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/sci/ - Science & Math

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3550676 No.3550676 [Reply] [Original]

Would it be worthwhile to uplift intelligent animals? While it would be interesting to get a different perspective on the world from another species, I kind of suspect talking with a dolphin will mostly revolve around tuna.

>> No.3550691

i love tuna, would talk about it all day if i could.

>> No.3550697

>>3550691
Dolphin detected

>> No.3550706

>>3550697
try typing with fins

>> No.3550717

I think that it would be fascinating. For example, Koko the gorilla once said that humans weren't superior to her because they were extremely unattractive compared to her own species.

>> No.3550718

Wonder how wolves would act with an intelligence greater than ours.

>> No.3550727

>>3550717
Did she really?

>> No.3550752

>>3550718
The day will come when a dog solves the theory of everything with grace

>> No.3550756

If Planet of the Apes is indicates anything, then it can only end in tragedy for humanity.

>> No.3550821

Would it be ethical or would ethics require it?

We are prepared to seek cures for our own mentally deficient members. Is that only because they are flesh of our flesh? Or do we recognise and respond to frustrated sentience?

>> No.3550856

>>3550821
Since the "natural order" is a load of bullshit to begin with I don't see what would be unethical about it. Unless it involved some sort of torture of course.

>> No.3550925

>>3550856

It would be monstrous to create a mind capable of suffering for you. This ties in with the ethics of creating AI so similar to us that it knows pain.

>> No.3550943
File: 490 KB, 449x401, Girls.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3550943

>>3550821
>ethics

>> No.3550955

>>3550717

>For example, Koko the gorilla once said that humans weren't superior to her because they were extremely unattractive compared to her own species.

Think about it for a moment. Our skull shape is mainly due to the deactivation of a gene that controlled for jaw muscle density. In other primates it's very powerful, arches over the top of the skull and constricts skull growth. It's why their infants have high, domed foreheads like humans but their skulls are more peanut shaped as adults.

We also have bodily proportions that look sickly thin (for those of us who are relatively fit) by comparison due to loss of muscle mass, and absurdly tall. Like a stretched out slenderman version of a chimp, but hairless and with face/skull proportions resembling their children.

Now extrapolate that and imagine what that would look like to us.

>> No.3550960

>>3550925
Animals are already capable of suffering, but if you uplift them at least you can have a decent conversation with them. Unless they just want to talk about tuna of course.

>> No.3550969

Well, since it's starting to look like we won't be meeting any aliens in a hurry, why not make some ourselves?

>> No.3550974
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3550974

>>3550955
I pretty much imagined this. Then I lol'd.

>> No.3550990

>>3550960

You will be giving them the power to conceive of their own death and it's inevitability. Or will you also supply them the balm of a religion to believe in? Would you have them worship...us?

>> No.3551006

>>3550990
>>Would you have them worship...us?

That would be pretty creepy, but I could see it going to some people's heads.

>> No.3551008

>>3550990
I can conceive my own death just fine. Guess what? I'm not suffering at all.

And do you honestly believe a chimp or dolphin can't already conceive it's own death?

>> No.3551009
File: 26 KB, 228x567, alium.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3551009

>>3550955

>Now extrapolate that and imagine what that would look like to us.

Like this?

>> No.3551017

>Would it be worthwhile to uplift intelligent animals?
Obligatory reading.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/x7/cant_unbirth_a_child/

>> No.3551021

>>3551008

>do you honestly believe a chimp or dolphin can't already conceive it's own death?

No, for I know of no example of either animal preparing, themselves or their fellows, for it.

>> No.3551031

>>3551008

>I can conceive my own death just fine. Guess what? I'm not suffering at all.

So you would pour them into your own mold. That destroys the reason given itt for uplifting them...conversation. You'd be talking to a copy of yourself.

>> No.3551032

>>3551008

There's no evidence that they can.


Elephants, however, visit the graves of their dead. They've even come across humans who have collapsed in the hot African sun, and began to bury them because they thought that they were deceased.

>> No.3551037

Fuck dolphins, uplift cuttlefish, they're adorable and are pretty smart too. Plus the girls will love them, if you know what I mean.

>> No.3551043

We'd better. Without patron status tandu, soro and jophur have no reason not to enslave humanity.

>> No.3551058

>>3551008
There is some evidence that gorillas understand death, like Koko. And elephants too.

>Gorilla, Volume 8, Number 1, from December, 1984.
>One day Koko was having a conversation with Research Assistant Maureen Sheehan.
>MS: Where do gorillas go when they die?
>Koko: Comfortable hole bye.
>MS: When do gorillas die?
>K: Trouble, old.
>MS: How do gorillas feel when they die, happy, sad, afraid?
>K: Sleep.

Anyway, here's a parody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJkWS4t4l0k

>> No.3551060

>>3551031
So the only thing you care about or think is worth talking about is your inevitable demise? How boring and pointless.

>> No.3551061

>>3551037

I don't think there's an abundance of women interested in sexual activity with cuttlefish.

However dolphins are mammals, nice to look at, popular with women and have 14 inch prehensile dicks. If anything we'd avoid uplifting them because of the unreasonable competition it would create.

>> No.3551074

>>3551061
>If anything we'd avoid uplifting them because of the unreasonable competition it would create.
Wow are YOU insecure.

Women don't care about penis size that much.

>> No.3551081

>>3551061
Phaw, they have no endurance, you could just as well uplift horses then.

>> No.3551082

>>3551074

>Women don't care about penis size that much.

They care when it has greater dexterity than a tongue and ejaculates several fluid ounces. Not insecure, wouldn't even blame em, but it's hardly in our best interest to raise an animal women are already very fond of up to human intelligence when it's packing ridiculously superior equipment.

>> No.3551088

>>3551037
>Fuck dolphins
That's a good reason too.

>> No.3551092

>>3551061

>>...are mammals, nice to look at, popular with women and have 14 inch prehensile dicks. If anything we'd avoid uplifting them because of the unreasonable competition it would create.
So dolphins are like cetacean versions of myself?

>> No.3551095

>>3551060

It would be unethical to place a thinking creature under such a cloud to slake your curiosity.

>> No.3551098

>>3551074
Besides, 14 inches? Women DON'T want that.

>> No.3551099

>>3551088
I hear female dolphin can massage with their vaginal walls.

>> No.3551102

>>3551095
One thing you certainly haven't considered, they might not be nearly as obsessed with death as you seem to be. Their psychology will be very different.

>> No.3551107

>>3551082
>it's hardly in our best interest to raise an animal women are already very fond of up to human intelligence when it's packing ridiculously superior equipment.
You've got to be fucking kidding me.

You're THREATENED by this? Besides threats to your ego, tell me why this supposed sexual competition would be a bad thing for our species.

>> No.3551108
File: 27 KB, 369x305, dog.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3551108

>>3551021
Elephants.

pic related, an elephant preparing his grave.

>> No.3551128

>>3551082
>implying the technologies to uplift animals couldn't be used to enhance humans

>> No.3551135

>>3551108
>pic related, an elephant preparing his grave.
>dog.jpg
wat

>> No.3551138

>>3551107

>You're THREATENED by this?

Imagine for a moment that our forests were filled with a species of hairless mammal shaped roughly like human women but with unrealistically excellent figures and enormous, firm tits. They are friendly, intelligent, but cannot speak our language. They express frequent interest in sex with human males and require nothing in the way of dates, gifts, etc.

I think more than a few women would be upset by that. We wouldn't be around to hear about it though, we'd all be in the woods fucking until we died of dehydration and exhaustion.

>> No.3551145

>>3551102
Different? Perhaps, but more like me that like you.
If, through uplift, the animal retains it's own nature, then it's mind will maintain the instinctive fear of death. Learning to suppress such will take time and much self-deceit.

>> No.3551156

>>3551135

Nose is obviously missing from that elephant...it was burying it's beloved snozzel.

>> No.3551163

Can dolphins enjoy ranch with their tuna or are they lactose intolerant?

>> No.3551160

>>3551138
>we'd all be in the woods fucking until we died of dehydration and exhaustion.
You would, maybe. Fucking teenagers.

>> No.3551159
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3551159

>>3551135
My bad. Pic related, three elephants checking the grave of their dead one.

>> No.3551166

>>3551145
First you claim animals can't even conceive death. Now you claim they live in constant fear of it. Make up your mind.

>> No.3551184

>>3551166

You artificially confuse instinct (fear) and consciousness (of death).

To call you a troll would be to accuse a puff pastry of being light and fluffy.

>> No.3551237

>>3551184
>>3551145
I think you're confusing a fear of pain/suffering with a fear of death.

>> No.3551280

>>3551237

What has fear of pain to do with this? Who mentioned it?

>> No.3551297

>>3551184
FU.. now I want a puff pastry!

>> No.3551315

>>3551280
I mentioned it because if an animal supposedly can't conceive of death than it can't have much fear of it. Pain however is easy to understand and fear.

>> No.3551379

>>3551315

You confuse or do not understand the difference between instinct and understanding.

>> No.3554135
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3554135

I have yet to meet in person anyone besides my father who has read this book.

>> No.3554320

>>3554135
At least he has. I am one of three people that have borrowed it from the local library.

The other two reportedly use it as an example of the decadence that science brings.

>> No.3554330

>>3554135

It's a great series, written by a astrophysicist no less.

>> No.3554386 [DELETED] 
File: 125 KB, 420x448, suika_oh_my_you_mad.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3554386

>read Startide Rising first time in third grade
>during religious studies
>the teacher got kind a pissed
>grabs the book
>first line she sees
>"pools for leaping and splashing and sexual play during off-duty hours."
>mfw I'm the calm in the shitstorm she brewed up