re: #784 Obdicut

I guess. We exist. If we didn’t, it wouldn’t be either good or bad. It’s just what is.

As Sergey says, we do exist. That’s not a good thing?

Then you’re talking about a different sort of kindness than I am.

What sort of kindness are you talking about?

I know. Potential. And I think there’s a huge difference between metacognition as it applies to probability and metacognition as it applies to things like dialectics.

I said potential because it is still a controversial subject and an active area of research. The authors of the papers I linked, and many other researchers, say that such potential is realized in certain animals. What do you think about what I linked?

I would suggest that being able to discern the similarities and differences between objects such as their color, shape, quantity (or absence), etc is an abstraction. That capability was demonstrated by Alex the parrot.

It could have. I haven’t seen anything that convinces me. There is a rather large gulf between us and even more most intelligent cousins, in every aspect.

Fair enough. I agree that there is a huge gulf between us and even our nearest relatives. But I see it as a difference in the magnitude of our capability rather than as something unique to us.