Are whales as intelligent as humans?
Posted by FireSkyLikeFly@reddit | whales | View on Reddit | 9 comments
So this may be a controversial subject, but within many spiritual communities, they recognize whales/dolphins as on the same level of soul consciousness as humanity. The biggest difference is that humans have been able to create technology where cetaceans lack the ability to create due to their biology. What are your thoughts on this concept? Are they merely another animal, or do they have the same level of soul consciousness?
TesseractToo@reddit
Depends on what you think the markers of intelligence is really, which is something many people dedicate their entire careers to and isn't something that can be tackled in a reddit reply.
"Soul consciousness" isn't a thing that can be measured (and isn't a thing at all), nor is "merely another animal". All animals have consciousness, a soul is a religious thing that has many definitions.
I suggest you start at the beginning with seeing how unclear each of these words are to get a pinpoint definition of, then have a look at ethology and comparative brain anatomy and see how you go
FireSkyLikeFly@reddit (OP)
I know that scientists believe that opposable thumbs are the defining moments with humans. With that, we started inventing. I'm just curious how far humans could go with fins and a flipper. Cetaceans, especially Orcas, have demonstrated a serious amount of intelligence and adaptability. Much of our technology is in leu of dominating others, but I don't think they have the ability to do that if they wanted.
joliesse0x@reddit
Y'all are both being deliberately obtuse. Missing the point, focusing on the least relevant things this person's saying, picking apart the semantics.
The subject line is honestly pretty self-explanatory, what's wrong with just giving your opinion on the question instead of being pedantic?
FireSkyLikeFly@reddit (OP)
Funny how some people think they are intelligent but cannot get past their own distortions.
TesseractToo@reddit
Sounds like your information is very dated, like 1950's dated.
Opposable thumbs didn't just appear from nowhere and start technology, and many other animals have them.
"Dominating" others isn't a marker of intelligence.
SignificantYou3240@reddit
No. But I also don’t think humans are as smart as whales either.
I’m pretty sure it depends on what is called intelligence.
I’m not sure who it was, maybe Carl Sagan, who said something like whales have only learned a handful of human words… but the number of whale words spoken by humans is zero.
Which, I mean… I don’t know, I can go “Whee-yoot!” But I don’t know if it would actually sound like a word to an orca.
psykulor@reddit
We have isolated the greeting sequence for humpback whales
cmj3@reddit
Hard to make it apples to apples because cognitive abilities are pretty divergent on an evolutionary level. It's kind of why I take issue with the common-stated assumption that 'dolphins are smart enough to comprehend their cruelty'. That requires a lot of untested assumptions on their cognitive abilities *and* social evolution to come up with such concepts.
Ironsight85@reddit
I recall hearing that the forest service has trouble designing a bear proof trash can because the smartest bears are better at figuring it out than the dumbest people.
Pretty sure whales are smarter than whales. There has to be overlap.