Comment on Mother
samus12345@lemm.ee 6 days agoYes. All animals are sentient, and other organisms are, too. It’s a low bar to clear.
Comment on Mother
samus12345@lemm.ee 6 days agoYes. All animals are sentient, and other organisms are, too. It’s a low bar to clear.
LengAwaits@lemmy.world 6 days ago
That is very frustrating, to be sure.
However, the ways we’ve begun to think about sapience is so intriguing, as well. We’re beginning to move away from the anthropocentric view that humans are the only sapient creatures. Corvids, elephants, and dolphins probably already make the cut according to the current definition of sapience.
Ants, too, which makes me wonder about the potential for deepening our understand of group/swarm sapience, as well. True “hive minds”, etc. Fascinating stuff!
So much of our understanding of the natural world comes from comparing creatures to ourselves through surface level observation. The more we can relate to an organism, as we perceive it, the more likely we are to elevate its status or “worthiness”, it seems. Now, in the presence of modern technology, we’re discovering how little we actually knew about how the world around us works.
This all ties strongly into historic religious world-views, and equation of humans to god-like (or god’s chosen) status. So much to unpack!