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   novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 08-Sep-2023 23:46:53 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

   It really annoys me when people get out those word button boards for their dogs, and their dogs start carefully watching them and pressing the buttons that seem to get their owners reaction the most — at very wide intervals so it's very clear that they are just watching their owners and looking for a reaction (very much in the manner that this supposed to counting horse did) — producing "sentences" that meander wildly in various nonsensical directions, and are just weird assortments of words that get a reaction from the owner with no actual intention or anything, and then the owner gets all excited as if their dogs can actually speak.

   For the people that insist that their dog or cat can actually fully understand and parse complex sentences.

   Like how do you not see that you're just fucking anthropomorphizing your animal companion because you're attached to it and humans will pack bond with anything?

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 08-Sep-2023 23:50:43 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     My family a French lop bunny for a while and my brother insisted for a couple weeks that she was actually able to recognize her name, and when I pointed out the fact that we always and *only* said her name in a certain sing-song tone of voice, and only said it when we were gonna give her food, and she was probably just responding to that, he didn't believe me. So for a few weeks I would call her name without using that singsong tone of voice and she wouldn't come, and I would say random words in that sing song tone of voice and she would come. Lol.

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 08-Sep-2023 23:51:02 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     My family a French lop bunny for a while and my brother insisted for a couple weeks that she was actually able to recognize her name, and when I pointed out the fact that we always and *only* said her name in a certain sing-song tone of voice, and only said it when we were gonna give her food, and she was probably just responding to that, he didn't believe me. So for a few weeks I would call her name without using that singsong tone of voice and she wouldn't come, and I would say random words in that sing song tone of voice and she would come. Lol.

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     NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 09-Sep-2023 01:24:40 JST NeonSnake

     in reply to

     @anarchopunk_girl

     The only animals that I *know of* that can definitely parse sentences properly are certain types of birds (it's to do with their songs, apparently they understand word order).

     That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some dogs/cats/rabbits can do, whilst others can.

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 09-Sep-2023 04:47:08 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Ciggy Bringer of Smoke
     • NeonSnake

     @ciggysmokebringer @neonsnake I don't think that human modes of cognition and non-human modes of cognition are completely separate spheres that have nothing in common, so this isn't news to me. We evolved from a common ancestor, for heaven's sake! But I definitely think it's absurd to attribute capabilities to animals that they clearly don't have, or to insist that there is not a vast separation in human cognitive abilities and (self-)consciousness from most other animals, a gulf that is composed both of quantitative changes and qualitative ones, as we have many entire capabilities that most other animals don't have. That's the sort of blindness that really frustrates me about how people talk about large language models — they claim that LLMs are sentient or conscious or intelligent when they don't even have the basic neurological structures and designs and reward functions to be so, it just so happens that they can string a semicoherent group of words together in the right conditions and have an architecture that is vaguely like the basic architecture that our brains also share. It's like claiming that an arcade machine and a supercomputer are basically the capable of the same things because they both use logic gates.

     And I'd like to point out that I'm not in principle closed to being proven wrong on this, because I don't really have anything against the idea that there may be animals that are equivalent to humans in cognition and intelligence and consciousness or whatever. I'm not committed to only seeing humans as moral subjects and/or moral agents, or thinking we're special and only we have "souls" or whatever. I'd be totally willing to grant personhood to any animal you like if you can show me that has the qualitative capacities to have it. It's just that I've done a fairly significant amount of research into stuff like Koko and Noam Chipskey and all the other animals that people claim have achieved that kind of thing and I'm just deeply unconvinced.

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     Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 09-Sep-2023 04:47:09 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

     in reply to

     • NeonSnake

     @neonsnake @anarchopunk_girl its kinda amazing how the predominant mode of memory and cognition among companion critters is so associative. so with enough validating experiences, a cat will run out of the bedroom at the lid being popped off a can, even if its a can of beans. You give them a couple of sniffs, they are like 'no thanks' but the assocation still sticks from prior reinforcement and they run out again at the next can.

     The thing is, we have a very associative memory too, but its not so predominant as we tap on meta cognition to analyze perception while sidestreaming associative and evocative memory.

     This is partially why I dont like drawing such clear lines between human and animal, because theres still a lot of commanility in cognition, but we have some nifty bonuses and we also lack some nifty heuristics that develop without the meta cognition we take for granted. Whatever the take is the human animal differentiation and subsequent relationship, I think its important to at least recognize that associative memory and cognition is in play way more often than we...hahaha...think it is.

     Schema is a hobby horse of mine if you couldnt tell, lol

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     Ciggy Bringer of Smoke (ciggysmokebringer@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 09-Sep-2023 05:56:56 JST Ciggy Bringer of Smoke

     in reply to

     • NeonSnake

     @anarchopunk_girl @neonsnake yeah, the thing that I am never sure of with people, being someone who absolutely babytalks our kitty with silly rhetorical questions, is to what extent people actually believe their little critter companion is cognizant in human ways and how much of that is something more latent and vestigal subconcious thing.

     And its not being sure when combined with seeming ethical and moral launchoff points where some logic is 'if humans are animals, and animals are given the short stick on their own cognition, then it is wrong to exploit them, hurt them, eat them, etc etc' where I become dubious. Not because I disagree with the endpoint and some means to get there so much, but because it feels like a crock of shit to feign agnosticism towards there being any way to differentiate ourselves from animals simply to justify kindness and care towards them, and larger drastic ecological stewardship (that might chap our hides alone) to live up to those ideals.

     I know this is kinda hokey being much more of a consequentialist than otherwise but part of that is all the attendant beliefs with myopic ferocity where it really starts to fall apart for me, where I dont percieve any of ego or association or reputational benefits from taking the whole implicative must dos to heart. I dont feel wholler, sounder, and wiser with any of it nor imagine I would if I was like 'hey babe, lets go full vegan full time'.

     As for people who think they live with an Advanced Lassie or are hilariously wrong about LLMs to detrimental effect, I think that resides less on a conscious moral ethical side and is just quick n easy 'humans make anything into a visage of itself even if it isnt and despite absurdity' and I am reminded of the time Conan O'Brien had The Sears Tower on his show while visiting Chicago and like, it was an anthropomorphic plush suit wearing a shirt and pants and it was hella funny, for human reasons.