Hello AF: No, I do not disagree with the basic premise of the CD. What I object to is a declaration that has nothing new to tell us. Talk is very cheap, and even cheaper, grandstanding about self-awareness based on data that are not evidence of it. As for dolphins in captivity, dolphins are also often over-rated because they have big brains, without people bothering to think about what exactly that means (big animals have big brains - so what?). What we know is that the dolphin brain is not like a primate brain, having evolved to become large independently of the primate line. New research also suggests it does not have as many nerve cells as the equivalent primate brain, and is, perhaps not surprisingly, also organised differently in its cortex (as is the elephant brain). That does not mean that it is not remarkable, but to me, no more remarkable, and possibly less so, than the brains of the smallest mammals that weigh very little indeed and belong to the bumblebee bat (the whole animal only weighs a few grams - yet if flies - and navigates not unlike a dolphin) and the Etruscan shrew - a carnivore and thus, a hunter of food. Sure, dolphins can learn clever tricks, but again, so can animals with much smaller brains, animals that also respond equally or better to human-given cues - dogs. To consider dolphin awareness or self-awareness, we must try to come up with questions to ask of a brain that lives in the waters and in groups. Why should dolphins have self-awareness of the advanced kind (theory of mind) that humans who live in larger and more complex groups do? Why should chimpanzees. or elephants? Can we ask questions that will show whether these species do possess advanced self-awareness, or not? Much has been done in chimpanzees but without much evidence emerging.... so far.
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