Mastodawn

fossilesque Feb 21

Lemmings, please give us your info dump.

https://mander.xyz/post/47816310

me_myself_and_I

I did my dissertation on captive Asian elephants housed in a zoo and how it can influence their behaviour. Did you know that riding elephants is really bad for their back? And concrete floors can cause them to have arthritis in their feet? As well as other locomotion behavioural problems. Elephants are matriarchal and are one of the 5 animals believed to have the capacity for sentience. They are very intelligent and have various rituals they do as a herd. Elephant cows take care of the young but male elephants often leave the herd to live in small bachelore groups of other male elephants. Interestingly, cows that have not given birth will help to raise the calves of other female elephants. They share the responsibility.

Sadly a virus is plaguing elephants known as Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus though I did not cover that in my dissertation. I did not have a large sample size to monitor the behaviour and had to use another student’s data with theirs and the university’s permission due to extrenuating circumstances. I found that there were some areas of the enclosure (known as zones) that they preferred to avoid and theorized this could be due to the influence of visitors due to the proximity of viewing platforms at those zones. Of course there could also be other factors such as lack of food and hay nets in those areas, lack of enrichment, and since elephants are social they will do whatever the matriarch says most of the time. There were a few other things I found but that was the main thing and my supervisor agreed with me. Thankfully I passed my dissertation in the end. I had to repeat university a few times because of learning differences and autism but I got there in the end!

bryophile Feb 22

One of the 5 animals believed to have the capacity for sentience? I think you mean consciousness?

The entire mammal kingdom is widely considered sentient. As are many other groups like fish and insects.

Even with consciousness it’s stretching it to talk about just 5 species.

CrustyCrinkles Feb 22

“Sentience has broader and narrower senses. In a broad sense, it refers to any capacity for conscious experience. […] In a narrower sense, it refers to the capacity to have valenced experiences: experiences that feel bad or feel good to the subject, such as experiences of pain and pleasure”.

Taken from academic.oup.com/book/57949/chapter/475703402

Also, here is an article about the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness that strongly supports the claim that sentience is a trait shared by most, if not all, of the animal kingdom.

animal-ethics.org/10th-anniversary-of-the-cambrid…

SlurpingPus Feb 22

Afaik the terms are sentience vs sapience, which get constantly confused by everyone including me.

PNW clouds Feb 22

My brain came to a full stop here. One of those “have I ever seen these two in the same room” moments.

For anyone else like me: Sentience is the ability to feel and perceive things. Sentient is the adjective form.

Sapience is the ability to think and acquire wisdom, and the capacity for intelligence. Sapient is the adjective form.

Sentient is often misused for any living creature that thinks, when sapient would be the correct word.

Modern humans are classified as homo sapiens.

I think the confusion is summed up by a quote by a park ranger talking about the design of trash cans in National Parks: (paraphrased) There’s a lot of overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest human.

So if I understand, both are sentient. But they vary widely on sapience.

Sentience is recognizing the trash can is there. Sapience is being able to figure out how to open the lid to access the trash and keeping the wisdom to open the next one easily. Sentience is feeling either frustrated or happy based on the level of success.

Unless I messed it up.

SlurpingPus Feb 23

To quote Wikipedia:

Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes.

So it just distinguishes animals of some neural complexity from primitive organisms. E.g. iirc jellyfish might not feel pain, and single-celled organisms most probably don’t.

Regarding sapience, many animals show some degree of intelligence, but we’re yet to see them reflecting on their own nature and experience. This I guess is what meant by sapience in the context of man vs other animals.

one of the 5 animals believed to have the capacity for sentience

I’m taking a guess and saying Dogs, dolphins, an great apes… No idea that the last one could be.

Am I on the right track?

Ravens

SlurpingPus Feb 22

I’d guess parrots or crows over dogs.

Pommes_für_dein_Balg Feb 22

I’d put Octopuses way higher on the list than a dog.
Dogs aren’t more intelligent than cats or cows.
My list would be great apes, octopuses, dolphins, corvids, elephants

Border collies have made the list of the smartest animals before. There are different types of intelligence too, national geographic had dolphins, orcas, ravens/crows, parrots, border collies/dogs, chimpanzees. I feel like I’m forgetting one too.

cabillaud Feb 22

Octopuses are just next to God on the list.

MonkderVierte Feb 22

What, why dogs? They are dumber than cats, just good at understanding humans.

You forgot crows.

MonkderVierte Feb 22

Orca, corvid, octopus, apes, elephant?

me_myself_and_I Feb 22

Close! They are chimps, elephants, dolphins, octopus, and crows

First of all parrots are smarter than the lot, orcas, some dogs like border collies too, it’s a lot bigger than you are giving it credit for.

thethunderwolf Feb 22

capacity for sentience

Aren’t most animals sentient? Wiktionary says that it means “Experiencing sensation, thought, or feeling”. Even simple animals like flies are capable of “sensation”, and most complex animals experience all three. I would say “sapient” (“possessing intelligence or a high degree of self-awareness”) in this context.

You’re the scientist, what is the scientifically correct/used/accepted meaning of “sentient”? Or has it been found that most animals do not, or at least do not consciously in the way humans do, sense, think, or feel? Correct me if any of what I’m saying is wrong.

Of course animals are sentient. The arrogance of people to think we are the only animal capable of sentience, or intelligence of any kind. We have evolved to be better at some things than other animals, but they are all smarter than we are in ways. Dogs know more about smells than we do, remember a smell for life. They have a better sense of direction, as many wild animals do, and are better at remembering landscapes and vast wild areas.

You get into cold blooded animals and it changes somewhat, but all warm blooded animals are capable of more than we give them credit for. Cold blooded probably too but in a different way.