Latest pilgrimage

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Latest pilgrimage.

I put in the first comment on the story. Anyone interested in exposing the average person to philosophical questions, please join in.

[Tomas]

Latest pilgrimage.

I put in the first comment on the story. Anyone interested in exposing the average person to philosophical questions, please join in.

Elizabeth,

I would, but it's bad enough here on Worldly Matters (The Brothel) dealing with the fly-by-nights that show up here from time to time.

Inasmuch as i'd like to comment on the chimps versus college "kids" ditto for some of the imbecillic responses on Genius (not worldly)

If it were up to me, i'd have David, Kevin, and Dan go to their local zoo and set up their own test versus the chips. Reasoning Show material...

Perhaps a couple of your Tampa chimps might appear on the Reasoning Show. Yeah! You, Elizabeth, can be the reporter on the beat, Tampa zoo, interviewing these chimps from an American-chimp point of view. Who's "smarter"? Aussie chips or the American chimps?

ps- No Canadian or South American chimps, they are dumb and dumber!


Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971

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[Dan Rowden]

I don't see anything worthy of a comment, frankly. I'm struggling to see any philosophical import in chimps having certain short term memory advantages over humans. What were you thinking of there, Elizabeth?

[Dan Rowden]

Haha, I'm such a dolt; I actually posted the above without reading your comment to the article.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Okay, my comment that I posted in response to the story was:

What if chimps are just as smart as humans, but just don't have language ability? Mute humans have equal rights to speaking humans. If chimps are just as able as mute humans, should there be equal rights for chimps? If not, why not?

I think that asking people to think about whether or not human rights are rightfully exclusive to humans is a decent starter philosophical question. There is another thread on Worldly Matters asking if blacks are inferior to whites. It wasn't that historically long ago that the philosophical question was whether or not blacks were humans, and therefore entitled to human rights. The first people to ask whether or not blacks were actually humans were probably regarded much the same as some are regarding me for asking this about chimps.

What I was thinking, Dan, was how to get some more people at least trying to think philosophically.

[Dan Rowden]

Oh well, it never hurts to try.

[Tomas]

I don't see anything worthy of a comment, frankly. I'm struggling to see any philosophical import in chimps having certain short term memory advantages over humans. What were you thinking of there, Elizabeth?

Was there a breakdown on sex? How many college students and chimps were females? Ditto for the percentage of male students and chimps? Cross-comparisons?

Were minority chimps involved in this test?

ps- People want to know!


Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971

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[Cory Duchesne]

Okay, my comment that I posted in response to the story was:

What if chimps are just as smart as humans, but just don't have language ability?

I think you're neglecting one of the most fundamental philosophical acts, namely, being clear about what you mean by key words.

E.G., How do you define 'smart'?

I don't see language ability as necessarily separate from intelligence.

Mute humans have equal rights to speaking humans. If chimps are just as able as mute humans,

Chimps aren't as able as mute humans. I think they can do quite a bit more for themselves than a monkey, that is unless they suffered brain damage/retardation.

Are monkey's smart enough to actually be aware of the fact they are being experimented on for the sake of improving human life? And if so, why aren't they organizing resistance?

Instead, what we're seeing is a great deal of excited happy monkey hoots, screeches and cage rattling when trainer brings food.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Cory, I'll debate that with you if you take it over to the other forum. GF is hardly my target audience for beginning thinkers. The point here is to wake up new people, and Cory, you are not a newbie.

[Dan Rowden]

Oh, and chimps aren't monkeys. Well, ok, but someone had to.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Elizabeth,

The point here is to wake up new people

What are you trying to wake people up to exactly? That chimps deserve human rights? Is that the extent of your wisdom after this long absence you took from the forum?

Please me it isn’t so Elizabeth…

[Cory Duchesne]

Cory, I'll debate that with you if you take it over to the other forum. GF is hardly my target audience for beginning thinkers. The point here is to wake up new people, and Cory, you are not a newbie.

[thumbs up] I got exams to be focusing on anyways.

Oh, and chimps aren't monkeys.

I'll admit, the distinction between chimp and monkey I've never really thought about. Something to gaze into the abyss about and ponder solemnly...

[Dan Rowden]

Hmm, format tags don't seem to function there; pity.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Cory,

Instead, what we're seeing is a great deal of excited happy monkey hoots, screeches and cage rattling when trainer brings food.

Sounds like a fun night on the town with Carl, Victor and Laird Totality…

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

What are you trying to wake people up to exactly?

I'm trying to wake people up to thinking in general. You start people off with what their passion is, and racial equality and human rights are up there near the top of a lot of people's lists.

Next step hoped for if the conversation gets off the ground is whether all humans deserve human rights, and exactly what people use as a basis for what rights various beings are entitled to.

See? it could get deep - but first step is getting enough posts on there to get people's attention.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Proof that this was deep enough for out there - one guy actually suggested that I try jigsaw puzzles to help me to not think so much. Yup, I'm having to defend thinking.

[Tomas]

Proof that this was deep enough for out there - one guy actually suggested that I try jigsaw puzzles to help me to not think so much. Yup, I'm having to defend thinking.

Tampa-St. Pete is a "small" metro area. Not many people read the paper (much less internet version) anywhere nowadays :-(

Try posting it with a wider area of readership... not that your gonna take it to where people care about chimps, the whole lot of them smell anyways ditto cats and dogs kept in a house.

ps- People don't like monkeys, chimps, babboons, gorillas because they are nasty creatures of habit... very few have good table manners and even less toilet-trained :-|



Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971

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[Elizabeth Isabelle]

ps- People don't like monkeys, chimps, babboons, gorillas because they are nasty creatures of habit... very few have good table manners and even less toilet-trained :-|

I'm not sure if there's a dangling participle here or not. Who were you referencing, the people, or the monkeys, chimps, babboons, and gorillas? ;)

[Jamesh]

I judge these lower levels of intelligence by the degree of emotional display.

To me chimps are so close to humans emotionally that I would consider them intellectual kinfolk. To see the emotion, you just need to watch the way mothers care for their kiddies, and the ways in which individuals and the herd generally reaction to the dominant male.

Pretty much the same as humans in my book, but at the very lowest range. IQ of about 50.

[daybrown]

If non-Christians believe humans have souls, but animals do not, and also believe in evolution, then just when did they quit being animals?

I know of the grave near Shanidar Iraq that includes 7 important medicinal herbs. Only problem is, the skeleton is Neanderthal. And moreover, someone who suffered severe bone fractures which healed, but nonetheless left him a cripple.

Begs questions of whether its better for Chimps to be confined in a zoo, or left in the wild to be killed by Leopards. And for that matter, wild Chimps have been seen hunting, killing, and eating monkeys. So- should we go along with the Chimp opinion that they are just meat? Conversely, they've filmed the Bonobo, who when they found a baby monkey that had fallen out of a tree, pick it up to return it to its momma.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Begs questions of whether its better for Chimps to be confined in a zoo, or left in the wild to be killed by Leopards.

Maybe they could do assembly line work, help out at nursing homes, stuff like that. With the baby boomer population getting up there, we could use some more nursing home workers, and the American economy is based on an ever-expanding population, so we could use some more consumers and more taxable citizens... I bet chimps could figure out how to spend money, and probably be at least as wise about their finances as most Americans already do (maybe the credit card companies would start thinking twice about who they issue to).

wild Chimps have been seen hunting, killing, and eating monkeys. So- should we go along with the Chimp opinion that they are just meat?

Well, with chimps as the new consumers, we may have to be more specific about what we mean by monkey bars. Everything will take some adjustment, I'm sure.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Elizabeth,

Maybe they could do assembly line work, help out at nursing homes, stuff like that. With the baby boomer population getting up there, we could use some more nursing home workers, and the American economy is based on an ever-expanding population, so we could use some more consumers and more taxable citizens... I bet chimps could figure out how to spend money, and probably be at least as wise about their finances as most Americans already do (maybe the credit card companies would start thinking twice about who they issue to).

You’re joking right? It’s difficult to tell with you sometimes.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

That's the crux of my humor - leave them wondering if I'm joking or not. It's a fine line to tow, but makes it extra funny.

- edit to add - If I were serious, I would have put it on the other site. They wouldn't have a chance at understanding my sense of humor.

[Dan Rowden]

Or much of anything else as far as I can tell.

[daybrown]

Elizabeth,

Maybe they could do assembly line work, help out at nursing homes, stuff like that. With the baby boomer population getting up there, we could use some more nursing home workers, and the American economy is based on an ever-expanding population, so we could use some more consumers and more taxable citizens... I bet chimps could figure out how to spend money, and probably be at least as wise about their finances as most Americans already do (maybe the credit card companies would start thinking twice about who they issue to).

You’re joking right? It’s difficult to tell with you sometimes.

Either way, both Chimps and chumps are emotional beings, and require careful case management to get anything done by them. And by the time you could train chimps, the technology is evolving so fast, you could program robots. And either way, Elizabeth is smart to be looking ahead. There's a nursing shortage already, and the boomers are just now starting to retire.

The Aspertame bomb is coming as well. The first rat studies didnt show a problem; after two years, the standard protocol, they dissected the rats and didnt find any problems. But recently, somebody repeated the study, only this time keeping the rats going til they died... more like 3 years. And when the rats got past middle age for rats, the cancer rate went thru the roof. So- a lotta the nurses we now have, instead of providing care til they retire, will need it.