Sentient Gorillas?

[abercius24]

[quote name='hot stuff' post='1362752' date='Aug 19 2007, 10:36 AM']I might agree with you on this one abstractly. But when my Australian Shepherd gives me a kiss as he heads off for a nap, my agreement goes out the window. I like thinking he loves me unconditionally. [/quote]

He sounds like a very nice dog! You must admit that his love is conditional upon the receiver of his love being you, though. If you let him, he would probably kill and eat a burglar. Heck, if you made yourself tasty enough, he'd probably eat part of you, too!

[Jaime]

[quote name='abercius24' post='1362757' date='Aug 19 2007, 10:46 AM']He sounds like a very nice dog! You must admit that his love is conditional upon the receiver of his love being you, though. If you let him, he would probably kill and eat a burglar. Heck, if you made yourself tasty enough, he'd probably eat part of you, too![/quote]


See now that's where you lose the debate. I'm extremely unloveable.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='hot stuff' post='1362771' date='Aug 19 2007, 10:02 AM']See now that's where you lose the debate. I'm extremely unloveable.[/quote]
A) That's not true.
B) He loves you because of what you do for him, which has little to do with you as a person (aside from the obvious fact that your personality leads you to choose to do nice things for him). But anyone who cared for him and fed him and didn't beat him would get that same love.

[Paddington]

I will love any human that feeds me without beating me too.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='Paddington' post='1362828' date='Aug 19 2007, 11:57 AM']I will love any human that feeds me without beating me too.[/quote]

[Farsight one]

[quote name='abercius24' post='1362663' date='Aug 19 2007, 07:45 AM']Wow, that went a bit far for me. We are talking about animals "hypothetically" having sentient qualities. This has yet to be proven in Dr. Patterson's three gorillas, let alone the rest of the gorilla population. Blacks on the other hand have always been recognized as sentient beings because they are no less sentient than you and I. The slave owners simply denied that reality out of selfish convenience. Nobody is denying any proven reality as far as gorillas are concerned. Furthermore, rich people owned slaves, not poor people. I was speaking in the defense of the poor. Wow, I really can't describe the icky feeling I have right now trying to explain to you why its wrong to compare blacks to gorillas. That's just not right. I appreciate your zeal, but you gotta be more careful with your analogies.[/quote]Well, it was being argued against gorillas from the presupposition that they were sentient. IF they were, then I think the analogy is acceptable.

Your post also poses another question - when applying the concept of sentience to something, must it be done to the entirety of the species, or could it be applied to only some of them?

[Socrates]

Koko's "language" abilities are dubious. As someone pointed out, Dr. Patterson does a lot of "interpretation" of her apes' signs, some of it quite "creative" and far-fetched. For instance, Koko giving the wrong sign when asked a question is interpreted as "joking" or "lying," and using signs for words such as "bird" or "nut" when asked about people or other apes is interpreted as "insults." And I remember reading a story about Koko's first online session, when she "answered" questions sent in by people. Dr. Patterson gave quite strained "interpretations" of the meaning of what would appear to the casual observer to be a monkey hitting random word keys on a keyboard.

I would say that apes are able to sign in order to express basic wants (what kind of food they want, etc.) and in reference to objects or actions by association, but I would not say this is language in the full human sense.
There is no evidence that apes are capable of abstract thought. They are very clever creatures, but are not spiritual in nature. They cannot think abstractly or discuss ideas. They have no religion, philosophy or culture. Like other animals, their only concerns are finding and eating food, sex, and fighting or fleeing enemies.

There is a whole movement to give great apes legal rights, led by people like Peter Singer, the virulently anti-Christian philosopher and bio-ethics chairman at Princeton who also wants to legalize infanticide and euthanasia of human beings. He claims legal "personhood" should be given to apes, and possibly a number of other animals as well, while certain human beings (such as infants and the severely mentally retarded) would not be considered legally "persons," and would lack human rights, including the right to life.
Spain and England have already granted apes limited "human rights."

A whole can of worms is opened up when "sentience" or mental ability is used as criteria for "personhood," rather than being a member of the human species.

And apes are not the only animals considered by some to be "sentient." Recent studies have shown that dogs, while they cannot themselves use language, understand complex spoken commands even better than apes. ANd there is evidence that some birds, such as certain crows and parrots, may be smarter than apes.

Scientists cannot agree among themselves what animals are and aren't "sentient." If granting animals "rights" based on alleged intelligence gets underway legally, one can only imagine the number of people coming forth claiming their dog/cat/horse/pig/etc. is "sentient" and deserving of legal rights. That would literally become a zoo!

Thought I'd add this quote:[quote]Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College, London, opposes the movement, arguing that, although great apes share over 98% of DNA with humans, all species of life share common DNA to a certain extent. He also argues that, "Rights and responsibilities go together and I've yet to see a chimp imprisoned for stealing a banana because they don't have a moral sense of what's right and wrong. To give them rights is to give them something without asking for anything in return."[/quote]
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ape_personhood"]From this Wikipedia article on "Great Ape Personhood."[/url]