Philosophy...

[mistermack]

You're one of them too.

You might be right. I doubt if I would have lived to the age I am now, that's for sure.
But as far as Chimps go, their minds don't work like ours, so we get a false impression of how capable they are. People who study them would back me up, I can assure you.
.

[hadespussercats]

(see below)

[hadespussercats]

Coito ergo sum wrote:

Bri wrote:...What's the fucking point? Who benefits from it and how?



Ultimately, mankind benefits through an increase in collective knowledge, learning and analysis truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct as well as the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, especially with a view to improving or reconstituting them.

Any individual who tries to learn about the truths and principles concerning our "being" (how and why we're here), our "knowledge" (how we know what we know) and/or "conduct" (what is right to do and what is wrong to do) is philosophizing. He or she benefits from philosophy by learning or attempting to learn these things.


So it's like finking innit?



Yes, all philosophizing involves thinking, but not all thinking requires philosophizing.

Thinking about how we know what we know = philosophizing. Thinking about boobies, not so much.

Thinking about the nature of boobies, and their ultimate purpose = philosophizing.
Hmmm. . . On the Nature of Boobies: A New Treatise.

There's some philosophy I can really get behind. Or in front, as the case may be.

[Trolldor]

You're one of them too.

You might be right. I doubt if I would have lived to the age I am now, that's for sure.
But as far as Chimps go, their minds don't work like ours, so we get a false impression of how capable they are. People who study them would back me up, I can assure you.
.

People who work with them would, I assure you, tell you they are nowhere near on the same level as humans in terms of cognition.
For example, their inability to invent.

[Hermit]

Are you seriously suggesting that some chimpanzees possess sufficient intelligence to ponder whether the sun orbits the earth or the earth orbits the sun, or are you trying to be funny?

There's more to intelligence than pondering the movement of planets.

It's an example of abstract and symbolic thinking. Humans are capable of it on that level - even though they frequently come to the wrong conclusion. Chimpanzees don't rise to the level that would give them the opportunity to make those kind of mistakes.

There are plenty of humans who wouldn't last five minutes in a Chimpanzee society, even if they were brought up by the chimps.

No kidding. To raise the level of absurdity of your comment a little, there are also plenty of humans who wouldn't last five minutes in an ant colony, even if they were brought up in one. That doesn't mean some ants are more intelligent than some humans.

Perhaps we should tease out a definition of "intelligence" now, but we ought to do that in another thread. I just remember this one is supposed to be about the usefulness, or lack thereof, of philosophy.

[mistermack]

It's an example of abstract and symbolic thinking. Humans are capable of it on that level - even though they frequently come to the wrong conclusion. Chimpanzees don't rise to the level that would give them the opportunity to make those kind of mistake

Yes, but that thinking doesn't spring out of thin air. It's a result of years of education, and thousands of years of knowledge passed down.
Humans who don't get the benefit of that don't display much in the way of abstract and symbolic thinking. Look at the rare cases of humans raised by animals. They don't do a lot of symbolic thinking, they usually bark like a dog and beg for scraps. And they don't stand out as superior to the animals that raised them.

You unfortunately can't give a chimpanzee a human upbringing, because their brains are not adapted for language.
That's why I mentioned a human raised by chimpanzees, it would be the only way to realistically compare mental abilities, without giving the human the advantage of education.
Where ants come into it, I do not know.

Anyway, I don't see any future in creating a thread out of one flippant remark. It wasn't my own idea anyway, many researchers who study apes argue that they should be counted as a sub-species.
Or actually, they argue that we are the subspecies, of chimpanzees.

And when I wrote of an overlap, I was of course referring to the extreme ends of the spectrum, and not abstract and symbolic thinking, but the ability to make a good decision at a vital time.
In other words, wisdom, which some chimps can posess large chunks of, and some humans can have very little of. You would have to read people like Jane Goodall to see what that's all about.
.

[Trolldor]

1) Nonsense. That kind of thinking is biological.
2) Apes brains are wired for language. It is a language which changes from culture to culture amongst Ape groups, even those of the same species.
3) We aren't a 'sub-species'. We are a seperate species. If we were a 'sub-species' we would be able to breed with Chimpanzees.

[Hermit]

It's an example of abstract and symbolic thinking. Humans are capable of it on that level - even though they frequently come to the wrong conclusion. Chimpanzees don't rise to the level that would give them the opportunity to make those kind of mistake

... Look at the rare cases of humans raised by animals. They don't do a lot of symbolic thinking, they usually bark like a dog and beg for scraps. And they don't stand out as superior to the animals that raised them. ...

I hope you realise what you did there.

[Feck]

I will. Gases are fluids. They don't support shear stress

No gases are gases. liquids don't change volume with pressure .

[Pappa]

I will. Gases are fluids. They don't support shear stress

No gases are gases. liquids don't change volume with pressure .

Liquids and gasses are both fluids.

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

[Bella Fortuna]

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

[Hermit]

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Food for thought.