[sexy zara]

But instincts would still overcome the wolves. It's like telling a fat man not to eat your cake. Even if he is sentient and is aware of the consequences, he may do it anyways, because his instinct overcame his will. Is this the lack of a soul, or merely the lack of intuition and foresight? I would say the latter.

what I already said in post #22. humans are no less controlled by their instincts than wolves. and vice versa, wolves would still have this issue even if they were just as intellegent. we know this because the human race for all its overated intellegence is faced with the exact same fate but continues down a path of self destruction motivated by a drive to propagate its species.

don't understand why you bring up the last part, thats outside the bounds of the preagreed assumption. but by definition sentience has nothing to do with soul. but I would say the fat man is not sentient because he clearly does not understand that his instintual drive is counter productivly killing him. like I said intellegence is irrelevent. the fat man knows that his eating is killing him, yet his instinctual hunger causes him to not care.

[jessica Villacis]

what I already said in post #22. humans are no less controlled by their instincts than wolves. and vice versa, wolves would still have this issue even if they were just as intellegent. we know this because the human race for all its overated intellegence is faced with the exact same fate but continues down a path of self destruction motivated by a drive to propagate its species.

Animals overcome instinct when they no longer need it to survive, take a look at which countries have the highest birth rates. They are in general third world countries.
First world countries where survival is easy, birth rates are dropping and people are reproducing at an older age. Take a look at pets as well, a pet dog will excercise learned behaviours such as tricks and not killing anything that moves as opposed to a wolf that needs to survive.

[Rach B]

Meh. Go determine it yourself.

[Danielle Brown]

Animals overcome instinct when they no longer need it to survive, take a look at which countries have the highest birth rates. They are in general third world countries.
First world countries where survival is easy, birth rates are dropping and people are reproducing at an older age. Take a look at pets as well, a pet dog will excercise learned behaviours such as tricks and not killing anything that moves as opposed to a wolf that needs to survive.

the notion that birth rates are dropping is based the misunderstanding of exponential expansion. when you drop a tablet of alcoseltzer into water it fizzes and produces # amount of gas, adding a second tablet does causes 2 times # amount of gas but a third tablet does not cause 3 times but #x#x# gas production.

people treat the average rate of birth in #+# or rather: [a couple has two children who replace the original couple so the population has been burdened with the value of zero. wrong, the couple are not insects they don't drop dead the instant their children are born, they live long enough to see their children have children in the average case] so when a couple has children they are not merely replacing themselves, they double the population of their household. it matters not if the birthrate is going down (which it is certainly not), people are living longer, so the population still expands exponentially.

concerning animals overcoming instinct, please give an example please, as that does not apply in the case of the wolves and the hares.

[Daramis McGee]

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g110/Xycolian/freewill.jpg

[josh evans]

Assume that the universe is deterministic, meaning that there is no free will and that humans are simply biological computers that make pre-determined, or at least probabilistic decisions. This thread is not a place to debate about whether or not the universe is deterministic, so please put your philosophical position on this issue aside.

Within these conditions, what is the purpose of consciousness? Please avoid religious discussions and other rule-breaking discussions, as it's easy to slip when talking about these kinds of things.

If we are indeed nothing more than biodetermined finite state automata, then the purpose of consciousness - and by that I mean being self-aware - is an illusion: it seems like we make our own decisions, but really these are justifications after the fact. Like commuters noticing the stops as they pass by, with no power to stop or start the train they are on, but still aware of the existence of these stations.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g110/Xycolian/freewill.jpg

:lmao:

[Philip Lyon]

In short Hank, if we just judge humans by their actions we look like a bunch of nihilists. But we aren't nihilists, because we all feel called to make the world better. To understand and observe the universe. To make art, to bring beautiful things into life. To contribute in some way to the human experiment.
- John Green

[SiLa]

All your bases are belong to us!!

Somebody set up us the bomb!!