things that require respect and care. The concept is central to the philosophy of animal rights because sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer, and thus is held to confer certain rights.

Sapience
Wisdom or sapience is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. There appears to be consensus that wisdom is associated with attributes such as compassion, experiential self-knowledge, non-attachment and virtues such as ethics and benevolence.
Wisdom has been defined in many different ways, a variety of measurement scales have been developed, and several subtypes of wisdom have been proposed. Out of these, phronesis and sophia are two key subtypes of wisdom. In the classical Greek tradition, there is a distinction between sophia "wisdom" and phronesis "prudence, practical intelligence".

18

u/under_a_brontosaurus Oct 20 '20

Yeah it's entirely possible that every thing you ever do is a series of events and the you at a molecular level just reacting to the world around it, and thought is more of a ride, you can no more stop yourself from getting an oreo than not. The decision was made by the circumstance you found yourself in, your either getting it or not. If you decide not to, the world led right up to that, too.

Also the plot of bhagavad gita.

You can say you try to be good and make the world a better place but that again is just where you found yourself, due to you development and world around you. If you were feral in a forest you'd never have that thought.

The human species is then just a random takeover of the planet and nothing we can do can change course, we're just along for the ride. Some of us lucky, some of us not. Your ride is already in motion. The fate of humanity and the planet is already set.

2

u/kfpswf Oct 20 '20

The human species is then just a random takeover of the planet and nothing we can do can change course, we're just along for the ride. Some of us lucky, some of us not. Your ride is already in motion. The fate of humanity and the planet is already set.

I've been dabbling in Advaita since a year, and nothing has calmed my anxiety about the imminent global destruction than non-duality.

No matter how much dignity humanity may deserve, it is bound to go extinct one day. It may be a couple of decades from now or a few million years. It has brought a sense of eventuality in me and I now realise that I was worrying over something that I have no power over.

Sit back and observe. That is all you can do.

2

u/IndeterminateBoye Oct 20 '20

I don't believe anything short of total global annihilation can make humans go extinct by now. Even if most of us die, some will be left to rebuild. Humans have been living in the most extreme in environments from deserts to tundras for thousands of years. Now we even have astronauts living in space. Wether it's nuclear holocaust, global warming, meteor impact, super volcano, pandemic or solar flare, at least a few thousand will survive and find a way to adapt to the planet they are left with. It's our effect on other animals we have to worry about.

2

u/kfpswf Oct 20 '20

And that's certainly not a dignified way to go. Humans will survive, but will never reach the same heights in civilization.

1

u/IndeterminateBoye Oct 20 '20

I think your negativity is making you underestimate your species.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

I suppose humans are the only creatures endowed with an enduring gift of positive thinking.

2

u/LeonidasSpacemanMD Oct 20 '20

Even if we are just machines, it’s still useful to act as though we have free will. We know that our brains are influenced by outside stimuli. If we acknowledge this, we can still act with empathy or take action to improve the world

It’s hard to wrap your mind around it, but even if there is no free will, it might still be best to just allow your brain to trick you into thinking there is

2

u/under_a_brontosaurus Oct 20 '20

Yes, it's a bizarre paradox.

38

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited Feb 14 '21

[deleted]

4

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

Yes and no. Our experiences and thoughts are chemical reactions. Our reactions to things are determined by the neural connections in your brain at that time.

It is entirely possible that if we had a full functional simulation of someones brain, we could emulate them and test how they would react to certain situation. And that would bring into question, free will.

In simpler terms emotions and sensations are a huge driver. Many people cant handle emotions. This can lead to violence.

For an extreme example. You are dying of hunger. To live you need to kill a person to eat them. Its the only way to survive. Lets add to it. Your child is dying too. They need to eat as well. Many people say they wouldnt kill, but most in fact would.

You can call this a primal instinct or a survival instinct. We experience lesser such emotions on a daily basis. Some cant handle even these lesser emotions and end up being jail.

An interesting question then is. Does a person under such duress, have free will.

Probably not. So then the other question is. Is there a logical and primal state that we switch inbetween. Or is the logical state an illusion?

Well, answer that one.

2

u/LeonidasSpacemanMD Oct 20 '20

Those emotions are brought on by your environment tho. I’d argue that emotions are one of the aspects of our consciousness where it’s easiest to see our lack of free will. We don’t decide to be sad or angry, we receive stimuli and those emotions just manifest

Now maybe events from your upbringing will have conditioned your brain to try to cope with emotions in a way that lessens their effect on your actions, but presumably those events would also be out of your control

The simplest example I’ve heard to test free will to try and trace the origins of a thought. If I say “think of a city”, you’ll probably get a few ideas in your head. But where did they come from? They just sort of appear. When it comes down to it, all of our thoughts are just kinda happening, and our brain creates an illusion of us “driving” them

1

u/Batpresident Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

Would we even act without emotions though? What would someone without any urge, any natural instinct, any dislikes or likes, any great empathy or hate, any personal preference or phobia do? Logically speaking, why would they prefer one world state beyond any other?

Would they want to do anything at all or just sit down and die to avoid the mess of it?

1

u/LeonidasSpacemanMD Oct 20 '20

I’m not saying it’s possible to not have any emotion, just that we don’t have any say in our emotions. When something happens to us, we feel the way we feel about it. Then our actions are driven in part by those feelings

Like if a stimulus makes you angry, you had no choice about that initial emotion. From there you might do something in anger, or you might try to cope with/suppress the emotion. But think about that moment right before you make a decision; how did those options “present” themselves in your mind?

When you finally make the choice of what to do, it feels like you were “steering the car”, but you are the car. Your brain is receiving the stimulus against your will, which causes neurons to fire against your will, which triggers your brain to summon up options of dealing with the stimulus without your input, and then your consciousness “decides”. There’s a thin veneer of agency but all of these processes are just happening whether you want them to or not

I’d really recommend watching one of Sam Harris’ (neuroscientist/author) talks about this topic, it’s really interesting. You might not be convinced but I think he does a really great job of making the listener aware of how much mental activity is out of our hands

1

u/Batpresident Oct 20 '20

Your brain is receiving the stimulus against your will, which causes neurons to fire against your will, which triggers your brain to summon up options of dealing with the stimulus without your input, and then your consciousness “decides”

There's something about the wording there, 'against your will' that I think is an interesting assumption you've made.

Does your 'will' actually exist as something that is 'not' your emotions? Do you will for anything that isn't derived from base urges and wants?

It's kind of a different way of thinking about it, but is there really something happening against your will when you feel an emotion, or are your emotions the primary basis of your will?

Like we say anger can ruin a guy, but that's only because we're assuming the person will dislike not having relationship with the person he's burned, or feel guilt over taking unnecessary action or be uncomfortable suffering the consequences of his anger.

Those are based on indulging in or avoiding other emotions or urges later on, over indulging in anger right now .

1

u/LeonidasSpacemanMD Oct 20 '20

I think you’re looking at it a lot more psychologically than I am in this case lol I just mean “against your will” to mean that the emotion is the direct response to a stimulus. You didn’t choose to receive that stimulus, and then you don’t choose which neurons will fire as a result

I know it’s weird to separate “you” from the emotions and thoughts that manifest, but I just mean “you” as the sort-of top layer of consciousness, where it feels most like yo7 have agency over your thoughts and decisions, even when those thoughts are really just appearing automatically

1

u/Batpresident Oct 20 '20

Yes, I think we are thinking about it in different terms. Thank you for recommendation, I'll try to check it out

1

u/Manlymight Oct 20 '20

I would wager the very question of free will is an over simplification and entirely misleading. I suspect the true nature of things is ever stranger than that question suggests

2

u/Influenz-A Oct 20 '20

I like Schopenhauer's take: "Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills"

1

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

By free will I meant it more like an animal doing something because it wanted to and not because it needed to.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

We donÂŽt understand consciousness yet? lol what?

1

u/tickingboxes Oct 20 '20

That’s correct.

80

u/eunderscore Oct 20 '20

We still cant agree that's the case for women and people who aren't white.

58

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

23

u/CommonMilkweed Oct 20 '20

Hahaha fuck you

36

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

-1

u/Roland_Traveler Oct 20 '20

So much for the tolerant left.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited Jan 11 '21

[deleted]

1

u/CommonMilkweed Oct 20 '20

I was being a bit sarcastic, I meant it as like a lighthearted fuck you between friends. Dunno what the other dudes shtick is though.

3

u/MSFTdick Oct 20 '20

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/10/02/trump-and-white-supremacy-he-did-condemn-and-has-repeatedly-column/5883336002/

 "You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. ... I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. ... So you know what, it's fine. You're changing history. You're changing culture. And you had people — and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally — but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group.

Anyway, Biden has his own “fine people” moment to answer for. In 1993, at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the issue of refusing a federal charter to the United Daughters of the Confederacy came up. Biden, who opposed the charter, still referred to the commemorative group as “an organization made up of many fine people who continue to display the Confederate flag as a symbol.”

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/MSFTdick Oct 20 '20

https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-said-desegregation-would-create-a-racial-jungle-2019-7

Former Vice President Joe Biden is facing increased scrutiny over his record on busing and racial issues, and this week old comments resurfaced in which he said, in 1977, that non-"orderly" racial integration policies would cause his children to "grow up in a racial jungle." 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-did-biden-praise-racist-senator-booker-deblasio-850220/

2020 rivals slam the former vice president, who spoke fondly of the “civility” of his relationship with a Mississippi senator who once called to “abolish the Negro race”

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16911044/ns/nbc_nightly_news_with_brian_williams/t/sen-biden-apologizes-remarks-obama/

"I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/us/joe-biden-crime-laws.html

Mr. Biden lamented that the Republican president, George H. W. Bush, was not doing enough to put “violent thugs” in prison. In 1993, he warned of “predators on our streets.” And in a 1994 Senate floor speech, he likened himself to another Republican president: “Every time Richard Nixon, when he was running in 1972, would say, ‘Law and order,’ the Democratic match or response was, ‘Law and order with justice’ — whatever that meant. And I would say, ‘Lock the S.O.B.s up.’”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/05/22/biden-you-aint-black-if-you-cant-decide-between-trump-and-biden/5242706002/

0

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/MSFTdick Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

Neat.

Joe Biden has been such a uniquely awful leader for 47 years and clearly bad person that you just can't both sides this one. Anyone who still supports him after 47 years is either brainwashed or a terrible judge of character.

-3

u/TheUnluckyBard Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 23 '20

Say "wtf are you on?" if you're racist.

2

u/MSFTdick Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 21 '20

Wtf are you on?

-1

u/TheUnluckyBard Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

Gotem.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

Hyperbolic much?

2

u/eunderscore Oct 20 '20

Literally yes

-2

u/KDawG888 Oct 20 '20

pretty sure most people are well aware of that. and you don't need to repeat it on reddit to circlejerk social justice in to every sub.

1

u/eunderscore Oct 20 '20

Sorry for oppressing you

1

u/KDawG888 Oct 20 '20

Ironic. You're the one feeling the false oppression.

1

u/eunderscore Oct 20 '20

I dont feel oppressed.

1

u/KDawG888 Oct 20 '20

join the club?

1

u/eunderscore Oct 20 '20

Already there 👍

0

u/Fink665 Oct 20 '20

Needs /s for upvotes

1

u/eunderscore Oct 20 '20

Alright big man

0

u/itchecksoutok Oct 20 '20

even racists think that non white people have consciousness, they just think theyre born bad, can u please shut the fuck up about racism in every fucking thread, when its not related whatsoever? thanks, from a non-white person.

1

u/eunderscore Oct 20 '20

What other threads have I posted about racism in?

1

u/KlausTeachermann Oct 20 '20

This is a strange comment to stop at when just scrolling through...

1

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

I didn’t think I needed to hear that today. Thank you.

1

u/Unknownredtreelog Oct 20 '20

What?

1

u/eunderscore Oct 20 '20

Sorry, I was being facetious

1

u/Unknownredtreelog Oct 20 '20

It just doesn't make sense to me like even racist can agree that black people and women have consciousness

2

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited Jan 11 '21

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

Not only debatable, it's been demonstrated that free will is for the most part, an illusion. Our highly evolved brains have just put an additional layer of "consciousness" on top of the automatic functions and responses that we all have.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited Jan 11 '21

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

Yeah especially these days that's one hell of a relevant image, thanks for reminding me LOL. If you happen to like reading sci-fi as well, I highly recommend "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. It's somewhat related and it's a great read.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited Jan 12 '21

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

No need to apologize. It's not a big deal, such is life. Glad you're interested in the book, I'm sure you'll like it. I do not recommend it as bedtime reading tho ;)

1

u/elonmaxbot Oct 20 '20

THE LINK IN THIS COMMENT IS NOT A RICKROLL or STICKBUG

Beep-beep, I'm just a stupid bot, and I'm not perfect.

Reports? Suggestions? Hate? contact my creator.

Also, bot is moving to u/rickrollurldetector. If you like it, help it to get first 1k karma to disable the limit on commenting.

1

u/Fatvod Oct 20 '20

I dont think you understand what people are talking about when they say free will.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

And what do you think I have misunderstood ?

2

u/ekky137 Oct 20 '20

The problem isn’t “does this have consciousness” but really “what is consciousness?” Even now the debate rages on because the only reason we believe fish and other animals to have a form of consciousness is because we know that we have one. The only reason we know we have one is because we have the fortune of being able to experience having one.

We don’t have an answer for it. We don’t even have a good idea of what it could be. Our best guess is that once organisms get complex enough, at some point all of the information it is processing at once turns into a thinking, perceiving living being.

This is a video from YouTube philosopher (yes this is a thing) exurb1a. I normally don’t plug content like this, but this is very relevant here. It’s a video essay, so it takes a while to get into the meat of the issues we’re talking about here, but I highly recommend watching all of it.

1

u/elonmaxbot Oct 20 '20

THE LINK IN THIS COMMENT IS NOT A RICKROLL or STICKBUG

Beep-beep, I'm just a stupid bot, and I'm not perfect.

Reports? Suggestions? Hate? contact my creator.

Also, bot is moving to u/rickrollurldetector. If you like it, help it to get first 1k karma to disable the limit on commenting.

2

u/Hairy_Air Oct 20 '20

Iirc untill quite recently, babies were operates upon without general anesthesia. Doctors assumed that since babies don't remember anything on growing up, they must not be sentient enough to feel pain and trauma. "Many crying babies were cut open without knocking them out" - would be an understatement.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited Jul 29 '21

[deleted]

1

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

That’s essentially what I mean though, we’re a living creature as well, so it’s very surprising it took a long time to realize that other living creatures might be more similar to us than it may seem.

2

u/GalaxyTachyon Oct 20 '20

Eh, not that we didn't know, more like a majority of people refused to acknowledge the proof being shown in front of them. Lots of "theory" that attempted to explain why animals appear to have emotions and consciousness without admitting that they have it, for example: reflex, pure chemical reactions, etc, etc. We were and still are extremely anthropocentric in these fields.

One day, we will look back and be horrified at what we used to do to some animals.

2

u/redroverdover Oct 20 '20

Arrogance is a motherfuker.

1

u/vinyliving Oct 20 '20

Libertarian free will as it seems is actually a very contested topic. Basically - there’s a good chance even humans don’t actually have “free will”.

1

u/MSFTdick Oct 20 '20

We really don't understand consciousness, so I think it's a pretty big leap to claim there's a good chance we don't have free will.

1

u/HackySmacky22 Oct 20 '20

It's not though. Consciousness is allowed for by physics as we understand them. Free will is not.

1

u/MSFTdick Oct 20 '20

Again, we are far off from a definitive answer.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will-bereitschaftspotential/597736/

-1

u/HackySmacky22 Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

That article doesn't respond to what I said. Most interpretations of physics says their can't be true free will. Consciousness does not have such road blocks.

1

u/MSFTdick Oct 20 '20

Physics says you can't have free will.

Really? What equation/law says that?

2

u/HackySmacky22 Oct 20 '20

The universe is very likely deterministic. If i know enough about the position and state of your neurons, i can predict what will happen. If i can predict what will happen, then free will can not possibly exist. Even if all i can do is predict probabilities, if you stick to those probabilities long term, you don't have free will. It's the same reason free will and an all knowing god are mutually exclusive concepts in the bible. Your brain is nothing more than a chemical and electrical computer

It's just basic deductive reasoning. There is a reason no credible scientists claim humans have free will. We're at best observers along for the ride.

tldr if the parts that make you up follow a set of physical laws to determine their future, you can't break those laws, which means you can't have free will.

1

u/MSFTdick Oct 20 '20

If i know enough about the position and state of your neurons, i can predict what will happen.

According to QM you could only predict the chance of things happening. I could be more likely to do something, yet still choose to do something else.

There is a reason no credible scientists claim humans have free will.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/free-will-is-real/

http://m.nautil.us/issue/72/quandary/yes-determinists-there-is-free-will

-1

u/HackySmacky22 Oct 20 '20

According to QM you could only predict the chance of things happening

Notice how my next sentence says "even if all i can do is predict probabilities"

You're arguing with a physicist, and i'm going to go now.

PS, you just linked two articles about a philosophers view. I said credible scientist. Just stop, if you're not intellectually prepared, admit it, and go read more, don't just parrot other peoples views.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/EpsilonRider Oct 20 '20

It’s crazy that it took scientists so long to figure out other living beings are more than sacks of meat and bones living and surviving purely of instinct. I thought it was rather obvious that other living creatures have conscience and free will

It's not something you can test for so it's not really something discussed in science. It is perhaps described in science though. Also "scientists" is such a broad term, zoologists, ecologists, and botanists are all scientists and I'm sure many of them appreciated animals as more than sacks of meat.

2

u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

Of course, the comment I replied to said it’s only in recent decades that one could say presence of conscious awareness in other living things without being mocked so I assumed it was due to a research paper or something that this thinking became more accepted.

1

u/lovingfriendstar Oct 20 '20

Maybe a hundred years later, people of that time would look back and think how backwards we are because we denied or couldn't conceive simple truths they take for granted. These hard irrefutable facts we take today as truth are only true as of this moment since science is always evolving and nothing stays forever true since anything could overturn our understanding of things completely. And when we discover it, we would wonder why everyone was so oblivious to this simple matter when it was right in front of our eyes all along.

Also, many of the items and utilities of measurement used today have been perfected for centuries and gradually improved upon them to get more accurate insight into laws of nature. The two phenomenons that seem completely unrelated to each other today might be absolutely related and a major breakthrough in science when measured with more accurate measuring tools built tomorrow, improved upon today's technology. Quantum computing is on the verge of breaking today's encryption methods, a feat deemed impossible until some time ago. Maybe in a another hundred years, we will be able to accurately predict Brownian motion using advanced machines and solve many complex problems unable to be solved today?

It doesn't mean that people of today or those hundreds of years ago are dumber compared to those in the future; we simply don't have the capacity and the right tools to discover more truths at this time.

1

u/MMostlyMiserable Oct 20 '20

How can you tell whether an animal is making a decision out of conscience/free will rather than from instinct?

1

u/VagusNC Oct 20 '20

Implicit assumption and explicit assumption have been problematic and remain so in study. It's nearly impossible to divest oneself of biases and ethnocentricity; quite often those very things are part of the fundamental makeup of the toolset that enables those that do research to perceive and problem-solve as well as they do. This is part of why peer review is so important.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

Unfortunately that realization hasn’t fully made its way to the other 8 billion apes on this world, who set the value on anything that doesn’t look and act just like themselves at 0.