Discussion on animal intelligence and moral implications

With each other. You know, we now know that counting isn't just a human thing. Crows count too, and they can do it out loud. Scientists researching African elephants have revealed that they appear to have names for each other. Researchers say they communicate using unique calls, low rumbles that can be heard across great distances. And so animals we might have written off as simple as mechanistic are in fact incredibly complex, seemingly sensitive, seemingly intelligent. And I think that that has allowed people to have a little bit more empathy for some of these animals than they otherwise might. You know, we hear that pigs are intelligent or that octopuses could solve puzzles, and we think, oh, wow, we should be treating these creatures better. Octopus, I wonder, is there a problem with that argument though? Because what happens to the animals that just never impress us, that don't do those things? Yeah, I think that learning more about animal intelligence and challenging our preconceived notions about animals is good. But I think it would be a mistake to treat a certain level of intelligence, and especially a certain level of human like intelligence as a necessary condition for moral consideration. Because then that might lead us to, yes, extend respect and kindness to elephants and chimpanzees and other relatively human like animals, while neglecting the other animals who are conscious and sentient, capable of feelings and emotions, and they have forms of agency and decision making. Even if it might not look like ours. I think that bar should be lower and should at the very least include consciousness and sentience, these basic feelings and emotions. This is so interesting because it makes me think of a couple things. I personally don't think of plants as sentient, but I'm, I'm a big house plant, girly. I love my plants. And one of the things I love about my monstera is whenever it's moved around in my apartment, it turns itself towards the sun like it's, it's doing something. Does it make sense to call them intelligent when they do things like that? At least in a certain broad sense? I think that it does. Plants are remarkably sophisticated. Many plants have capacities.