I put this down to Data at times thinking like a tin-can and not the human being that he always strived to be, but never quite managed it.
Why does Data consider Spot not a sentient being?
- Thread starter stevenflow
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Yes, cats are sentient. But they are not sapient. And, as Trek merged the terms, by Trek's standards (or 24th century standards) they are not.
But it is a related question. If cats are only aware of themselves but are unable to perceive themselves in the third person, to have ethics, sympathy or the ability to ignore their natural instincts, they are not sentient in the meaning of the word as is defined by Star Trek (and there's no reason to think the definition of the word sentience may not change to mean that in 2-300 years).
I also take issue with the fact of ascribing personality traits on to animals based on how we precieve them. It seems too many people want to put the same personality traits on cats that LOLCAT posters do.
Just because cats may act like they are the center of their own universe doesn't mean they really think that way. They're not going around the house thinking "Pffft. I'm so much better than all of these people. I'm just going to lay around wherever I want!"
Those mirror studies are fundamentally flawed and assume that the tested species could "recognize" itself using it's visual senses as a human would. It's fine if you get confirmatory results (e.g., the animal does recognize itself in the mirror), but really says nothing about the animal if you get a negative result.
That assumption is a decade or two behind the times. Animal behavioral studies in recent years have called that assumption very much into question, as we've discovered that many cognitive processes we liked to think were exclusive to us are found in other animals as well, and that many animals have behaviors that can't be reduced to mindless instinct. There is no sharp divide between how humans think and how other animals think. We're just one part of a continuum. Our cognitive abilities and behaviors are different in degree than those of other animals, but every one of them can be found to some extent in other species.
And for the record, every cat knows the difference between itself and another cat. Cats are extremely territorial. So even if the rest of your point were valid, that would be a poorly chosen example.
(And of course every cat knows its place in the universe: the exact center.)
Which behavioral studies? I know of studies on apes, which show certain things that are unique to apes, not all animals. Apes can recognize themselves in a mirror and know the difference between themselves and other apes. Cats are different. Cats attack their own tails and they attack mirrors... they don't appear to be aware of themselves because they think every cat is another cat, including their own body and the cat in the mirror. So I think it's still true that most animals are not self-aware.
In my experience, cats rarely think in any other terms.
How are you able to state these things as absolute certainties? Where's your evidence to support these claims? How do you prove a negative? Or are you just repeating a longstanding assumption?
As I've said, it's an outdated belief that non-primate mammals are motivated purely by mindless instinct. In fact, I'd call it nothing more than a prejudice. There's no scientific justification for the assumption that they have nothing going on in their heads beyond robotic instinct, and increasing behavioral research indicating that there is some degree of awareness, emotional response, and judgment at work. You're insisting on a black-and-white, all-or-nothing distinction that's totally naive. Just because another species isn't as self-aware or cognitively advanced as humans, that doesn't mean there's absolutely nothing there beyond pure instinct. Again, how do you prove a negative?
Damn, you've really never lived with cats, have you? We exist to serve them, and they never let us forget it. And that's not entirely a joke. Cats chose to domesticate themselves thousands of years ago. It wasn't something humans forced on a bunch of mindless fuzzy automatons. It was a mutual choice made by two species who saw mutual advantage in the partnership. And to this day, your average housecat is far, far less domesticated than any dog or chicken or cow, far closer to the feral state.
Totally, totally wrong. Cats are definitely capable of learning. They're famous for their ability to learn how to open doors by observing humans doing it -- not as a trick "taught" to them by Pavlovian stimulus-response conditioning, but as a skill they acquire on their own initiative by observation and deduction. I've witnessed this firsthand, when my cat Shadow figured out that the way to unlock the back door of the house was by operating the deadbolt knob. He didn't have the strength or leverage to pull it off, but he undoubtedly understood that turning that lever was the key to achieving his goals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_intelligence
You have a very antiquated view of animal intelligence. You should consider exercising your own capacity for learning.
Again, if you knew cats at all, you'd know they can love.
And again, your absolutist distinctions here are irrelevant. Just because cats can't do the specific things humans can do doesn't mean they have zero cognitive ability. It's an incompetent argument, empty propaganda serving only to denigrate.
How do you know? Where's your scientific evidence for that assertion?
That's what you want to believe because it feeds your human ego. Where's your PROOF? Have you spent a lifetime studying animal cognition, or are you just parroting preconceptions?
Humans mate out of instinct too. We just dress it up in a lot of social justifications and excuses. Our capacity for emotional connections is a separate behavioral issue. And just because different species have different approaches to pair-bonding doesn't mean one has deeper emotions than the other. Your arguments arise from human egocentrism, not science or reason. Humans are social primates; it was to our evolutionary advantage to form lasting interpersonal bonds as a survival strategy, an incentive to share resources and territory. Cats are solitary predators, so their behaviors are adapted to their survival needs. However, in some contexts, cats can adopt a more social pattern of behavior; farm cats are known for having a group social structure identical to that of a pride of lions. Different social strategies for different contexts, not some mythic hierarchy of superior and inferior forms of life.
Straw man. Nobody here is saying that cats are the same as humans. We're simply pointing out that many of your assertions about animal behavior are scientifically invalid and misinformed, that modern research presents a picture far more complex than what you're alleging, and that just because cats and other animals are not at the same level of intelligence as a human, that doesn't mean they have zero intelligence. You're too caught up in your absolutist, us-vs.-them mentality that you don't understand we're talking about nuance and differences of degree.
And really, humans aren't at the top of the food chain. Microorganisms are. In the end, to paraphrase Hamlet, even a king is food for bacteria.
Nor are we on "a whole other level." The differences are matters of degree, of quantity. Every aspect of human intelligence is found in many other species; it's just the particular combination of those factors in a particular set of proportions -- combined with certain bits of evolutionary luck like the presence of opposable thumbs and stereoscopic vision -- that allowed our particular type of intelligence to produce emergent results that were significantly different from what other species have achieved. It's not like there's some immense behavioral gulf between us and every other living thing on Earth. We're just neotenous chimpanzees, a variety of great ape that, through a quirk or two of evolution, had a couple of significant differences from other apes that unlocked whole new possibilities.
But you're the one who's doing that. You perceive animals as mindless flesh robots operating only on instinct, and are ascribing traits to them based solely on that perception rather than reading up on the decades of scientific research that would force you to reconsider that perception.
I've only got one thing to say at the moment... First off, cats chasing their own tail is a form of play, they aren't trying to attack it because they don't realize it's not some other animal they need to fend off or something. They recognize themselves and their own body parts. The mirror test is a rather flawed way of trying to disprove that as well. A cat might recognize itself when it looks down it himself, but if a cat doesn't understand what a mirror is or what it does, then how can they possibly understand that is them in the mirror? What if there was a person who was just rather unintelligent and sheltered and was unfamiliar with mirrors and they saw it and thought it was another person on the other side of a piece of glass? Would that make them not self aware? The mirror test alone cannot prove or disprove self awareness.
In answer to the thread question. Because it is a cat.
I know that will upset alot of you here but cats are just creatures. They don't love, study science or perform art. They are just acting out of instinct.
And I only use "it" to refer to Spot because it changed gender throughout the series (and colour if I recall correctly).
I know that will upset alot of you here but cats are just creatures. They don't love, study science or perform art. They are just acting out of instinct.
And I only use "it" to refer to Spot because it changed gender throughout the series (and colour if I recall correctly).
You folks are funny. 
Cats are not sentient.
To be sentient as many have said is to be aware of ones self and the world around them. I am a human male, living in northern New Jersey, on the contenitent of American on the planet Earth. That is being self aware, cats know nothing of the world or that they even exist on a planet much less what's beyond the backyard. I can't even believe such a point is being debated.
Cats are not sentient.
To be sentient as many have said is to be aware of ones self and the world around them. I am a human male, living in northern New Jersey, on the contenitent of American on the planet Earth. That is being self aware, cats know nothing of the world or that they even exist on a planet much less what's beyond the backyard. I can't even believe such a point is being debated.
I do to the point that something that is considered property isn't.
By law something that is considered sentient can't be bought, sold or owned.
Pets are considered property.
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
Sometimes I wonder if the heat of summertime makes this board go all TNZ pissy for most every possible thread.
By that definition slaves only become sentient after slavery is outlawed by local, regional or national law.
Such legal positivism rarely constitutes a convincing argument.
Yes that is true.
It's common knowledge that slaves were viewed as animals and not as human beings during slavery, which is why they could be legally bought and sold. Due to the Amanicipation Proclimation, slaves were not only freed but given recognition as sentient beings in all States in the America.
Then please, enlighten me.
Then explain how the law is wrong.
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
Y'see, this is what I'm talking about...a thread about a TV android's cat leads to someone being subtly accused of supporting slavery.
ugh.
I get the feeling that you missed the point I was trying to make.
And for the record: I was not speaking of US law and history specifically. (Or slavery for that matter)
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