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Animal Cognition: Difference Between Humans and Animals

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crizon

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I remember something which Dr. Peikoff once said (I can't remember where; does anyone know?) concerning "rights" and the initiation of force.

What he said was something like, if force could change a mind then there would be no argument against initiating force. (Keep in mind that the initiation of the use of force is the only means of violating someone's rights.)

When a gunman says, pointing his gun at you, threatening to kill you, "Your money or your life!," and you therefore decide to hand over your money, are you now convinced that the money that once was yours no longer is yours (Did you consider it your money? By right?), that it now rightfully belongs to the gunman? Did the gunman's use of force change your mind, convince you that what was your money is now his money, rightfully?

Man, and all other animals will resist physical force to the extent that it is painful, but only man resists force because because he judges it to be wrong. (The question becomes: By what standard?)

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These are my own adaptions and i don't know if this correspondes with the "offical theory". I a sense I would describe it as ideas that can and will be transported or communicated from one host to another.

Ideas being solutions to problems or concepts; hosts being live that understands these ideas.

But i think that is still not all. I can imagine a species that meets all these criteria and can be even more intelligent than humans but fail to "close the gap" if they don't have the ability to make tools.

So I think the ability to make tools must be a condition.

And yeah this might be useless for philosophy.

I had a post type last night but lost it so first chance I've had to update it. I have hte same problem with your definition that I do with the general idea of memes. They are too nebulous. It's as if you are simply empirically observing all the things that are done and making a division and hoping you've got it right.

So what about young who are taught to hunt by observation? I recetnly read where some chimps are able to build pokers by sharpening sticks in order to dig insects out of trees, and they are able to teach others to do this. These seem like "solutions to problems or concepts". I dont' think this draws a clear distinction either.

By contrast the Objectivist conceputalization does not follow this pattern as I understand it. Conceptualization must have developed hand in hand with volition and both are inseparable characteristics. Why is this? It is because of the nature of a concept, as a thought or idea that is abstracted away from its referents in reality. In a way it is disconnected from reality. Now that implies that the potential for fallibility will shoot way up. i.e. without being hardwired, how does an animal select and apply the right concept to a situation. How does it recognize the proper situation. Without a faculty to select and apply a conceptual being would have gone extinct for all the errors in application it would make. That faculty to make a conscious selection is volition.

So in a sense you have to appropriately characterize concepts (Rand's innovation), but not necessarily know the brain chemistry behind it. The description then is much more mechanistic rather than empirical. The mechanism is the best description I've seen for what is going on in my head. It explains the gap between man and animal. Your method is to just line up all the behaviors you've seen and compare which ones are similar or not and try to divide between them.

Of course you end up with seeming borderlin cases, but I would say that this is because you've got no way to show the difference in what's actually occuring in the brain. As I've suggested, simpler evolutionary systems are capable of mimicking those behaviors and in fact in man (since he probably has those too) are complimentary to his conceptual faculty making figuring out what is conceptual / volitional in man even that much more difficult.

For instance, my dog can recognize things from memory, a hand signal for instace. But I'm quite sure that he doesn't generalize those memories conceptually like I do. The reason is, it takes him more time to discern (unless he's been genetically programmed to as a survival skill - motion for instance), and his generalization patterns are much more brittle. It is as if he has stored a series of pictures of every hand signal that sort of looks like this one and he has to compare them with the one he sees. Change very subtle things in the appearance of these signals and he is at a loss to identify them, even though to me they are substantively identical. That is not conceputalization, but the resulting behaviors can appear so to someone who doesn't understand what that actually consists of or how they were developed.

Edited by KendallJ
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Well yeah.. as I said i believe the difference stems from a difference in extend of ability not in a difference in ability. As for your example with the apes.

One could argue that they do not understand the concept or more importantly are not fully able to communicate it. Memes need to be exchanged and if they are no longer exchanged, it is no longer a meme.

But I'm more inclined to think that yes, memes do not fully explain the gap between animals and humans on their own. They are just a part and the extend of more abilities fully explain the gap.

The thing about volition is: It has to be axiomatic in order to explain or conclude a free will. Otherwise you get a problem with determinism or causality or what makes the human brain in any sense special.

IE any action we make results from unchangeable events in the past.

And, as I said, if volition is then defined in a way that separates animals from humans, there is no point in argueing. And that means that no matter what science has to say about the relation of animals and humans has no part in the argument (since there can be no argument).

And i did not say the axiom is chosen randomly or chosen meaningless.

So the response from an objectivist to a person who says "why don't grant animals right? they can think too" (or any variation) should be "it is axiomatic."

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The thing about volition is: It has to be axiomatic in order to explain or conclude a free will. Otherwise you get a problem with determinism or causality or what makes the human brain in any sense special.

IE any action we make results from unchangeable events in the past.

I'm still completely unclear as to what you mean by axiomatic, so I have no way to evaluate your statement.

And, as I said, if volition is then defined in a way that separates animals from humans, there is no point in argueing. And that means that no matter what science has to say about the relation of animals and humans has no part in the argument (since there can be no argument).

And i did not say the axiom is chosen randomly or chosen meaningless.

Well, look. If the definition is not chosen randomly, then isn't what you mean to say that "volition describes the causal mechanism in reality that serves to explain all key observed differences between man and humans." It's not random because it actually describes the essential thing in reality that explains the difference. If so, then volition correctly identifies reality, and there is no point in arguing because it is a true explanation of reality. In that regard, science has everything to say about it. However, empirical observation is not integrated science. Science is not going to overturn the obvious, ostensible, right-before-your eyes difference between animals and humans. It will only help explain how it functions. Science does not claim that there is no difference between the two does it? If it does not then it's already in agreement. You act as if somehow science and this philosophical description are at odds. They are not.

So the response from an objectivist to a person who says "why don't grant animals right? they can think too" (or any variation) should be "it is axiomatic."

Techincally that is true of everything in reality but it is completely useless statement. An objectivst woudl say animals don't get rights because they are not volitional/conceptual beings. Non-volitional beings have no need of rights since they are pre-programmed. Non-conceptual beings can't hold the concept in their minds to make use of it.

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I'm still completely unclear as to what you mean by axiomatic, so I have no way to evaluate your statement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom

"Therefore, its truth is taken for granted, and serves as a starting point for deducing and inferring other (theory dependent) truths."

Well, look. If the definition is not chosen randomly, then isn't what you mean to say that "volition describes the causal mechanism in reality that serves to explain all key observed differences between man and humans." It's not random because it actually describes the essential thing in reality that explains the difference. If so, then volition correctly identifies reality, and there is no point in arguing because it is a true explanation of reality. In that regard, science has everything to say about it. However, empirical observation is not integrated science. Science is not going to overturn the obvious, ostensible, right-before-your eyes difference between animals and humans. It will only help explain how it functions. Science does not claim that there is no difference between the two does it? If it does not then it's already in agreement. You act as if somehow science and this philosophical description are at odds. They are not.

Well.. if it described the scientific difference between man and human in an accurate way, it would have to make croncrete predictions to what that corespondes in reality.

You could device a test that deterimes whether the subject has volition or not (at least in theory) and you could define the exact border between volition and no volition or let's say the "minimum volition".

I don't think the way volition is used in objectivism corespondes in any way to that.

Techincally that is true of everything in reality but it is completely useless statement. An objectivst woudl say animals don't get rights because they are not volitional/conceptual beings. Non-volitional beings have no need of rights since they are pre-programmed. Non-conceptual beings can't hold the concept in their minds to make use of it.

No. Not every statemant about reality is an axiom.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom

"Therefore, its truth is taken for granted, and serves as a starting point for deducing and inferring other (theory dependent) truths."

a ha. ok. Axioms in objectivism are not articles of faith "taken for granted." They are ostensible.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axiomatic_concepts.html

An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest.

So in objectivism volition is not axiomatic. Nor can I see how if it was axiomatic in your definition it would get around the issue of determinism. It would simply be an article of faith in direct contradiction to deterministic action.

I'm not sure if this is the formal objectivist position or not but as I understand it it could be closest described by volition as a form of self-causation. That is, some element of the function of volition is completely self-contained within the entity itself. My own personal thought is that it is some isolated form of neural recursion which can bootstrap itself into a different state, i.e. flip itself on. In that sense it is still causal, but not determined. There is nothing in causality according to the Objectivist statement of it, that requires only deterministic action. When you are saying that volition must be axiomatic or else you run into determinism problems, you are implying that causality and determinism are one and the same.

No. Not every statemant about reality is an axiom.

So then in Objectivism, every statement about reality contains the axioms, or reaffirms them. To say, that the fundamental issue is that it is axiomatic is superfluous.

Edited by KendallJ
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Well.. if it described the scientific difference between man and human in an accurate way, it would have to make croncrete predictions to what that corespondes in reality.

You could device a test that deterimes whether the subject has volition or not (at least in theory) and you could define the exact border between volition and no volition or let's say the "minimum volition".

This is part of the problem in heirarchy. It does not describe the scientific difference but rather the epistemological difference.

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So in objectivism volition is not axiomatic. Nor can I see how if it was axiomatic in your definition it would get around the issue of determinism. It would simply be an article of faith in direct contradiction to deterministic action.

I'm not sure if this is the formal objectivist position or not but as I understand it it could be closest described by volition as a form of self-causation. That is, some element of the function of volition is completely self-contained within the entity itself. My own personal thought is that it is some isolated form of neural recursion which can bootstrap itself into a different state, i.e. flip itself on. In that sense it is still causal, but not determined. There is nothing in causality according to the Objectivist statement of it, that requires only deterministic action. When you are saying that volition must be axiomatic or else you run into determinism problems, you are implying that causality and determinism are one and the same.

So then in Objectivism, every statement about reality contains the axioms, or reaffirms them. To say, that the fundamental issue is that it is axiomatic is superfluous.

I don't see "free mind" there. Either the chain of determinism is broken or it is not. Either the chain of events that cause the next events is broken or not.

It does _not_ matter what exactly happens inside your mind or what causes the next event, what matters is that there is a deterministic cause.

It can't "flip itself on" deterministic since that "flipin itself on" is a cause of an event in the past and how can anything be "completely self-contained within the entity itself". It does have no connection with the outside world? That is not possible.

Can you explain where you see the difference in casuality and determinism?

There can be no inbetween. The concept of free choice implies that it is not based on previous events and therefore not deterministic. Everything else is just juggling with words (IE redefining free will or determinism).

So you have to take volition as an axiom in some form or us an axiom that directly follows that if you want to follow free will..

I don't think that is a bad thing, it is a nice practical choice.

And besides: At least the axiom of identity is somewhat "under fire" by interpretations of QM. It seems to me that you can never leave out the subject or the observer on a fundamental basis.

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Spend any amount of time around monkeys are you will rapidly figure out they they are utterly insane wild animals with nothing even approaching a sense of morality, would steal the balls out of your scrotum if they knew how. Most humans don't even have a sense of morality, let alone fucking monkeys.

Edited by cliveandrews
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So in objectivism volition is not axiomatic.

In Objectivism volition is axiomatic. The last section of OPAR chapter 2 is Volition as Axiomatic. It is axiomatic because it lies at the root of the epistemologial hierarchy, making knowledge and error possible.

Objectivism also validates volition ostensively, whereas a rationalist would simply assume that something axiomatic must be true.

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How exactly did you observe that the animal was self-aware or was feeling empathy?

One has quite a few senses, but none of them are useful for observing another entity's feelings. The only feelings and consciusness I can observe is my own, through introspection.

Exactly how can I be sure that YOU have any kind of consciousness, self-awareness, and empathy. I simply have to see what we have in common and to make an education guess. The same process applies with animals of limited consciousness and limited morality.

Also, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, you're reading second hand articles written by journalists, not scientific reports. You know as well as I do, it's completely asinine to criticized the scientific validity of the true scientific paper by reading the dumbed down news article.

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I think what you may be missing is that humans are different from other animals in that we MUST rely on reason in order to survive as humans. Man must think and choose to act in order to sustain his own existence. Given this requirement for survival, individual rights (which are defined as a man’s freedom of action in a social context) are necessary for man based on his fundamental nature. Neither religion nor man’s spiritual status has anything to do with Objectivism’s justification of individual rights.

From For the New Intellectual: The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.

The source of ape’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and ape is ape. Rights are conditions of existence required by ape’s nature for his proper survival. If ape is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.

The logic applies just as much to any other living entity that exists, what would distinguish another intelligent volitional entity from a human that gives a human rights? You jabber on about things Ayn Rand and other people have written without thinking a single original thought, and that is completely against the principles of Objectivism.

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Spend any amount of time around monkeys are you will rapidly figure out they they are utterly insane wild animals with nothing even approaching a sense of morality, would steal the balls out of your scrotum if they knew how. Most humans don't even have a sense of morality, let alone fucking monkeys.

You just said, even humans do not have a sense of morality, so monkeys must not be considered able to hold rights? By the argument that monkeys cannot then hold rights, man cannot hold rights. Here we find our contradiction.

Rights afforded a sub-intelligent being may not be equivalent to the rights we grant each other, but surely we must see the immorality in affording them no rights. As an example, killing has always been a sometimes necessary immorality. Sometimes we must kill other people and sometimes we must kill animals. That doesn't mean always killing animals is okay and always killing people is okay. Animals have the right to attempt to exist just as much as we do. They have a right to life the same as we do, but sometimes our rights conflict, and we need to take their lives for food and safety.

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As an example, killing has always been a sometimes necessary immorality.
This is a sufficiently confused and false claim that I have to remind you of the purpose of this forum. I would suggest that you start by understanding the nature of morality.
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No that is not true. Chance is a fundamental principle of the universe and is not a result of a lack of information. Even if you know all information that can be know, you can still not make a 100% prediction about the future.

As far as we know reality is not deterministic.

This true statement carries a lot of misconceptions.

1. While uncertainty is inherent in our new Quantum theories, even under a "deterministic" world ruled by classical physics, it would be impossible to predict the future with certainty. Why? The math is far too complex for supercomputers! This is why we never know with certainty what the weather will be until it arrives, because chaotic systems cannot be predicted with certainty.

2. As physicists we can make accurate predictions, even considering quantum randomness. The nice thing about quantum fluctuations is they cancel each other out on a large scale. This means that quantum uncertainty doesn't have significance at the macroscopic (our) scale and can be ignored in macroscopic calculations.

3. Given 1 & 2, there is only what I'll call "classical indeterminacy" within the human brain. That is to say, the human brain is only indeterministic in so far as your information of its present macrostate is limited.

4. Given 3, free will is not a magical intrinsic property of human minds alone, because there is nothing magical about human minds. We simply happen to have the most powerful ones on earth.

I hope that helps.

But as you presumably know, the Copenhagen interpretation of the facts is just an interpretation; the de Broglie-Bohm theory is causal in nature, as is as well-supported experimentally as the Copenhagen model is.

The major interpretations currently competing with the Copenhagen interpretation, the Many-Worlds interpretation, and the Hidden Variables interpretation suggest that quantum indeterminacy may not exist, but if you refer to my other post, you can see that classical indeterminacy is still alive and kicking even without quantum fluctuations.

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a ha. ok. Axioms in objectivism are not articles of faith "taken for granted." They are ostensible.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axiomatic_concepts.html

So in objectivism volition is not axiomatic. Nor can I see how if it was axiomatic in your definition it would get around the issue of determinism. It would simply be an article of faith in direct contradiction to deterministic action.

I'm not sure if this is the formal objectivist position or not but as I understand it it could be closest described by volition as a form of self-causation. That is, some element of the function of volition is completely self-contained within the entity itself. My own personal thought is that it is some isolated form of neural recursion which can bootstrap itself into a different state, i.e. flip itself on. In that sense it is still causal, but not determined. There is nothing in causality according to the Objectivist statement of it, that requires only deterministic action. When you are saying that volition must be axiomatic or else you run into determinism problems, you are implying that causality and determinism are one and the same.

So then in Objectivism, every statement about reality contains the axioms, or reaffirms them. To say, that the fundamental issue is that it is axiomatic is superfluous.

To say an axiom isn't taken on faith is to say A is not A, its a contradiction of the definition of an axiom. It doesn't matter if the axiom reaffirms itself, all good axioms do, but they're still accepted 'without proof' in order to prove other things. If you don't leave yourself with ground to stand logically, you can't prove anything. An axiom is disproved when it creates a logical contradiction, it can never be affirmed, because that would be to say: "Its truth is equivalent to its truth" or more clearly, it is true if it is true and false if it is false.

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Spend any amount of time around monkeys are you will rapidly figure out they they are utterly insane wild animals with nothing even approaching a sense of morality, would steal the balls out of your scrotum if they knew how. Most humans don't even have a sense of morality, let alone fucking monkeys.

Monkeys have been known to go nuts if you cut open dead monkeys in their presence. Males will also try to attack you if you look them in the eyes; they take it personally. Sure, maybe not the morality of a coffee shop, but the morality of a sleezy bar? Perhaps.

This is a sufficiently confused and false claim that I have to remind you of the purpose of this forum. I would suggest that you start by understanding the nature of morality.

Would you accept the correction: Killing without REASON is immoral?

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The source of ape’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and ape is ape. Rights are conditions of existence required by ape’s nature for his proper survival. If ape is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.

The logic applies just as much to any other living entity that exists, what would distinguish another intelligent volitional entity from a human that gives a human rights? You jabber on about things Ayn Rand and other people have written without thinking a single original thought, and that is completely against the principles of Objectivism.

You're jabbering on like a fool who doesn't understand the concept of individual rights, let alone the nature of a volitional consciousness and how man differs from all other living entities. Find another place to troll.

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You're jabbering on like a fool who doesn't understand the concept of individual rights, let alone the nature of a volitional consciousness and how man differs from all other living entities. Find another place to troll.

I am not trying to be a troll. I'm trying to get to the heart of the issue: What is the principle that excludes other intelligent entities from having any rights? I'm sorry I haven't as much knowledge of your position as you do, and maybe I should be a little more careful in my arguments. However, there's a logical hole here that we need to fill before I can feel comfortable.

[Please also consider that this is the DEBATE section, and not the agreement section]

Edited by Q.E.D.
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To say an axiom isn't taken on faith is to say A is not A, its a contradiction of the definition of an axiom.

Flatly false. Axioms are validated not taken on faith. Nothing is taken on faith.

“Validation” in the broad sense includes any process of relating mental contents to the facts of reality. Direct perception, the method of validating axioms, is one such process. “Proof” designates another type of validation. Proof is the process of deriving a conclusion logically from antecedent knowledge.
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What is the principle that excludes other intelligent entities from having any rights?
The principle is that man, and only man, has a volitional conceptual consciousness which makes the concept of rights both possible and necessary.
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Also, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, you're reading second hand articles written by journalists, not scientific reports. You know as well as I do, it's completely asinine to criticized the scientific validity of the true scientific paper by reading the dumbed down news article.

I'm ready to shoot down anything people who claim that this or that animal is capable of understanding complex abstract concepts such as rights, or even simple abstracts like "triangle", present as evidence, thus proving they should be considered intelligent and assigned rights. So far those articles are all that came up, even after five or six of your (not all that sciency) posts. Why are you YELLING at me? I didn't post those articles as evidence, I just explained why they're not.

Exactly how can I be sure that YOU have any kind of consciousness, self-awareness, and empathy. I simply have to see what we have in common and to make an education guess. The same process applies with animals of limited consciousness and limited morality.

The method is called induction.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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Sorry, I did not mean to have an aggressive tone or to seem as though I was shouting.

I had to look up the non-mathematical meaning of induction, and I agree that induction is how I would determine that you have consciousness, but the definition I found is important:

Induction or inductive reasoning, sometimes called inductive logic, is reasoning which takes us "beyond the confines of our current evidence or knowledge to conclusions about the unknown."

Its a spectacularly good guess that you're conscious, but it cannot prove such a statement with logical certainty from my own perspective. That's induction as I understand it.

Also, I'd never suggest that animals are as conscious or as intelligent as human beings. They definitely don't deserve human rights, but I think that more intelligent species do deserve some kinds of limited rights, although our society has already given some animals more rights than they deserve.

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I had to look up the non-mathematical meaning of induction, and I agree that induction is how I would determine that you have consciousness, but the definition I found is important:

Induction or inductive reasoning, sometimes called inductive logic, is reasoning which takes us "beyond the confines of our current evidence or knowledge to conclusions about the unknown."

Look up the definition of definition, I guess. That is not a definition, that's a silly comment on how induction is bad for you.

But it does not tell you what it is, only that it is something that doesn't work. If induction goes beyond the confines of our knowledge, then we know nothing whatsoever, because all conceptualization is induction. Let me give just an example:

No one has ever observed every single specimen of something before giving it a name. Let's say an explorer found some new, similar looking animals, and after observing a few males an females, and how they behaved, he called them one thing: penguin. Does that mean that, because no one ever collected all penguins everywhere, to make sure they are all the same, and then deduce that yes, they are indeed a group that can be called a single species, penguins "are beyond the confines of our current knowledge"?

Now take that further: Does the fact that you have ot seen all males in the Universe mean the concept male is outside your knowledge?

What about water, have you personally inspected all H2O molecules and deduced that they are indeed all the same way? If not, how the Hell do you know that you boat isn't going to just sink, or the ocean just evaporate around you and leave you to fall a mile to your death? Are you really just guessing?

Ayn Rand describes the process of induction by which all thinking men observe facts of reality and integrate them into concepts, in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

Also, I'd never suggest that animals are as conscious or as intelligent as human beings. They definitely don't deserve human rights, but I think that more intelligent species do deserve some kinds of limited rights, although our society has already given some animals more rights than they deserve.

I'll acknowledge the vagueness of that statement (there, acknowledged), and then just take it as is:

If something doesn't understand the concept of rights, and no animal does, it doesn't have them. What possible reason would I have of pretending that some thing has rights, if it doesn't even have the ability to realize he has rights, or when those rights are violated?

Assigning animals rights is a form of superstition, like not going under ladders. All of a sudden, the ladder has pretend rights, because the superstitious person pretends there are consequences to violating that right. But the ladder doesn't know about this right, nor do the animals. It's only pretend rights.

But go ahead, why do "some animals" have "some rights"?

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If something doesn't understand the concept of rights, and no animal does, it doesn't have them. What possible reason would I have of pretending that some thing has rights, if it doesn't even have the ability to realize he has rights, or when those rights are violated?

I hadn't thought of it that way. I'll have to rethink things, but I never thought of rights as something one must demand.

I guess my assertion that hurting animals needlessly is a bad thing doesn't really relate to rights, but something else entirely.

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