Last night I was walking with a friend, and a dog with their owner walked by us. It led us to discuss the convention of naming dogs with human names. “What if I called my dog Santiago? Surely you would take that as an insult, right?” This conjecture led us to question why so many pet owners feel awkward when they meet someone with the same name as their pet. Why do we think that? Is it because we think of pets as an inferior species?
This conversation quickly turned into a philosophical one and led us to question the meaning of superiority, intelligence, and consciousness.
So, what makes humans “superior” species?
Many point to human intelligence as a sign of superiority. We have evolved to have larger brains, with more surface area, and brain regions like the prefrontal cortex that process higher-order thinking like abstract thoughts and emotions. Under this lens, species with less developed brains would be considered cognitively inferior.
Do higher levels of intelligence translate to higher levels of consciousness? What is consciousness? And how do we measure it?
Consider a dog owner that mistreats their dog. They may have a larger, more developed prefrontal cortex, but I'd argue their cruelty makes him/her inferior. That is, to be able to think and feel and still be cruel is worse than purely acting on instinct.
It's unclear if dogs and other species can be cruel. Some of their actions may seem cruel to us, but they are likely acting based on primitive instincts. However, we know humans can be conscious of their actions, how they align with their morals and make others feel. We claim to be more evolved species, but at times act in immoral and unjust ways. Most of the time, we have a sense of the morality of our actions and how they affect others. I believe this level of awareness is unique to humans and a condition for higher levels of consciousness.
Therefore, it seems that emotions and awareness are at the core of consciousness. Behaving based on emotion implies an understanding of morality, and we derive a sense of morality based on the collective knowledge of what is right and wrong. It turns out that building an AI machine that can process emotions is much harder than telling it what to do based on binary logic.
Thinking vs. Doing
It's unclear if dogs think it, but they most certainly feel it. As any dog owner can attest, dogs seem to develop a memory of how certain things and people made them feel, and adapt their behavior over time. In this regard, they are not too dissimilar from humans in their capacity to register and process some level of baseline emotions. The sophistication of their memory, emotional, or cognitive systems is irrelevant in this context. Doesn't everything distill to a fight or flight response, anyway?
As Ben Horowitz so well describes in his latest book, it's not what we think, but what we do that defines who we are. And so far, humans aren't scoring too high on that report card. Dogs, dolphins, elephants, and other species may be less developed cognitively (as a measure of brain size and surface area, which correlates to intelligence) but are much less destructive species. Humans may think in more sophisticated ways, but our actions tell a different story. On this measure, we may be an inferior species since, in spite of having higher levels of intelligence and the capacity to understand how our behavior affects others, we often act in primitive and destructive ways.
It's Subjective
Above all, the notion of inferiority is very subjective. Perhaps our pets may be thinking and/or feeling the same about us. “Look at humans, so destructive and complicated species.”
In some respects, humans, like other species, compete for resources and status - to be the alpha in the group. But deeming ourselves as superior is an illusion and different than biological hierarchy. Cats hunt mice to survive. Order and balance exist in the animal kingdom, but that's not to say cats are superior to mice. Without mice, cats would drive themselves to extinction. It's this symbiosis that keeps order and balance in nature.
Because we can, doesn't mean that we should. This reasoning has led humans to justify terrible acts that contradict the most fundamental of rules - one that hangs in schools across the world in large, bright golden letters: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
No matter if we believe we are superior or inferior, a male or a female, Black, White, Latino, or Asian, human or non-human, everyone should be treated equally and with respect. No degree of superiority (or perceived thereof) justifies the contrary.
What if we just removed inferior/superior from our vocabulary?
The terms were first used in human anatomy to describe the relative position of body parts. Superior is Latin for above, while inferior is Latin for below. The most superior part of the body is the head, and the most inferior is the feet.
As we’ve discussed above, the concept of superiority is often misused and exploited. Perhaps more precise (and less emotionally charged) qualifiers could be used to describe differences we observe and the relative positions of things.
My friend and I parted ways with many questions left unanswered. After giving it more thought, I feel good about naming a dog with my name. After all, dogs give so much love. They ask for so little of us and give us so much. I can only aspire to reach the same level of altruism in my life.
More on dogs: the hypersociality of dogs is what makes them special rather than particular cognitive abilities. “It’s hard to demonstrate any cognitive task that dogs are superior in,” he said. But he pointed out that “ultimately the difficulty is in saying what is a cognitive function and an emotional function.”
From: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/science/dogs-love-evolution.html?te=1&nl=science-times&emc=edit_sc_20191126
Here's an interesting discussion re: the science of conciousness: http://theconversation.com/science-as-we-know-it-cant-explain-consciousness-but-a-revolution-is-coming-126143