I heard theory that there will be no other sentient creatures on Earth because humans will destroy them. I read this theory from article about Birutė Galdikas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birut%C4%97_Galdikas) who is studying orangutans. Let's not forget neanderthals as well in this context.
Actually given that dogs score better than chimps, wolves and human infants in tests of social cognition would lend credence to the fact that humans are actually inadvertently creating sentience. Similarly dogs are the only non-primate species to look at the right side of a persons face to gauge their emotion and state, but unlike primates and humans, they don't do this with other species or dogs.
Evidence points to dogs having a limited theory of mind, in that they can actively be deceitful, meaning they can understand the perceptions of other animals.
Not to mention, dogs are already known to have the ability to rationalise, empathise and have abstract learning abilities. They're capable of the whole range of human emotions, including clinical depression, melancholy, anger, rage, etc. Beyond that, they're capable of empathetic sadness and anger. They also display the same ability as many of the great apes to mourn their dead, but notably dead humans.
Orangutans are largely being made extinct for the same reason that humans have made wolves and tried to make numerous other species such as foxes, rabbits, etc. extinct. In that they're pose a risk to our economic livelihoods. Orangutans are dying because of deforestation and poaching.
Wolves evolved into a evolutionary niche as dogs, and as dogs have become as wide spread a species as humans and have evolved far beyond their ancestors. To the point that they actually rank above primates in certain tests of cognition and social behaviour - notably the two behaviours that are attributed as key elements of human evolution to sentience.
Having lived with the "best friends" of humans (cats and dogs) for many years, I am no longer sure what "sentience" is because I find the difference between us and them in everything to be a matter of degree.
We're _better_ at being 'sentient' than they are, but I can't find anything that we do that they don't. I'm serious here. You totally hit the nail on the head when you talk about anger and empathy.
They can learn, they can feel, they can teach their offspring, they can empathize, they can demonstrate their emotional and physical needs, and they can communicate both with us and amongst themselves. They know right from wrong (keeping in mind that in reality there are no moral absolutes and right and wrong very much relative concepts even to humans, and even on what we consider to be an axiomatic basis).
Just be careful not to project your own humanity onto your pets, if you want to see them more objectively. Radiolab had a great episode on "animal minds" that went into some of the biases dog owners have about their pets. In a sense, we're actually disrespecting other animals by judging them on a scale of "how humanlike is their behavior" and too easily discounting the things that make them unique and unlike us.
I have two dogs, both from the local SPCA. My first was a stray and came to us with full blown anxiety. She used to have separation anxiety from people she'd just met (literally a friend dropped in for 5 minutes just to see her and she spent 20 minutes panicked and crying when he left). However, she's the happiest dog anyone (and I'm really not exaggerating that) has ever seen.
My second dog was abandoned by his owner, completely neglected (skinny, no muscle mass whatsoever, he literally struggled jumping onto a couch, and the SPCA had to shave him almost bald to get rid of the mattes) but that has no effect on the fact that he was depressed and angry over it. When we started training him he became pissy, jumped up on our bed and took a giant shit on it and that's from a 4 year old dog that's never had an accident in our house.
However, the second dog has recently become the bodyguard for the first. We've only had him 3 months, but around other dogs that are overly aggressive in how they tell off another dog (she's barely 2 years old, so a lot of older dogs are very assertive in how they correct her) he has taken to blocking them. He doesn't become aggressive, but when she is nervous or panicked he seems to step in and block, and it's funny because you'll see him for 5 minutes just blocking a dog from getting to her. Even when he gets snarled or snapped at he carries on until the other dog backs off. It's when she submits (rolls on her back, occasionally pees) to other dogs that you see him become angry as he (normally a silent dog) will bark and growl at the other dog and guard her. This happens all the time with our trainers boarder collie (they don't like excitement and our first dog is a jack russell mix, so is basically excitement personified) and there'll be 5 minutes of them squaring off barking at each other and him keeping the trainers dog from our first.
Our first dog knows right from wrong and when she's done wrong. If she knows I've noticed something she's done wrong (like torn up a burger wrapper) she goes into full blown submission and often pees on herself (it's a girl dog way of stopping another dog from attacking her). Our second however either doesn't know or doesn't give a shit about right from wrong.
my greatest personal epiphany was when i saw that while we're longing for other intelligence and looking for it out there, there is an other intelligence right near with us.
Interestingly enough birds are the one group that systemically destroys the sentience tests.
One test, the Mirror Self Recognition test was thought to only be accomplished by humans and the great apes, even monkeys aren't capable (in the traditional sense). However the humble pigeon passes, and not an occasional get lucky pass, but pigeons just nail the test.
Tool use was one of the very classical 'gateways' to sentience argued for humans. Except there appear to be far more bird species than mammal species that regularly use tools. Further than this, Herring Gulls are noted for tool-use hunting by using pieces of bread to hunt goldfish - which essentially one-ups all other known tool users.
Ravens are one of the few species who actually make the toys they play with. IE they don't find a stick and play, but will break twigs off of trees and brushes with the intent of using it to play with others.
There's a series of books by David Brin that explore the idea of "uplift", where humans learn how to augment intelligence in certain animals (dolphins, chimps, and gorillas) and then get busy doing so.
In my opinion, "Startide Rising" and "the Uplift War" are the best books in the series.
That hypothesis can make an interesting read, but if you think about it critically -- it is very unlikely. Suppose humans have already managed to somehow "uplift" dogs (such an assumption would probably go quite well with the many dog owners who are amazed by their pets...). The "uplift" must have happened at least 1000-2000 years ago given that modern dogs are unlikely to be that much smarter than their ancestors from the recorded history. Then, a question arises: if dogs indeed became orders of magnitude smarter than other animals because of their interaction with humans a few thousand years ago, why didn't packs of wild dogs completely dominate wolves, the way Homo sapiens (nearly) completely outcompeted Homo neanderthalensis?
I think the point is that whatever we're doing to domestic animals that makes them appear smart to our eyes is not necessarily what is required of them to appear smart to natural selection if humans were to disappear. In other words, we're not so much "uplifting" domestic animals as molding them to our needs.
Crows are the smartest birds out there, but they are also arguably the most annoying birds out there, and their high intelligence is actually a part of what makes them appear so annoying and pest-like to us (yes, we keep parrots as pets, and parrots are smart also, but in the tropics were parrots are common they cause as much trouble as crows cause here). I think it would be reasonable to conclude that if we ever domesticated crows, the direction that our crow breeds would take would be primarily towards agreeableness to humans even if that came at the expense of intelligence.
I agree that there's a big difference between "domestication" (that we've done with dogs) and breeding for intelligence. I'm not aware that we're doing that with any species (except for maybe Harvard Grads).
Also, one of the conceits of the "Uplift saga" is that genetic engineering tweaks cause most of the "uplift." It's also interesting to note that one of the first species "uplifted" are dolphins, a species that doesn't have much chance to annoy/outcompete humans.
I guess it boils down to how important "intelligence" is to evolutionary adaptation. It apparently conferred significant reproductive benefit to humans (the most populous primate species).
OTOH, to quote J.S.B. Haldane: "the Creator, if he exists, has a inordinate fondness for beetles."
>no other sentient creatures on Earth because humans will destroy them. ... Let's not forget neanderthals as well in this context.
True and false. The most "advanced" humans of any given time have destroyed and will be attempting to destroy the competition. Neandethals fell victim to Cro-Magnon, and the Cro-Magnon [ie. current "humans", we] will in its turn fall victim to the next human species. ( My previous comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3126716 )
> the Cro-Magnon [ie. current "humans", we] will in its turn fall victim to the next human species.
I don't think so, at least not in a violent way. Like something Nietzsche said in TSZ, "man is something to be surpassed, but only a buffoon thinks that man can be overleapt."
Well, it is really hard to imagine how something/somebody can surpass Cro-Magnon in the ways of violence. On the other side, only violence can keep the Cro-Magnon at bay as Cro-Magnon willn't allow to be peacefully surpassed.
>"but only a buffoon thinks that man can be overleapt"
yep, the 20th century history is littered with such failed over-leap attempts. Curious time we live at - the previous attepts of "leap"-type [necessarily forced] transformations of humans and society are finished and no new is initiated yet. Is it quiet before the storm? I don't believe that we learned the lesson.
