Do Animals Have Free Will?

What separates us from them?

Shallow topic. Humans are self conscious, animals aren't. It isn't possible to have free will, in any useful sense of the term, without even the ability to recognize you are making a decision. Dolt

Haven't we established that there is no such thing as free will?

What are they then? What separates animals from biological machines?

Yes, I forgot where I was. What's the consensus here on "souls"?

soul

No, because we're not delusional.

What if consciousness is a delusion

Irrelevant. Meat tastes good and without agriculture most livestock would have to be put down anyways.

Then there's nothing but delusion; this doesn't accord with the definition of delusion.

It's as irrelevant as slavery, sex work, murder, and torture are irrelevant. Stop letting your upbringing obscure your logic.

>It's as irrelevant as slavery, sex work and torture are irrelevant
I mean it's irrelevant, because either animals are brought up to be eaten or they are put down and their species is pushed to the brink of extinction.

...

>Irrelevant.

If animal suffering were irrelevant, how would you explain an indication of psychopathy (the inability to emphathize with others) being cruelty to animals?
We are inconsistent with our treatment of animals; I'm just trying to get a better grasp on what separates, for example, cats from cows. Perceived "cuteness"? Or just the fact that we're brought up to eat one and not the other?

>what seperates cats and cows
Genetics, mostly. The modern housecat exists to provide companionship and as a secondary function to keep the house clean of rodents. It's form and behavior reflects this. The cow exists to provide us with milk and meat, and only for that purpose. Their behavior reflects this as well. Basically, the difference between cat and cow is tens of thousands of years of selective breeding.

What if it isn’t

yeah but like
what if it *is*

So apply this rationale to us: What do we exist for?

I wouldn't know, considering that, unlike all domesticated animals, we weren't selectively bred for a singular purpose (assuming that intelligent design is a meme).

Golly gee, I never thought about it like that before.
I better go lay down, this is getting pretty heavy.

Yes we are, we are selectively bred to be sexually successful in civilized human society.

Laying down is a delusion

>we are selectively bred to be sexually successful in a civilized human society
natural selection and actual breeding are pretty different from each other, user

down is a social construct

So only selectively bred life is bred for a purpose, but if it's bred by "lolrandom" genes, then its purpose, ergo, is "lolrandom"

That's a fair point, user.

Pretty much, yeah. You can say that we're bred for optimal fucking potential, but that applies to everything else so its not really a useful distinction.

>You can say that we're bred for optimal fucking potential, but....

We could breed to eliminate genetic disease (like MS) or to favor factors like intelligence, kindness, or likelihood towards cooperation, but we don't. In what way are we optimal? Just "Those that could fuck did lol"?

We exist to create meaningful existences for ourselves and other humans. There is no grand scheme of things other than to reproduce, explore, spread, dominate other humans and lifeforms and be dominated by humans.

If you're asking in an existential sense, then our purpose is to be and whatever we desire that sometimes cannot be satiated by material. Our lives are comfortable enough for us to ponder such things, rather than think about how to survive. Existentialism has brought about concepts like bureaucracy and religion.

As for animals... The smartest ones don't comprehend what it is to be, or how to relate, so they are not sentient.

tl;dr you think, therefore you are
This turned out long

>but we don't
Unlike most animals, humans don't just fuck anything in front of them, and they also don't go through mating cycles, so forced breeding is too hard to be practical. Plus, then you factor in the fact that it takes like 15-ish years before your offspring will even be ready to mate again. Breeding to eliminate genetic disease isn't really that necessary considering we're on the cusp of CRISPR technology anyways.

Functionally they have the same results though.

Not at all. Selective breeding doesn't necessarily increase fitness, whereas successful evolution does by definition.

>As for animals... The smartest ones don't comprehend what it is to be, or how to relate

How do you know? Domestic animals (ones that do not have to worry about purely survival) display increased vocalization and altered social interaction, compared to their "wild" counterparts.

Unlike most animals, humans don't just fuck anything in front of them.

We must be meeting different humans.

>we must be meeting different humans
let me rephrase that: in the absence of large quantities of alchohol, humans do not fuck anything that moves.

Fitness is relative.
Selective breeding increases fitness in the limited human created environment they reside in.

So what do we breed according to? Physical attractiveness? Economic viability? Love?

As long as we understand the confines of the reproductive environment is now human created, rather than "natural" (ie other-that-human), we're on the same page.

>Do Animals Have Free Will?

YES.

>What separates us [HUMANS] from them [ANIMALS]?

MANY THINGS —AS MANY AS THOSE WHICH UNITES US.