Dungeon Master Forum

Giradius wrote:Not this old chestnut again

Speaking of Chestnuts. What do you think
of Level 0 of Chaos Strikes Back?

You can still look at the trends affecting humanity as a whole.

hmmmm, ish.
You can look at the most successful societies and see trends in their development, but what about the extinct civilization? the Aztecs, the Celts, there is some archeological evidence, but there are quite big gaps in some cases.
Its not a "history is written by the winners" but more of a "only societies that don't go extinct get to write histories at all".

By the way, you just referred to "humans" as a collective.

DOOOHHHH!

Giradius wrote:
yet the problem was overcome anyway, again this suggests you have a bias toward conscious over unconscious behavior.
Maybe I am a bit of a utilitarian, but as far as I am concerned its results that matter

you can get better results when you actually understand what's going on. Numerous studies have been done involving animals that instinctively know how to build something or other, and it's always found that they're not very good at all at adapting that knowledge to a different purpose.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that human intelligence is not superior to animal intelligence, my argument is merely that many of the things people claim make humans unique are not exclusive to humanity.
I would not ask a bunch of beavers to come around and repair my kitchen cupboards (although they would probably do a better job than the people i did get around to do it :p)

If you instinctively know, like a beaver, how to build a dam, then you can build dams, but you're never going to figure out

Certainly, beavers are dam builders, not carpenters.
With that said, a purely mechanical instinct is no use because a beaver may find himself in different surroundings, and so there is a small element of consciousness in it (in that the beaver must choose and gather the materials, and build the dam in the right place, the same can be said of birds who use human food packets etc for building nests)

Anyway, earlier, you said "Change is not an indication of superiority," which is true-- if you mean that change is not an automatic indication of superiority.

That is how it was meant, my earlier point about moon landings is tied to what you said next.

However, this notion of flexible technology is a form of change that is often good, because it allows people to be able to do things that they couldn't previously do.

This was what I was saying about the moon landing technology, necessity is the mother of invention, and so human technology has been dominated by attempts to make practical gains rather than the pursuit of pure knowledge or to create marvels.
Metallurgy for example, whose earliest applications were weapons and tools (which are practical and have survival value) only gave rise to jewelry and ornamentation after its practical uses had been found and exploited.
Agriculture was primarily a matter of survival, and only when this mastered to a certain extent do luxury foods and supplementary crops become a valid option.
and returning to the space program, were it not for research into rocketry during WW2 and other more practical endeavors, the space program probably would not have occurred.

If those things are for the betterment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or whatever), then that's a good thing, don't you think? Curing a disease that we couldn't cure before is good. Feeding people who would've formerly gone hungry is good. And so on...

absolutely, that's why humans form societies, because more can be achieved for the good of everyone when individuals co-operate.

That's the thing, though. If we're talking about the birth of civilization, religion was the source of morality.

I disagree, it was the main publicist of morality, it seized on it and claimed it as its own, but morality (which is simply a code of behavior) does have instinctive origins, you can see moral and social codes in many animals, especially in chimps.

Have you not noticed the fact that religions separated by thousands of miles, have strangely similar laws? that is because many of these laws give the religion an advantage and many others simply make sense when living in a community (don't kill, don't steal) these rules are simple enough that they can be arrived at on their own without need for faith based reinforcement.

The 10 commandments are a good example, many think the 10 commandments are a good source of morality, yet the first 4 are not in the slightest bit moral and are solely religious rules, of the remainder only 2 make an practical sense (killing and stealing) or have any moral value.

totally selfish behavior usually doesn't occur in nature, because it is not what's known as an evolutionary stable strategy, for that matter neither is self-less behavior.

What they did have was religion.

Religion did the marketing, but the R&D dept. was human social instinct.

This was all well and good because convincing the people that god(s) would punish them if they stepped out of line was a great tool for keeping people in line,

But it isn't, because history is full of instances of people stepping out of line, its good for making one population feel superior to another "infidel" population, (and thus social cohesion) but as a tool of social control, its pretty weak.
The fact that Christianity exists in countless denominations (who all consider each other to be wrong or heretical), Islam is split into different factions (who all hate each other), shows that heresy and religious disobedience is a common among the religious.

but that did also allow order to take hold.

As well as the king (or local feudal lord) threatening to chop your head off if you broke the law.

Living in our secular world with the benefits of our modern sciences, we tend to forget that for a long time, there was pretty much nothing else and this stuff was real.

again, don't get me wrong, religion had its uses back in history, but I do feel that it is an anachronism and long over due for retirement, along with the flat earth, the 5 humors, and anything written by Pliny the elder.

The "Religion is the source of morality" types who say that now ought to know better. Back then, nobody did.

of course, due in no small part to the fact that most of peoples understanding of history came from their holy books, whether its the bible and its "history" of Adam and eve, noah's arc, or the Viking edda's and their tales how Odin created mankind from bits of wood, or how Thor lost his hammer.

I'd say that anyone making an unprovable statement based on faith, whether that faith is in one god, many gods, or the absence of any of them, is holding a "religious belief."

hmmmmm, not sure about that, because I don't think the existence of god is unprovable, religious texts make very specific claims about what god is and what it can and what it has done in the past.
These claims are falsifiable, if the bible is an omnipotent gods perfect and unerring word then everything in it must be true (if its not, god either doesn't know what he is talking about, or the book is wrong and therefore not the word of a perfect god), the deluge didn't happen, every discipline of science says this.
This combined with the myriad other falsifiable claims made mean that you can therefore (with total confidence) be an atheist with regard to Christianity.

rinse and repeat with Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Neopaganism, classical paganism, the Aztec religions, shamanism, etc.

The more deistic or pantheistic notions of god (the Spinoza/the force type of things) , are a little different, there are no claims made for these and so nothing to falsify, however there are certain logical arguments involving terminations of infinite regression, and problems with the notion of existing before the universe that can give pointers.

If I believed in fairies I would be delusional, because there is no evidence to suggest fairies exist, however by your argument If I don't believe in fairies, I am also delusional because there is no proof that fairies DONT exist.

its a matter of epistemology, it is irrational to believe in something without evidence, it is rational to not believe in something if you have no evidence to support it.
Imagine if science worked the same way...

scientist 1 "I believe the big band was caused by a build up of jam"
scientist 2 "...This had better be good, what's your evidence?"
scientist 1 "the lack of evidence that the big bang was not caused by jam"
scientist 2 "your fired!"

By your definitions, this would include the strong variety of atheism, but not the weak one, I guess. Interestingly, I've noticed most people (at least around here) who call themselves "atheists" (most of which professing the complete absence of any sort of god-- that is, strong atheism) are more against the Jewish/Christian/Islamic concept of "God" rather than actually not believing in any sort of god of any kind.

I would probably fit into that category, I would say that I am a strong atheist, and can with complete confidence deny theistic deities exist, as a matter of evidence, scientific and historical evidence.

BUT

I am technically an agnostic when it comes to deistic or pantheistic gods, I still lean towards them not existing (and live my life as if they don't), but I have no scientific or historic data to back it up, and so its only support is philosophical and logical arguments. thus I am not 100% certain

The right wing here tends to endorse some completely unscientific nonsense.

The right wing usually do! especially in the US it seems.

However, the ones who continually fail to tell the difference between this and any skepticism at all and want to just tar and feather everyone who dissents in any way whatsoever as "one of them" aren't adding anything to the discussion either.

It was a bit insensitive of me, I admit that, your original reply rubbed me up the wrong way and seemed hostile to a newcomer whose defences were up.
Skepticism is a good thing, so is an open mind, but you have to remember that if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out :p

Global warming is too important an issue to take risks on.

Which claim? If it's that you can eat a nutritionally complete diet without any meat, then, in the Western world, sure, probably.

That was the claim, it would be silly to say that has ALWAYS been the case, because I mentioned previously that a healthy vegetarian diet is possible due to advances in dietary science.

Another difference is what food is actually available, so, in the developing world, I'd wonder about protein sources.

As I said before, I am a pragmatist, if soya beans wont grow, but you CAN graze a goat, so be it, vegetarian is only worthwhile as long as it is practical and preferable (in terms of actual benefits)

I will say, though, that comparing your typical doesn't-care-what-he-shoves-in-his-mouth American to a diet-conscious vegetarian and making a health claim is no more fair than comparing a diet-conscious non-vegetarian to some hypothetical vegetarian who subsists on McDonald's apple pies and french fries and sugary colas (but no meats).

[/quote][/quote]

OK you got me there, I take your point.

Interesting point about religion encouraging cohesive civilisation. The evidence that nothing else works as well:

Communism seemed to work OK, as did National socialism (despite massive other problems with these ideologies)

Enlightened self interest does not work alone. There are too many examples every day in the paper, or in visible view, of people's selfishness or small group mentality over-riding the common good.

Thats true, but there will always be mutant or deviant strains that occur in any group, they usually remain small because selfish behavior is not an evolutionary stable strategy (and so never flourishes in large numbers), however neither is pure altruism.
Reciprocal altruism IS however an evolutionary stable strategy, but there will always be a few selfish mutations and sadly it seems that they do better than the majority of reciprocal altruists (as long as their numbers remain small)

People are not racing to expand their surroundings with more people for the added benefit, every addition to a city or country is not welcomed by its constituents.

Personally I think state sponsored birth control is a good move (like they have in china)

That leaves forced expansion of groups (empire building by the rulers for resources, etc). History shows the logical limit of expansion, every empire has collapsed under its own weight or the resentment of the constituents.

I don't know, I certainly agree with you in terms of history, but i think technology has advanced to the point that travel and communications make a global empire not only feasible but desirable.

Meanwhile, religions are still going strong. The only divisive element are people choosing a flavour since, as pointed out, people don't like to act in large groups for a common good.

And even then, its only usually the flavours that make exclusive claim to the truth.

Even given this, general religious belief can still be used as a call to arms or a common connect between countries that otherwise would not come together, even for the common good.

There are other ways of doing that.
Religion is potentially useful, as long as it is benign, and restrains itself to its field, religion as psychological crutch, social network, cohesive force etc is fine, but when it starts interfering in scientific areas, the law of the state, and the lives of non believers, then we have problems.

Speaking of Chestnuts. What do you think
of Level 0 of Chaos Strikes Back?

The prison level?

Its quite nice!


WOW, I made a post with less than 4000 words :p

About healthy, good, ecological soy.

Please Giradius, be shorter in your answers. I mostly agree on your views on biology and religion and disagree about yours on humanity (by humanity I mean the species combined with its culture) having no or only a negligible uniqueness.
However I won't share my views if you choke them to death, or force me to spend 2 hours of reading just to have a chance to answer your crititics.
Let them be, let people be slightly wrong or different and address only a few points at a time - the deep ones I'd say - , so everyone can follow the discussion and participate.

Sorry Zyx

My posts are a bit long, a lot of it is because I include quotes from the post i am referring to (to try and make it clear what I am talking about).

I have made an effort over the last few posts to shorten it, without much success :p.
I am probably not making a very good first impression here am I!
Maybe its an Aspergers thing.

Its not that mankind is not unique (if species were not unique we wouldn't have species in the first place) its just that many of the actual properties that man possess which many think ARE unique to humans, are not.

by the way, thanks for the link, i will have a look in more detail later on (and then post a 12000 word essay on it tonight )

Paul Stevens wrote:What do you think of Level 0 of Chaos Strikes Back?

I think it's a bit more difficult than Level 0 of Dungeon Master.

Giradius wrote:I am probably not making a very good first impression here am I!

No, it's OK, it's fine! You have a very good and sound knowledge of many things; unfortunately, I don't have enough time to read all your posts.

My concern is about leaving space for dialogue, it's not a judgement about you.
About the capacities of humans, you basically say that they just have more of the same that other animals already have, so it's not a big deal, don't you? The quantity is more, the quality the same?
At least about intelligence, brain complexity , culture, language, empathy, understanding and cognitive functions, I disagree.
I'll let you elaborate yourself my disagreement with two words: threshold and emergence.

...

I believe we need another ten thousands of years to explore and understand the posibilities and potential of self consciousness, which allows self-reprogrammation among other things.
I think we're currently and locally the only ones capable of this - at a significative scale.

However, computers, maybe, are not very far from attaining these capacities with the correct software or restructuration - in less than a century, say. Though probably through a reproduction and imitation of our own brains and social structures, and thus arguably they would only be a partial duplication of our specificity, and not really a different evolutionary route, not in the natural speciation sense.

This discussion is certainly interesting, but the length of posts is making it impossible for everyone to contribute.

As Zyx says, PLEASE keep your posts short, and just comment on one or two points, then let someone else have a go.

Giradius, PLEASE STOP multi posting several Bible length messages in a row, the thread is being overrun by you and you're not giving anyone else the time or space to make their own contributions.

Thanks everyone.

Giradius wrote:"only societies that don't go extinct get to write histories at all"

Why? Maybe they wrote a history and then went extinct and archeologists are digging it up later. I mean, you could say the Ancient Romans are now "extinct," but they wrote plenty.

Giradius wrote:Have you not noticed the fact that religions separated by thousands of miles, have strangely similar laws? that is because many of these laws give the religion an advantage and many others simply make sense when living in a community (don't kill, don't steal) these rules are simple enough that they can be arrived at on their own without need for faith based reinforcement.

I didn't advocate one specific religion, I just said "religion." They all have similar laws because that's what worked and what created the most orderly society-- to a point, anyway: they of course all had different opinions on worship and what exactly was a "sin" beyond the big bad stuff. In the old old (OLD!) old days, there was pretty much no such thing as a secular society. It's easy to separate "faith" and "reason" with the benefit of our modern secular outlook, but, back then, there was no such thing as "faith based reinforcement" because it was all reality to them anyway. I'm not denying the bad side of it, merely backing up my claim that religion was essential to the forming of civilization.

Giradius wrote:totally selfish behavior usually doesn't occur in nature

Wait, what? Most animals just kill whatever they feel like eating, or steal it if that is easier. If by "totally selfish" you mean they don't look out for their own kind ever, then maybe, but there are a lot of animals who leave their young to fend for themselves, too.

Giradius wrote:As well as the king (or local feudal lord) threatening to chop your head off if you broke the law.

And where did the king get his authority? Usually from their god(s), if they didn't believe the king himself was a living incarnation of their god(s). You said that religion was a weak tool of social control, but I think this "divine right" makes it pretty solid. Sometimes we underestimate that because we're used to societies where people believe that figuring things out rationally is the best way to solve problems, or, more cynically, the men with the biggest guns come to power and they don't need god on their side.

Giradius wrote:its a matter of epistemology, it is irrational to believe in something without evidence, it is rational to not believe in something if you have no evidence to support it.

Given the size of the universe and the amount and level of detail we've actually surveyed, I'd say it'd be akin to me looking in one corner of my bedroom which also includes a small view outside one window, and then deduce that since I can't see any goats, goats must not exist at all anywhere. You've got a point about evidence, but the sample size, relatively speaking, is tiny. With our current level of knowledge and the size of the universe it's pretty much impossible to say "X doesn't exist at all anywhere ever" and not be making a pretty big leap. If one religion makes falsifiable claims, and you can falsify them, you've disproved that religion's idea of god, but haven't really done anything about some other religion's idea or the general (deistic, pantheistic, whatever) notion.

Giradius wrote:scientist 2 "your fired!"

I'd fire scientist 2, too, for not knowing the difference between "your" and "you're."

Giradius wrote:Global warming is too important an issue to take risks on.

Ok, then don't take the risk of alienating someone well-meaning and open-minded but not quite on board yet from your cause permanently with an obnoxious allusion they may be a holocaust denier.

linflas wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJV56WUDng

*runs for a banana*

Wohoooo! Smart! Thanks! Better than the Banana Picker in Monkey Island! I'm feeling like Newton after this apple accident.

Giradius wrote:The prison level?

Its quite nice!


WOW, I made a post with less than 4000 words :p

Second bet I lost today. The first is more private.

I smelled your ruse. Not sure if the outcome proves the unpredictability principle?

you basically say that they just have more of the same that other animals already have, so it's not a big deal, don't you? The quantity is more, the quality the same?

yes to the first point, and to the second point I think quantity AND quality is higher, but we are still fundamentally talking about the same things.

I believe we need another ten thousands of years to explore and understand the posibilities and potential of self consciousness, which allows self-reprogrammation among other things.
I think we're currently and locally the only ones capable of this - at a significative scale.

Certainly, like i said previously, humanity is probably the first species to reach that level of intellectual sophistication, in the same way that at one point in time there was an animal that was the first to fly.

However, computers, maybe, are not very far from attaining these capacities with the correct software or restructuration - in less than a century, say. Though probably through a reproduction and imitation of our own brains and social structures, and thus arguably they would only be a partial duplication of our specificity, and not really a different evolutionary route, not in the natural speciation sense.

This does interest me, transhumanism and the idea singularity.
I do hope that it will be in my lifetime that we see true artificial sentience, that would be amazing, imagine what we could learn from that, and about the nature of intelligent life as well.
The only intelligent species Humanity has interacted with is other humans, I wonder what an intelligent carnivorous or predatory species would be like? given the different instinctive background.

Sophia:

Ok, then don't take the risk of alienating someone well-meaning and open-minded but not quite on board yet from your cause permanently with an obnoxious allusion they may be a holocaust denier.

As for alienating people from my cause! its not MY cause, you have to live on this planet as well, you face death just like the rest of us.

And as for the holocaust denier bit, I though we had moved on from this!
I admitted I had been insensitive, and apologised if I caused offence, but for some reason you feel the need to bring it back up again, and throw words like obnoxious around.
Did you actually read what I had posted? the question mark gives it away!
I was simply asking if you are fussy about what empirical facts you deny, I was just curious if it was only scientific truths you see yourself qualified to deny, and I wondered if you extend your well-meaning and open-minded skepticism to matters of more delicate historical significance as well as matters which impact upon the future of human civilization as we know it.

Giradius wrote:I was simply asking if you are fussy about what empirical facts you deny, I was just curious if it was only scientific truths you see yourself qualified to deny, and I wondered if you extend your well-meaning and open-minded skepticism to matters of more delicate historical significance as well as matters which impact upon the future of human civilization as we know it.

Short reply this time:

damn.. I threw down the glove (accidentally dropped it is more like) and didn't come back to see what happened

been rather busy, and I did have a peek at the discussion in here.. but have not had time to do the apropriate research I felt required to back up my info. I did do some and have found a few links.. but suffice it to say.. it means very little if I am believed or not in this. Since others belief in my garnered facts will not change my life in anyway or benefit me.. I do however feel compelled to spit out a few bits of info that are worth examining..

1. There are legitimate health reasons for people to avoid a purely vegan lifestyle. Soy protiens are one of the number 1 growing allergies in the world right now. You can feel free to look it up. It's right there in wikipedia too.. I know a number of people with allergies to vegetable protiens which means they have to eat meat to get them. So to say to eat meat is the sole domain of the ignorant is ignorant in itself. Food allergies are common and my wife suffers from a good many. Wheat and wheat related items... not specifically gluten.. which end up in 80% of the vegan prepared meals. It is also not reccomended to start your children on a vegan diet until after a certain age nor is it reccomended to have a vegan diet if pregnant due to long term problems with the children developing resistance to insulin. Meaning the then have problems of a diabetic nature... I didn't read the entire study, but it referenced something else that also fell apart in those children after a few years of development.

2. Animals are more likley to eat their prey alive, humans now try to "humanely" kill the animals before processing them for food. I watched a small sparrow rip the wings off a butterfly and savagely tear it appart consuming it. Many other animals you might assume to be vegitarian will be found eating or killing other small animals and insects for their own diet, or simply over territory. It's not a cute little world out there where bunnies are innocent.. and so on and so forth. So why should humans be?

3. Evolution has taken it's toll on man. The appendix which is now liable to burst or at least threaten to, in about 40% of the population and utterly useless to the remaining 60% once was our second stomach.. much like cows we could digest the various bits of bark and grass we ate, however once we made the jump to meat it began to take a back seat and became obsolete.. Evolution has made our bodies require meat. "We didn't start the fire.. it's been always burning since the world been turning... " sings.. lala laaaa

4. this is for the few who suggest the animals are emotionless sacks of fur with no creative outlet. There are hundreds of studies which prove this wrong. Animals who love music (I posted a video recently involving a cat who plays piano.. on her own.. she likes the different sounds.. it's music for her and she craves the sounds) there are elephants and monkeys which paint and draw.. and some suggest it's just training, however new and unique artwork has been created by both. Crows, monkeys, and a variety of other animals have created their own tools for use in their daily life.. cats and dogs have been shown to have great problem solving skills.. creative thinking. Anyone who has had a pet has seen moments of sadness, happiness, shame, anger.. all for their loving pets. be they bird, fish, cat, rodent or dog.. they all express moods and complex social structures. Rats for example have been known to bring food and nurse sick rats in their community. A crow adopted a small kitten which was starving and fed it on food it found.. tell me an animal does have creative thought or the abiltiy for compassion.. you couldn't be more wrong.

that's all I have time for.. it's past midnight and I should be sleeping.. but I finally had a day off.. so I'm braking the rules

cowsmanaut wrote:It's not a cute little world out there where bunnies are innocent..

Indeed!

cowsmanaut wrote:cats and dogs have been shown to have great problem solving skills..

I coulnd't help having a big laugh.

A dog or cat put into a situation where it's mind has been challenged from a young age will exhibit decent problem solving skills. They observe and examine the world around them trying to decipher what is happening. My last cat would open just about ever cupboard, drawer, and closet it could find if he was left alone too long and got bored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMKZNdm0aXs

cut to the middle to skip all the boring intro..

My friends who have had dogs most of their life would express how difficult it was to keep their dogs in the yard despite large fences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X-VlxWM ... re=related

for animals like cats and dogs, they have different kinds of "problems" to overcome. It's not like they are doing complex math here.. but for the dog or cat, getting out of or into something is important.. trying to figure out quadratic equations is not

oh, and should have known the rabbit link was a hoax .. Rabbits are territorial and have been known to kill other rabbits and other creatures over territory, mates, food etc. There is a vid on youtube of one trying to take on a goat.. but they ham it up a bit and as a result I doubt anyone would take it as seriously as the goat did. We often forget that much of the play we see our animals do, are practice for more serious encounters. That evolution has granted them the ability to kill... and that sweet little bunny is not a pacifist. My friend had a bunny that would quite seriously attack you if you let it on your lap and stopped petting it. I stopped for only a second before I heard it squeal and then tear a hole in my pants. It was clearly screwed in the head... but all the same.. I was woken up to the fact that they are not quiet happy pacifists at all.

Regarding the Vegan health issue, personally I am not a vegan, but my girlfriend is, I don't drinks cows milk simply because we don't buy it (my girlfriend uses soya milk so I use that, getting separate milk would be silly) but I have no real problem it.
We are heterotroph after all, and so for us to carry on living requires the death of something else, that just the way of things (until lab grown meat is fully realized).
But just because I accept that we must kill and eat other living things to survive, it does not mean that anything is suitable or worthwhile to eat, for instance cannibalism has been a cultural taboo for years, and while there is a health issue with cannibalistic behavior (as we found out with CJD and mad cows disease) a large percentage of humans posses a gene which confers resistance to these (implying that the ancestors of many humans had engaged in cannibal behavior long enough for a gene to develop).
The moral issue as i see it, is not that animals are killed to eat (they might be killed by predators in the wild...if we hadn't killed them all) but that they are needlessly killed to eat, if you can do without it, and its healthy to do so, then its probably preferable from a moral point of view (if you are against animal cruelty that is, morality is subjective after all).

Personally, I don't see a problem with including nutritional supplements as part of the diet, after all you do eat the tablets .

Cowsmanaut:
A dog or cat put into a situation where it's mind has been challenged from a young age will exhibit decent problem solving skills. They observe and examine the world around them trying to decipher what is happening.

This sounds quite reasonable, my cat has figured out how to open doors in order to get into the spare bedroom so he can sleep on a bed instead of the floor.
Isn't the current thinking on intelligence with regard to humans that it is a case of nurture over nature? if this is the case why would animals be any different? If level of intelligence (which is tricky to define anyway) is not based solely on genetics but also on environment and other factors, then why would species (which at its simplest is a collection of similarities in genetic structure) be solely responsible for animal intelligence.

I watched quite an interesting documentary on a gorilla named Koko who learned sign language, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)

And as for waking up to the truth of psycho rabbits, I have seen Watership down and so I know what you mean :p

I think a lot of us remember Koko. Even Robin Williams has a bit about her in one of his stand up acts. There are a good number of videos and papers and so on, showing just how adaptive and intelligent animals can be. I think I've posted it before, the ted talks episode on crows. A lot of the problem is perception. many choose not to see beyond what their own society has taught them. It often takes a very serious (proverbial) smack in the face before people see the reality behind their perceptions.

A great article which relates to perception is this :
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~thompsoc/Body.html

They say need is the mother of invention.. as it is with humans so it is with animals. Those who can use/make tools do. The rest just do their best to find a way.. and what each species sees as a need differs based on their species, and environment. I suppose where humans differ is our more complex set of "needs and wants" again depending on our envrionment. Blood, germs and steel has some great ideas on societal evolution.. how some tribes of humans live in an exceedingly simplistic lifestyle (little more than a hut and rock tools) while another "Tribe" of humans has complex machinery and technology.. it shows how humans too can remain as simple as those animals we point out to be of low intelligence.. after all it is little more than our own training from birth to be as we are now.. to express out superior intellect as we supposedly do.. otherwise we have this:

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

let's be clear.. I do not dislike the human race, nor do I think we should be wiped out, nor am I an advocate for animal rights. I simply choose to see things for what they appear to be on a base level. I don't pretend to know what animals are thinking.. but with my own pets I can have a good idea about what they want based on my experience with them.. as for the group of crows outside my window that have been "arguing" actively for the past 3 days.. I have no idea what their problem is.. but an argument or something started 3 days ago.. and since then one has been going after 2 others. Could be simply a young in training.. but I don't know. All I know is what I see and hear. My mind is open to new ideas, but opposed to those that go against my experience.

I was having a laugh at the phrase "to have great problem solving skills" because I read it with the opposite meaning (compare with "to have great skill solving problems"). I never doubted the skills of dogs and cats. Sorry, I wans't clear.
As for the rabbit, it's not an hoax.
There's also a video of a rabbit chasing a snake.

Giradius wrote:while there is a health issue with cannibalistic behavior (as we found out with CJD and mad cows disease), a large percentage of humans posses a gene which confers resistance to these (implying that the ancestors of many humans had engaged in cannibal behavior long enough for a gene to develop).

The health issue is currently one in a million which would be the probabilitity to eat someone infected with Kuru or CJD, unless you live in Papua New Guinea.
I'm not aware about the resistant gene, do you have any source?
As for the implications of a resistant gene, it rather implies than humans have been eating meat, but not necessarily human flesh.

EDIT: missing link

Our little furry friends it seems are not so friendly after all!

Some of them are quite sinister http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE0puWNL4XU

While others clearly have hidden depths http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw

cowsmanaut wrote:a cat who plays piano

Keyboard cat?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2Th2QoHd2o

By hoax I mean not a real tale of a vicious rabbit.. but rather one of a rabbit stuck in the swamp trying to get into his boat.. not swimming to attack him as it was originally presented in the media.. Sorry, hoax was probably not the right word to use.. though I had only woken an hour before and my brain had still not clicked into place yet.. the down side to having a day off is nothing works up top.. as it knows it's resting time

sophia nope. this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0zgQAp7EYw

Sophia wrote:Keyboard cat?

Damn - You beat me to it! Play me off

Oh, returning briefly to the topic of vegetarianism.

Another advantage of a vegetarian diet Is that I had veggie burgers for my dinner today, and now my farts smell delicious!

I only wish I could cut and paste one onto this thread to share it with you.

Zyx:
I'm not aware about the resistant gene, do you have any source?

I cant remember it at the moment, it was a documentary on cannibalism I watched some time ago.
There was something about a mutation which is found at a certain spot on the prion gene.

(I did a little google research and found that apparently people with one normal copy of the gene and one of the mutant genes are more resistant to prion diseases like CJD).

I found this as well.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11840201

As for the implications of a resistant gene, it rather implies than humans have been eating meat, but not necessarily human flesh.

I agree, but this coupled with the archeological evidence of early cannibalism certainly makes it a possibility, cannibalism was probably not always the taboo it is today, and there are several places where funerary rites involve ritualised cannibalism.

I found the (technical) article about prion diseases resistance.
In short, humans were probably infected by a prion epidemy in early ages, and there could be two possible origins:

A prehistoric endemic animal prion disease that was able to cross the transmission barrier to carnivorous humans is a possibility
OR
[...] repeated episodes of endocannibalism-related prion disease epidemics in ancient human populations