What is the point of life?

[Kyriakos]

It isn't a fish and 99%+ of humans do nothing of any long-term consequence.

Humans may do "nothing", but at least they can do something. A sea mammal can't do anything regardless of wanting to or not

 

[Birdjaguar]

Have wild and trained dolphins entertained and brought more joy into the world than Kafka?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Humans may no "nothing", but at least they can do something. A sea mammal can't do anything regardless of wanting to or not

*know*

 

[Kyriakos]

Have wild and trained dolphins entertained and brought more joy into the world than Kafka?

Speaking of Kafka:

"A first sign of self-awareness is the desire to end one's life".

Not that I agree with that.
But even Kafka rotted, like everyone else. Moreover he was so massively hypochrondriac that he brought about his death decades before it would be time (going by how his parents went on living, and ultimately died decades later in nazi concentration camps).

 

[warpus]

Does it really matter? How sentient can something be, when it is a fish doing nothing of consequence for its entire life. You'd likely just kill yourself in its place.
Afaik they can identify themselves in reflecting surfaces. My point was about realizing how low their place is.

They aren't fish, but that's beside the point.

It matters as much as this conversation matters I suppose. I find it odd to assume that they are unable to ponder the realities of life just because they live in the water.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Speaking of Kafka:

"A first sign of self-awareness is the desire to end one's life".

I disagree. A first sign of self-awareness is crying to get someone else to feed you, hold you, or wipe the feces from your backside.

 

[Kyriakos]

*know*

Probably meant both "do" and "know"

 

[Sommerswerd]

So we can all stop just trading layperson trash-talk back and forth without a shred of actual sourcing...

A Researcher Asks: Are Dolphins Self-Aware?

Like chimpanzees, dolphins are large-brained and highly social animals, but can they recognize themselves in a mirror? Psychologist and dolphin researcher Diana Reiss discusses her work with dolphin communication and cognition.

REISS: Well, you know, it's interesting because when you think about self-awareness, most animals would have to have some form of awareness or they'd be bumping into each other and the walls and their environment. So we're talking about a particular kind of self-awareness, the sense of you can recognize that you are in that mirror, that that's an external representation of yourself. That's pretty sophisticated when you think about it. And most animals don't do it.

https://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/142024616/a-researcher-asks-are-dolphins-self-aware

 

[AmazonQueen]

Humans may do "nothing", but at least they can do something. A sea mammal can't do anything regardless of wanting to or not

They could have a rich oral (or would it be sonic?) storytelling tradition (instead they probably just tell human jokes) for all we know.

 

[Birdjaguar]

So we can all stop just trading layperson trash-talk back and forth without a shred of actual sourcing...

A Researcher Asks: Are Dolphins Self-Aware?

https://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/142024616/a-researcher-asks-are-dolphins-self-aware

And the answer is....

REISS: Correct. We - several years ago, my colleague and I put a mirror in front of a dolphin and wanted to know what would they do with it. What would they - would they know it's themselves? And again, this is a really - this is a rare cognitive ability in other animals. And they actually showed that, like us, they can recognize themselves in mirrors.

FLATOW: And you did research at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Is that where you studied your dolphins?

REISS: No, actually, my first lab was in California at a place called Marine World, when I...

FLATOW: Ah, Marine World.

REISS: Marine World, and what else? And then I was research director, director of marine mammal research at the New York Aquarium, the Osborn Labs for Marine Studies. And now I'm doing - I'm directing a program of dolphin research at the National Aquarium.

FLATOW: You know, we always say that people are different than other animals because they're self-aware, right?

REISS: Right.

FLATOW: Are dolphins self-aware?

REISS: Well, you know, it's interesting because when you think about self-awareness, most animals would have to have some form of awareness or they'd be bumping into each other and the walls and their environment. So we're talking about a particular kind of self-awareness, the sense of you can recognize that you are in that mirror, that that's an external representation of yourself. That's pretty sophisticated when you think about it. And most animals don't do it.

Most animals if they do pay attention to a mirror, which many don't, like dogs and cats generally don't, if they do, they think it's another of their own kind, and they'll show social behavior. With the dolphins, not only are they aware that it's themselves, and they show it to us behaviorally.

FLATOW: How? What do they do that they know that...

REISS: Yeah. So there are three stages. Should I break it down more simply?

FLATOW: Yeah.

REISS: The three stages are if they've never seen a mirror before, they try to look around it, look over it, figure out what this thing is, who's behind it, then they - if they've never seen a mirror, they start showing social behavior. So for dolphins, they might echolocate or whistle at it or squawk at it. I'm going to hold myself back from doing imitations, but they...

FLATOW: Feel free.

REISS: Oh, I will...

FLATOW: It's radio.

REISS: ...soon, soon.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

REISS: But they'll do - and they'll show typical social behaviors. And for scientists who study them, we have to know what those social behaviors look like. So the second stage is what we call contingency testing. Now, for any of you out there listening to the station who know the old - the Harpo Marx, Lucille Ball or Groucho skit in front of the mirror. This is what...

FLATOW: The mirror image of each other.

REISS: This is what you see. I mean, it's pretty much highly repetitive behaviors, really unusual behaviors in front of a mirror. Now, it may look odd and funny to us, but in reality, this is where the light bulb goes on. This is where the animal figures out that something that it's doing, that the behaviors it's doing are related to the behaviors they're seeing in the mirror. And they start realizing there's this one-to-one correspondence. And that's a really important stage.

So you - when you see this stage, you generally will see animals go on to use the mirror to look at themselves, and that's that third stage we call self-directed behavior. And this is so interesting because not only have my colleagues and I studied dolphins and shown dolphins can show mirror self-recognition, but we've done this with elephants. We did this with elephants at the Bronx Zoo.

FLATOW: OK.

REISS: Frans de Waal, who I know has been here, and his graduate student Josh Plotnik and I collaborated, so we showed this in Asian elephants as well. What's amazing is that the elephants, dolphins, chimps and humans show the same kinds of behaviors often at the mirror.

Yes!

 

[Kyriakos]

That is well known, for a few animals. Great apes will pick up a painted sign placed on their body and remove it.
It is the other way around, regarding a reflection on this: the expectations from lowly animals are so low, that even being able to identify they are looking at themselves is a cause for distinction when compared to other lowly animals.

So nothing divine or happy belongs to humans apart from just that one thing worth taking seriously, as much insight and intelligence as is in us, for, of what’s ours, this alone seems to be immortal, and this alone divine. And by being able to share in such a capacity, our way of life, although by nature miserable and difficult, is yet so gracefully managed that, in comparison with the other animals, a human seems to be a god.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

This is a fallen world. Look around you at all the things that are happening. If you think something is not right it's because something is not right. This ship is sinking and you need to get on the life boat.

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Moff Jerjerrod What is disappointing about such videos is that they tend to be a string of cherry picked quotes from all over the bible, taken out of context and then strung together as if they were a single story to begin with. By doing the same with a different set of quotes, one could tell an entirely different story. The integrity of the original book is completely destroyed.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

@Moff Jerjerrod What is disappointing about such videos is that they tend to be a string of cherry picked quotes from all over the bible, taken out of context and then strung together as if they were a single story to begin with. By doing the same with a different set of quotes, one could tell an entirely different story. The integrity of the original book is completely destroyed.

I agree with your logic. I've seen this exact thing happen with many preachers. What did you find with the video example I gave that caused you to question his content? Just curious as I'm not looking for an argument but merely more knowledge and understanding.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I watched about 10 minutes of the video. What was funny was that he starts off saying "Go to 10 churches and ask what you have to do to be saved, and you'll get 10 different answers." One, it's funny that he says "So listen to me." (The eleventh guy telling you what you need to do to be saved). Two, everything he treated in the next ten minutes is very orthodox theology that is likely to be part of the answer that you get in any one of those ten churches.

Then this part of it is funny. He starts off saying the answer is simple, that the criterion for the right answer will be its simplicity. And then he goes into all of the complexities of soteriology.

He seems a perfectly earnest and well intentioned chap. And everything he says is fully in accord with my understanding of the answer to the question he poses.

Bird will of course speak for himself, and it's his answer that you want.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I agree with your logic. I've seen this exact thing happen with many preachers. What did you find with the video example I gave that caused you to question his content? Just curious as I'm not looking for an argument but merely more knowledge and understanding.

The entire message comes across as a disingenuous sales pitch because of how he presents it. He answers his "How can I be saved?" question in the video around the 17:00 mark. It takes him about 4 minutes and he uses two quotes. All the rest comes across as pretentious "See I've read the Bible and if I quote a lot of it, it makes more believable. All the rest of the video is superfluous bible quotes that he pretends are connected. His ending scare tactics about heaven and hell point to him being a YEC, but that is not fully clear. Now, he does sound sincere and probably would want me to repent right now and be born again. Pretty unlikely. I am a pantheist and drift into the Hindu, Buddhist and Sufi camps for my spiritual refreshment.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, so he does get to an answer if I just hold on for seven more minutes?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Oh, so he does get to an answer if I just hold on for seven more minutes?

Yes If you start at about 16:40.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I did go and listen. But I just have to tell him, that's the basic answer that one would get in many of the RELIGIONS that he's warning us to run from.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Evangelicals need to preach and most like to talk a long time to prepare you for a very simple action. Get our passion in motion. I think it is mostly about their need for an audience and to make people feel like that got their moneys worth and move them to action. "Repent and accept Jesus as your savior!" won't fill the pews or the coffers. Saving souls didn't used to be a business first and a church second.