On 5/28/2014 7:14 PM, LizR wrote:
On 29 May 2014 13:56, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
On 5/28/2014 6:48 PM, LizR wrote:
On 29 May 2014 13:43, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>
wrote:
On 5/28/2014 6:28 PM, LizR wrote:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/05/140528-lori-marino-dolphins-animals-personhood-blackfish-taiji-science-world/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_tw20140528news-lori&utm_campaign=Content&sf3097303=1
"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but Can they
suffer?"
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
Ah, so consciousness /is/ both more difficult and more important than
intelligence!
I don't think it's more difficult - I think some very unintelligent animals
can
suffer. Of course there are different kinds of suffering. I doubt that
suffering
pain requires human-like consciousness, but suffering existential angst
probably does.
No one mentioned huiman like consciousness (well, no one except you).
I mentioned it to raise the point that there are different kinds of consciousness and that
implies different kinds of potential suffering. Even simple animals are conscious of the
status of their bodies and so they can suffer pain - but probably not boredom.
Consciousness is required for suffering, and we have very little idea which animals are
conscious. Whereas we can tell how intelligent animals are by looking at their behaviour
- their ability to learn and to deal with novel situations etc. Hence consciousness is
more difficult to detect than intelligence.
And if one believes your quote, it's also more important.
Yes, I think it is more important. We would have no ethical qualms about destroying an
intelligent computer if we thought it was not conscious (e.g. Watson). But I think it's
impossible to completely separate the two.
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