posted
Hah! It's their subject tiitle, not mine - but I'm never averse to stealing ideas for the purposes of discussion...
Can an animal be a superhero?
There was some comment a while back, by a certain feathered friend in our midst, that animals could not be superheros because they did not decide to do good, that they did not have sentience. (Excuse me Grey, I'm being sloppy here by not looking up the actual post.)
I took some exception to that, not just as a goofy animal lover, but because I believe that animals are sentient. Do they decide to do good? Well, "good" is a moral question - I do believe they decide to obey or not obey, break the rules that have been established by humans or other animals. They learn, as well; it's not all instincit that's pushing them - and learn through their own trial and error, not just our training them. That's why I would class them as conscious, sentient beings.
You have to wonder if humans themselves are fully sentient: there's our long history of illogical, self-defeating and generally stupid behavior, and it seems we are becoming more brainwashed and zombified as the years go by. So I question to what extent we are even truly conscious a lot of the time - but this depends on definitions of sentience/consciousness, which are, by all accounts, elusive.
From an article in New Scientist by Igor Aleksander, some genius who studies neural systems, is a list of "five axioms of consciousness" which he is using to develop consciousness in computers:
1. A sense of place 2. Imagination 3. Directed attention/ability to focus 4. Planning 5. Decision/emotion
He claims to have the first four down and working on #5 for machines. Computo the First?
By these standards, I might kick my dear little doggy out of the consciousness pool; while she clearly has a sense of place, ability to focus and displays emotions, she may not have imagination or the ability to plan. I don't know. Does that disqualify her as a potential superhero? When animals rescue people from fires or other disasters, they are praised as "heroes". Are they truly brave? Are they just responding to some programmed "protect Master" command?
Should we abandon all hope to see a revived Legion of Super Pets?
Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
This is very interesting thread. The "what is consciousness?" question is one of the hardest that can be asked. Some have suggested that human beings are simply cognitively incapable of answering it.
I suppose the "what is a hero?" question might be a bit easier to tackle.
Remind me to respond to this when I'm in the mood for serious thought.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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I guess I agree in theory that until we can define what consciousness means for human beings, it's impossible to describe it in other living things.
But does it really matter? The LSP were fantasy, and fantasy doesn't have to conform to theories of how the world works. People are more sophisticated now, of course, then they were when the LSP first reared it's head (and hoof). Perhaps people are too sophisticated if they can't appreciate a story about a dog with a cape that loves and helps its master. Isn't that what all dogs are supposed to do, whether they wear a cape or not?
I personally don't care to see the LSP return, except maybe in an Elseworlds-type story (should DC ever do another E-type story). But perhaps something fanciful like that is just what the Legion needs to kick some life back into it.
On the other hand, that may be asking too much. People generally were not fond of one of the previous attempts at humor in the title -- the Brin and Cub adventure -- so it's doubtful that a new LSP would be well received, either.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
My distinction as to "heroes," actually, involved volition, not sentience. Many animals are clearly sentient, in the sense of responding to what they perceive beyond a mere automatic stimulus and response.
To have any kind of virtue, heroic or otherwise, calls for a consciousness that can apply its focus and choose to make and use distinctions in what it perceives. "Virtue" makes little sense when a response is, so to speak, hard-wired.
Is a dog that rescues trapped humans a "hero"? He's worthy of praise, and of receiving the positive emotions from us humans that he undoubtedly can perceive and distinguish. Yet he doesn't know that what he is doing is "good," apart from those emotional reactions.
The dog doesn't have the conceptual consciousness to step back, appraise the situation, and decide -- however quickly -- that going into harm's way is an ethically good action, in that (as an example of a potent reason) it will help preserve life. He's learned that he will be rewarded in tangible and intangible ways for doing so, but he hasn't decided that this is "good," because from all indications, he cannot form the concept.
Any ability the dog has, whether normal or exaggerated for his species, isn't put into the service of a conscious and decided purpose, beyond the minimal cycle of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. (This cycle can be deepened, certainly, in a lifetime with a loving owner or handler, someone who treats his behavior consistently. Such familiarity and pattern-matching is part of sentients' memory.)
Without that purpose, some steps removed in its creation from immediate experience, moral praise or blame makes no real sense. That includes the tags of "hero" or "villain."
We seem to see this better, ironically, in the latter case. Is a snarling cur of a dog "vicious" or "malicious"? Outside of Stephen King's Cujo, not really. It's reacting beyond proper proportion to what's set before it. Malice or viciousness involves a standard and an assessment of whom one confronts. A dog may have many cues of how prey reacts, from fearful voices to pheromones, but he can't step back and imagine an "enemy." That requires a conceptual consciousness.
{[...] You have to wonder if humans themselves are fully sentient: there's our long history of illogical, self-defeating and generally stupid behavior, and it seems we are becoming more brainwashed and zombified as the years go by. }
Well, the evidence of lapses in doing the work of being fully conscious, of being inattentive to facts and inconsistent in reasoning, surrounds us every day. Yet that's not evidence of humans losing such faculties, or of a general moral incapacity. If anything, it's an indicator of our not being trained to think clearly, to see through fallacies, to look carefully for evidence. That clearly has grown over the years.
Abilities are going unused or untrained, either from being lazy or from our not having the desire to do so. That last has a, er ... legion of reasons. Not being able to keep and build upon the results of one's reasoning, in an economic or a personal sense, is one of the more prominent among them. When others seize what you achieve, through "legal" force or not, why would many of us want to continue the effort of mental focus, beyond the minimum needed to survive?
As for the "five factors," I'd have to see his argument before I could mull over whether it made sense. I do admit to being dubious in any case, though, about re-creating "imagination." Pulling a scenario from a computer, or even a higher non-human mammal, that involves what is not immediately evident?
That's a jump of abstraction that I haven't seen any signs of any non-humans able to make. Some well-informed primates may be capable of it, with enough intense focus and training from those around them. (Koko comes to mind, the real, not fictional gorilla.) I can't see a computer doing this beyond tossing random numbers around, indexing alternatives provided to it by imaginative humans.
{[...] Should we abandon all hope to see a revived Legion of Super Pets? }
Not with the possibility of a Proty III coming around to do a little, er, consciousness-raising. "Non-humans, use your right to choose!" Would make a heckuva story, wouldn't it?
From: Starhaven Consulate, City of Angels | Registered: Jul 2003
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