The statement was qualified, if you have objective evidence for species propagating long term complex meaning that we have observed as the written word or other externalized means please demonstrate. I do not understand why a person would say that demonstratably dolphins have done more meaning generation than people?
The universe is full of possibilities, I'm trying to establish an empirical/observable floor not the ceiling.
Other species are also intelligent and create meaning, but I don't know of any proposed metric where their impact is remotely close to ours, though it's not 0 and beyond that they are part of our causal chain as well.
I personally wouldn't mind if we kept giving dogs and dolphins and other animals tools for long term complex communication but some people think we shouldn't interfere in that kind of way in the development of other species. I'd be interested in hearing if you hold an intentional development/don't interfere position.
It's ok and true to say people are empirically special and unique in actual observed reality. If there is a dolphin universe where they are the dominant species and have libraries and journals and satellites than that's fine, but we haven't observed that to be the case.
Again, there is a world of possibilities and everyone should explore that, but I am talking about the one universe we have observed and our empirical observations within it. I like to delineate between extrapolative and speculative ceilings and empirical floors.
For those who are interested in the above comments, I find that David Brin's Uplift series does a great job exploring these themes, for e.g., what can happen when dolphins or monkeys are given sentence and full use of advanced technology.
The universe is full of possibilities, I'm trying to establish an empirical/observable floor not the ceiling.
Other species are also intelligent and create meaning, but I don't know of any proposed metric where their impact is remotely close to ours, though it's not 0 and beyond that they are part of our causal chain as well.
I personally wouldn't mind if we kept giving dogs and dolphins and other animals tools for long term complex communication but some people think we shouldn't interfere in that kind of way in the development of other species. I'd be interested in hearing if you hold an intentional development/don't interfere position.
It's ok and true to say people are empirically special and unique in actual observed reality. If there is a dolphin universe where they are the dominant species and have libraries and journals and satellites than that's fine, but we haven't observed that to be the case.
Again, there is a world of possibilities and everyone should explore that, but I am talking about the one universe we have observed and our empirical observations within it. I like to delineate between extrapolative and speculative ceilings and empirical floors.