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From: yamauchi@SPEECH2.CS.CMU.EDU (Brian Yamauchi)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Intelligent Parrots, or Self-deception and Gullibility.
Message-ID: <1298@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Date: 4 Apr 88 06:55:49 GMT
References: <1988Mar4.162334.18184@utzoo.uucp> <4299@blia.BLI.COM> <2200@ttidca.TTI.COM>
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Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
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In article <2200@ttidca.TTI.COM>, hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) writes:
> In article <4400@blia.BLI.COM> heather@blia.BLI.COM (Heather Mackinnon) writes:
> .I still wonder what it is about humans that makes us want to be
> .different and better than other animals?  We are certainly more similar
> .to other animals than we are different from them.  Why do we keep
> .pretending that other animals can't communicate or act intelligently?
> .We are animals; we are mammals.  We're made out of the same stuff as
> .other animals and constructed very similarly.  What makes us so
> .different?
> 
> Your (our) cultural prejudices are showing.  This is very much a
> European-American attitude.  The North American Native American tribes have
> a very different philosophy wherein humans and animals are co-equal
> tenants of the universe.  It's more appropriate to ask what's different
> about our culture that we don't share these attitudes.
> 
> -- 
> The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, hollombe@TTI.COM)

One clear difference is that humans are the only species (on Earth, at
least) to have developed technology.  Other species may use primitive tools,
but they haven't discovered the recursive nature of tool-making: that you
can make tools to make tools to make tools...  Perhaps since the American
Indians lived in a relatively low-tech society, they were less concerned
with this aspect.

I consider this to be a critical difference because other animals are forced
to adapt to their environment (through the slow process of evolution) or
die, whereas man is the only species which adapt his environment to his own
needs -- and in the future, through biotech, possibly adapt himself through
conscious design rather than random mutations.

Certainly, humans are animals, but animals are also machines, but the
interesting questions seem to be the ones concerning what makes a human
different from a dolphin -- as well as what makes a mouse different from a
Connection Machine.
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Brian Yamauchi                      INTERNET:    yamauchi@speech2.cs.cmu.edu
Carnegie-Mellon University
Computer Science Department
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