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A comment on Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness. Parent comment

Re:Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have C... by uh_oh on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @04:53AM (#5898225)
A computer can easily know right from wrong to the degree most humans are capable of (and too often they aren't very sophisticated at that) even today. But it's safe to assume that that ARM processor has no conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is simply the feeling of observing things, a feeling we assume the machines we've built do not have, for example.
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Re:Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have C... by cristianpascu on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @04:54AM (#5898229)
Only if you program into the computer what is wrong and what is right.
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Re:Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have C... by lifeisstillgood on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @05:10AM (#5898266)
Is it programmed into us? If not how do we feel it? If it is programmed in, can it be re-written?
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Re:Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have C... by verroq on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @05:31AM (#5898316)
Humans adapt to the moral system of their society. There is no set of "universal morals" that all humans have.

But do realise this, since I'm not a moral relativity apologist. I'm going to say that moral systems are not equal and some backward societies need to get their systems fixed.

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Re:Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have C... by lifeisstillgood on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @06:51AM (#5898483)
Have you read the god delusion by Dawkins? There he takes on just that myth - there has been a very good body of research in presenting people with the same set of moral conundrums - every race and culture, even "primitive" have indistinguishable moral responses. (Obviously individual variance was high)

Worth a read.

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Re:Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have C... by tbrownaw on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @10:55AM (#5899550)
There is no set of "universal morals" that all humans have.

What about « If "everybody" (who I identify with to at least such-and-such a degree) did X, would it harm me or my family/descendants? »?

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