No Sharp Divide

I have always maintained that the notion of a sharp divide between us (human beings) and our animal brethren (and especially the great apes) is preposterous.

It has always been convenient for human beings to deny important qualities in creatures we wish to exploit, whether they be other people or animals. We deny their capacity for pleasure or pain, for higher cognition, for anticipation or anxiety. We deprecate their intelligence. Whenever someone wishes to impute such qualities or faculties to these "lower orders" we say they are sentimental, and are projecting or anthropomorphizing.

I say that's just another form of rationalization. Anyone who has ever had a pet cat or dog knows of those mammals' capacity for ~ among other attributes ~ love, patience, and even certain forms of creativity. We are on a continuum with all living beings, and we have more in common with them than it is comfortable to contemplate. And if perchance you believe that you have a soul, I challenge you to investigate closely why you believe that some other being does not. Is your reasoning completely devoid of self-interest? Does it appeal entirely to external authority or derive from direct personal experience and observation?

But, you say, you want some science with that gooshy, touchy-feely crap? Okay, here you go. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: future generations will one day be just as ashamed of the way we treated other sentient creatures as we are of our forebears who enslaved and exploited one another.

I am a rock

What does it mean to be conscious? "Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside," says David Chalmers.

See this somewhat once-over-lightly article from the New York Times.

Giving New Meaning to the Word "Stoplight"

If you don't immediately think "transporter" upon reading this teaser of an article in Wired, I despair for your imagination. This kind of thing is precisely why I wish I had some math aptitude, so I could drop everything and be an atomic physicist.