[FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics

[Jochen Fromm]

Are animals and humans capable of mutual love? I'm not sure. It depends how you define love. Romantic love seems to be specific for humans. No matter how much your dog or cat may like you, "if you die at home alone, there's a decent chance your pet will eat you"https://www.science.org/content/article/scienceadviser-will-your-pet-eat-you-after-you-dieBut I believe Darwin was right when he wrote "there is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo-J.
-------- Original message --------From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> Date: 7/24/24  8:17 PM  (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics Jochen,No bending here.  This IS the thread.I thought many of us came to agree, be deploying experiences, that an animal and a human were capable of mutual love. I was never sure where you stood on that.  I want to get to the point where we can resolve our different view of animals and consciousness. My colleagues seemed to agree that these two propositions are true.
Dusty (Dave) Is conscious of Dave (Dusty).And now we are working on these two: Dusty (Dave) is conscious of Dusty (Dave).I have been working on Dave's last post, which got forked into some noman's land for the last two hours, mostly trying to get a clean version of it into this thread.  I will post it asap.  Meantime, I am  looking for experiences/anecdotes that would lead you to believe that animals/computers/humans are (are not) conscious.   People have been enormously helpful in making me clarify what I am hoping for.  Whatever else I mean by an experience/anecdote, it is a description of something that happened to somebody, preferably you, that affirmed (disconfirmed)your believe that animals are (are not) [self] conscious; what I don't mean is references lectures and tomes.  Frankly, I  would prefer to have a cat video. Nick

On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 1:31 PM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:Nick, Looking for self-awareness in animals before language emerged feels to me like searching for culture in anthropology before civilizations appeared.People in anthropology study human societies, cultures and their development, but sadly mostly in the time before it gets interesting (when religions, writing systems and civilizations emerged in ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia). They examine for instance primitive hunter gatherer groups in Africa or ancient tribes in the Amazon region. Looking for examples of particular experiences with animals that show signs of self-awareness (and not only respond to the world around them, but also respond to their own responding to the world around them) feels similar to me: it is like focusing on a fascinating phenomenon but at a place before it gets interesting.If this comment bends the thread too much then please ignore it :-)J.-------- Original message --------From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> Date: 7/23/24  6:57 PM  (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> Subject: [FRIAM] Self-Consciousness, experience and metaphysics David's last post so effectively blurs the lines between these two that I am going to give up, for the moment, on my attempt to keep them straight.Intuition tells me that Dave's post falls on one side of the line, and Glen's on the other,  but I have to go shopping.   I am still hoping to hear examples of particular experiences with animals, computers, spouses, etc., that confirm your sense that they are not  only responding to the world around them, but also responding to their own responding to the world around them. Back to this later when stocked upIn the meantime, Please, you-all, don't dick with this thread, don't fork it and do, if you are responding to a particular comment, speak to that person, don't just fling your wisdom out into the ether.I never thought you guys would turn me into a thread-Nazi.  Nick
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-- Nicholas S. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and EthologyClark University
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