Comments by "" (@ozymandiasultor9480) on "Do Monkeys Have a Moral Compass?" video.

@CordeliaWagner Scientists care and people that are interested in nature and discovering things. And those are not stinky critters, not more than dogs, cats, or even people. Imagine if all had such shallow and pompous attitude, we would have known nothing of biology.
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@Nobody Important Slave labor? If those monkeys are not different from animals we keep like domestic animals that is not slave labor. On the other hand, if they can be put under blanket term of "humans" (because we are not only humans that existed, there were few other types) that would be considered slave labor. There is one interesting novel, I forgot its, name it was a long time when I was reading it, and the short version is that some are finding in some remote island living beings that are somewhere right in the middle between Homo Sapiens and chimps. And there is a dilemma, they can be used as very intelligent domestic animals, but if scientists decide that they are primitive human beings, that is slavery... That novel was given to us in university, to think about such problematic subjects. And for that other thing eating animals... Some eat dogs, our culture is such that it is taboo, for many eating pork is taboo, but in few countries, even cannibalism is not forbidden... That just speaks about differences in cultures.
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@Life_42 eh, both got something....one can give a bunch of small rocks to one of those, and "they both got something"...If that is not what that monkey wants, it is not the same. But all was done for the sake of finding something.
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Monkeys are "zoon politikon", social animals, as humans are, and it is understandable that they have those characteristics, some less, some more, evolution favors such behavior, and all have something to gain when they act in such way. But, at the same time, monkeys, especially chimps can be extremely aggressive, and because they are so strong, they can do a lot of damage. I would rather keep 3 pit bulls than one chimp. Chimps can act in the worst possible ways.
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@psycronizer The problem of consciousness and mind-body problem are probably the hardest problems in philosophy and psychology, and it is not that simple, adding just more matter in the brain is not enough to explain consciousness.
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@lhm1586 I am not sure, there are so many definitions, and levels of what we call sentient, that it is very possible that some animals have a higher level of that quality... But, decision-making is not connected with consciousness, at least it is not that decision-making asks for consciousness, computers do decision-making on some level, and computation alone will never give rise to consciousness, according to some theorists. Why we have it and is it a feature of our brain, as matter, just as brain matter, what is known as physicalism, is a big question.
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@psycronizer It is not just arrogance, it is stupidity, arrogance comes when they say "you, atheists may be from monkeys, we are made by god"... And as far as I know, gawd made them of clay? And made them in such a way that we have at least 6 organs that serve no purpose, like the vomeronasal organ, darwin's point, wisdom teeth, tailbone, goosebumps, the appendix, probably their god is bad in biology... So it is better to be made of clay, and it is bad to follow reason and science and acknowledge that we are animals and that apes are our biological cousins.
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If only ethics was that simple. What is community? There are many things, many levels that we call community. And many times what is good for one community to which you belong is harmful to another bigger community to which you also belong. Ethics is quite complicated, and many things contradict, we can't say so easily and straightforwardly what is moral, and what is the moral thing to do. I always thought that the best rule about those things is the categorical imperative... One version of that Kantian imperative says: Act as if the maxims of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature. Probably the best moral law I know.
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@nyimakgan How are they "very different from us"? We ARE animals, we ARE one of four big apes, and the experiments are done with monkeys, why is so hard to understand that? And what is with that, moral is human-made? Moral arises out of a set of practices that were evolutionary beneficial for us, and the same goes for those monkeys. Those are not extraterrestrials, what they do, our ancestors have done once. Sure, the primary reason is egoism, but even the altruist is in some way egoist, if we define egoism as doing what you want, altruists are doing exactly what they want. It depends on the definition, but those traits are things that made our morals. It was not given by some god, we have it because it is good for us. Moral is far from being human exclusive just because it is developed in our species on such level.
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@dmc009 Self-awareness? You mean, to be able to recognize himself in the mirror? Octopuses can do that? And what kind of question is why not rhino or the cuttlefish? Why not the bacteria? Some animals are simply different.
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@siraaron4462 English is not my first language, and I am not sure which words are correct for what I am trying to explain, it is not so some, non-sentient and sentient, there are nuances, but I don't know English phrases for those... Things may be somewhere between sentiment and nonsentient, and there are words for different attributes, above sentient, but I have that linguistic barrier, and to be honest, I am too tired to search what are correct phrases. I have job to do and here it is almost 9 o'clock, some may laugh but I get up early... I will ask my colleagues at the university what English terms are correct for words I want to use.
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@civil_villain No, this is a novel by some French writer, and I was reading it when I started my studies... I can't remember the name of that novel or the author. It was given to us just because of that moral dilemma, and those creatures were not human-made, in the novel someone finds them on some island, in the Pacific ocean. The moral dilemma arises because as they are described, they are between us and Chimps, so if we see them as animals, they can be very useful and it will be not morally wrong to use them as domestic animals, but if you treat them as some kind of primitive human beings, such use is not different than slavery... In the end, one scientist solves the dilemma in a very weird way. He manages to prove that human beings can have "offspring" with those creatures, and according to the writer that is definite proof that they are human beings. I have no idea if that is true biologically speaking, but that was the ending.
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You understood "Selfish Gene" in the wrong way. First, we are far from that primary morality, there were times when the elderly were not important and no one cared anymore for them. And you say we feel compelled to protect other children...sure because others will protect ours if such need occurs. And since when do we feel a moral obligation toward animals? Look at Christianity as an example...Animals are given to human beings by god and nothing is obliging religious people to feel any moral obligation toward animals, Even more, religion thinks that animals have no "soul", and human beings have. Morality was convenient because of egoistic reasons just a mean for survival, but over time it became something else.
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Oh, you are complicating things without need. Use the Occam's razor.
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apes with smartphones. Humans are one of 4 big apes.
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Well, that is morality in human beings too... Or you think our morality developed in some other way? It had evolutionary advantages, that is all.
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You can laugh, but they can do that using one mirror, I doubt that most people can do that, they have to use 2 mirrors.
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@sigmasquadleader phaha, well, who knows, maybe... Maybe it depends of the type of monkeys.
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@jonathanfulton4243 I tried to find it, but I can't... It is an older book I guess written in the 50s or 60s by some french author, and the professor of "introduction to philosophy" told us to read it because it was posing a very interesting dilemma. But I can't find it, because I forgot the title and the name of the writer.
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@Captainzomb-c3h I don't think so. You think the life that human beings had living "like tribes" thousands of years ago was good? It was brutal, short, and full of pain. I love science because it gave us so much, and that type of defeatism and living like a noble savage, that is not my thing.
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@bravechicken6251 Of course we are. We are animals, what do you think, that we naturally smell like flowers?
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To the first question, humans do both things, depending on the situation, sometimes both at the same time. Second, free will always exist, but not always look that way... Imagine if someone puts a gun and tells you to do a thing...Do you have free will? Yes, you do, you can choose a bullet, but it is so unwanted as an option that most think that there is no free will at that moment.
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The reason is characteristic of human beings, not some characteristic of reality, meaning is something that we construct, not something that is given by reality, reality has no intrinsic meaning, and definition is just one tool in methodology. It is not hubris of humanity, you are attributing some things to a wrong entity.
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@Overitall805 Well, if we did, and since you agree, I agree too, no need not to. Those are some things I was learning at university, and I am just saying how those are used.
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@nyimakgan First of all this is too long, and I have to go to my job in some 15 minutes. I never said that you brought god in this, and extraterrestrials were an example, I am stretching your logic, bringing it to "reductio ad absurdum". Second, you mix moral and "price". If you talk about ethics, use language of ethics, price is an economic term and has little to do with the subject. Third, while some differences exist, moral is basically the same everywhere, you said Europeans thought it is moral that they are colonizers, and the colonized thought it is immoral. that is because they, the colonized were not colonizers, not for some intrinsic reason, not because they had different or better moral values. I am a professor, but I do not teach for free. I am telling you something that is commonplace in ethics. Moral exists in nature because it was made by evolution, there are evolutionary gains of being such-and-such which in the end we say is moral behavior. English is not my first language, it is my 5th language, but I understand it, and we understand each other, what is that my English is such that I get different conclusions? That is totally wrong, and the continent is what we define what is a continent, not some deep philosophy there. Language-it-self, value-it-self, and communication-it-self, reminds me of metaphysics, there are no such things, you can throw whole metaphysics in the trash, and it has no value in contemporary philosophy. I have no more time but feel free to write whatever you want, I will answer when I will be back.
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@nyimakgan Oh, animals can have morals or even a law? I wouldn't go so far as to say there is a law, but there is a hierarchy... And if they have those things, they can have value... Moral is explained by human beings but is not made by human beings and it is obvious that it is a product of nature and exist in rudimentary form in other animals.
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Why would they commit suicide just because they are not humans? Besides, humans are animals... That is almost like saying that humans would commit suicide if they suddenly see much more developed extraterrestrials, or if we stretch that logic a little that some human beings that have lower IQs will kill themself just because there are people with extremely high IQs... Sorry, those are not exactly philosophical questions.
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We will send you a cookie and a medal for this incredible success...
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@phileas007 OK, I am happy for you... Some people have problems with doing that because some people are not so agile, and some can't see even what is in front because they are fat, so you can consider yourself lucky.
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@siraaron4462 You are using a definition for "intelligence" that is somewhat strange... Why is that? Is there a reason why we should not use other definitions or even more definitions, some that are more ubiquitous in books and texts that deal with that topic? Especially because there are many definitions, from the most common ability for understanding and dealing with new situations, to all other definitions, because many are claiming that there are few types of intelligence, some even go that far to claim that there are 6, 7, 8 types of intelligence. For instance, I was to a psychologist because I wanted to know what will psychology say with those tests, and how big is my IQ, and after 12 batteries of "questions", problems, the psychologist said that I have a 127-128 IQ, which is not very high, but it is above the average... But, I think that is there is something that we might call "spatial" intelligence, I have below 100 of that type because I managed to get lost two times in the city in which I am born and I live 40 years, I don't remember streets, buildings, and I am terrible if I should explain to someone some place, some location in my city.
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@enmiMeZaNaphard07leapYear That emoji means that you are sad, or that you don't agree with that comment above?
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@Lucciii32 OK...I was talking about a specific awareness, that we call consciousness and is connected with self-awareness, but you are trying to stretch the blanket to cover much more... If we stretch things, can you say that a computer can be aware? I live in Central Europe and here it is late, 12:10... I can discuss this, and it is a big topic in philosophy, but I have to go to work so I don't have time right now, but I can point you to google a thought experiment that in philosophy, in theory, is known as "The Chinese Room" it was made by John Searle but existed in different iterations before Searl. Google it, it gives an interesting perspective and it presents ways how things can be delusional, how objects that have no awareness can look and behave as they have that quality. That doesn't;t mean that I don't think some animals don't have some level of self-awareness, but it is good as an introduction to that very big and important philosophical problem.
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@andremiller9919 Why not? You have some moral mores that are preventing you from eating things that are perfectly edible, nothing more. Are you aware of how many people eat dog meat? And even cannibalism, biologically speaking human beings are animals, and the meat is edible, we are not going that because of our morals and the complications that can cause in our society, but it was done, and it is still done by some.
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@whatwhale5888 Really? Well, I have seen some of those attacking a child, and if there were not enough people to kill them, that kid would have been dead. And here those are forbidden, the owners were taken into the police station, but you feel free to keep as many pit bull terriers are us wish, your problem.
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@ahsokaventriss3268 Sure, most of the time they are calm... But, sometimes are dangerous.
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It is not that terrible, they do not do really terrible things to them, besides, how will we learn things?
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That is not true. Those monkeys go to cities because they can get food more easily. It is not true that humans destroyed most of their habitat. Besides, human beings have a moral compass and human beings are the only animals that undoubtedly have consciousness.
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