Rudy Canoza wrote:
A famous economist, Kenneth Boulding, observed that "No
dog knows that there have been dogs before him, and
will be dogs after him." Similarly, "the cats of Rome
know nothing of the mice of Athens." It is this type
of awareness that people are looking for in animals,
and of which self awareness is an important but only
small part. No animals give any evidence of these
higher levels of awareness, of true consciousness.
That doesn't mean they don't have it, but to date there
is ZERO reason to believe they do, apart from ignorant
and superstitious anthropomorphic projection.


How are we aware of the ability to be self-aware in humans, if say, we
take away our ability to communicate with eachother,

Why would we do that? That ability to communicate with
one another, especially symbolic communication, is a
defining characteristic of our species. What a
nonsense question.

We would do that because we are currently unable to communicate with
animals. Right now, some people, like yourself, are concluding that
animals do not have self awareness. Animals have no way to tell us that
they are self-aware if they were, in fact, self-aware, just like a
chinese man cannot tell me he is self-aware. Should I conclude that the
chinese man is not self-aware because there is no way he can
communicate to me that he is?

or do not use
behavioral attributes as evidence (we understand other people's
behaviour and can make rather good guesses as to what those people are
feeling or thinking due to the fact that we are the same species, which
is an obvious bias if we want to look at self-awareness objectively)?

But this is the very essence of what people are LOOKING
for among other animals. So why would you want to
"take away" that salient aspect of humans? God damn,
you're an imbecile.

Well, some people have noticed behavioral attribute in animals which
might indicate a certain level of self-awareness, which you then
disregard due to anthropomorphic projection. Perhaps, the
interpretations of the behavioral aspects of certain animals is
correct. If you will disregard certain behavioral evidence in animals
because of anthropomorphic projections, then you must do so with humans
as well to remove bias.

I was incorrect earlier in ascribing to you a stated
belief that animals are self aware. But there is a
rational basis for my error: you very much *want* to
find that animals are conscious in the way humans are.
That isn't a scientific sentiment, and it in fact
greatly reduces your ability to approach the issue from
a legitimately scientific perspective.

You are, again, wrong in believing that I want to find that animals are
self-aware. You have no basis to make such an assumption. You have,
once again, made something up.

Some people who posted here are curious about certain aspects of
self-awareness and in ways for animals to show whether one is
self-aware or not. I have simply stated different ways to look at the
subject, while you would put up false statements about certain test and
beliefs from the scientific community, such as:

"You will NEVER understand self-awareness, and why no scientist
believes dogs possess it."
False statement because some scientists do believe dogs may have
self-awareness.


"But the mirror test *IS* a widely acknowledged test of self-awareness
among researchers into animal intelligence, and dogs fail it."
False statement because there is no consensus on whether the test has
any relation to self-awareness.


"True, but when they fail *any* test of self awareness, then the smart
bet is that they don't have it."
You failed to mention what those other tests are, even when directly
asked a number of times.


dh: "The mirror test is a test of self recognition Rudy, not self
awareness."
Rudy: "It's a test of self awareness, ****wit."
False again. The test was originally designed by Gallup to answer the
question whether animals can recognize themselves in mirrors.