[quote=“Bluefoot”]
Mega - I’m going to leave the whole concept of a soul to the side, as I’ve never seen or heard of any evidence for or against the existence of such a thing.[/quote]
Near-death experiences, astral projection, the 23 grams experiment…[/quote]
Near-death expriences could easily be hallucination. The fact that you’re close to death probably causes all sorts of crazy short circuits in the brain. I’ve never heard of the other two things you mentioned, care to elaborate?
I don’t know about astral projection but the 23 grams is the difference between one’s body weight before and after dying.The myth says that’s the weight for your soul.
did anyone ever read stranger in a strange land by heinlein? in it there were these martians that lead very simple lives of meditation, philosophy, and with no hint of technology. as it turned out, they had once been a very technologically advanced race that had travelled all across the stars but eventually they gave it all up and came home.
it always made me wonder if maybe this ‘technological sophistication’ that we boast about was actually something primitive in comparison the simple relaxed life of a cat or sloth.
i do not subscribe to your religion but i know that it is not as cut and dry as that. try asking your pastor about the citizenship interpretation and the stewardship interpretation (right now you are preaching the despotic interpretation).
A human/animal hybrid? How interesting.
Think what you will, humans are animals too. Composed of organs, brains, skin, we feed on flora and fuana that other animals also feed on. So it will fit into animal/animal hybrids as well such as the jaglion, Wolphin, Zonkeys.
Humans have always been messing with the genes of animals, thats we have different variations of koi, Dogs, cats, birds, etc… The beef you eat is part of this as well. greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/crossesa.htm
The only difference is that there are human genes in this now. Which will most probably cause Moral outrage.
It is just amazing how people can seperate animals and humans into two catergories. Humans can speak, well so can other animals, some can be taught like crows and parrots, some can understand like dolphins, an example being of a dolphin being able to tell the difference of bringing a ball to a ring, or bring the ring to the ball. Primative, but they can understand.
Who is to say that animals have souls or not? Dogs have been known to stay at the side of their owners graves until they die themselves, Dolphins kill for pleasure, usually the smaller poposises are victim to this, Orcas will play catch with baby seals. There has been a report once of a Human dressed in a surfer suit with flukes (In the water he would look like a seall) swim into a Orca hunting zone, he ended being caught by a Orca and only to be brought back to the beach and the Orca returned to hunting.
As for my reaction to this? I am not all that surprised… I just know that there will be many angry people…
Atolm, I found that post very interesting and agree with a lot of what you said - thanks for that.
I share your belief that intelligence and consciousness are relative - I think that other animals will have these, but in varying proportions depending on their intelligence. After all, humans have probably the most developed brains, so it stands to reason that we would have the best grasp of these qualities.
lets think more creatively- what kind of cool monsters could you make with this tech? if someone opened a distorted zoo that only featured these creatures, would you visit?
I wouldn’t view anything created by human genetic interference as ‘cool’.
No - I’d be saddened and angry that it would be opened in the first place!
Sorry to sound so negative in reply to your post; I just find the very prospect of hybrid creation to be dangerous and wrong and can’t think of anything positive which could happen as a result.
[quote=“Bluefoot”]
Near-death expriences could easily be hallucination. The fact that you’re close to death probably causes all sorts of crazy short circuits in the brain. I’ve never heard of the other two things you mentioned, care to elaborate?[/quote]
Astral Projection: similar to a near-death experience, but it is willed by the person rather than being a circumstance. In theory (I haven’t managed it yet, although I can do it whilst sleeping, involuntarily (BELIEVE IT OR DON’T :P)), a person can will a portion of their spirit to leave their body and explore this plane, or the other higher (and also, lower) planes. The vessel isn’t like a real body: you can’t read anything, for example, or move anything (that’s telekinesis, which is different) but you can meet other people doing the projecting.
28 grams: Some scientific experiments have shown that, the exact second someone dies, their overall body weight reduces by 28 grams (0.028kg). The theory behind this is the soul weighs 28g, and when this leaves the body weight is reduced accordingly. A Hollywood movie was based on the experiments.
if they started selling dragons at your local pet store i wonder if you’d play a different tune…
we can say this whole thing is ethically wrong but i think that’s because we are just envisioning the island of dr. moreau. but at it’s most fantastic level, you could theoretically create quite amazing and useful things. theoretically we could create creatures to replace cars. create something with no brain and then perhaps add in a piece of technology to interface with the spine and control the body. this would completely eliminate vehicular pollution, is there really harm in that?
it’s not like it’s actually going to happen so can we not just entertain the thought? and i just want to make sure you all understand that i never said i supported this, since i am so frequently misunderstood.
i’ve come across a lot of information regarding astral projection in my research of lucid dreaming. i see no actual evidence that they are separate things aside from how people interpret them. astral projection seems to me to be creating a religion out of lucid dreaming.
the original claim was that people could leave their bodies and that their astral body was much stronger than their real world body (i believe there was an x-files episode that dealt with an astral pojector that would use their astral form to kill others).
a study was done to see if an astral projector could move items placed around in the room. he failed. the definition then retracted to only being able to use your astral form to interact with the astral forms of other things. so the guy claimed that he still moved the apple’s astral form around. or maybe he was just dreaming like the rest of us.
then there was the claim that projectors could meet and communicate on the astral plane.
another study was done where one astral projector was shown a simple message by the testers and was then supposed to transmit it to the projector in an adjacent room. they failed.
i think most people that believe in astral projection are people that have a lucid dream (they are quite amazing) and don’t know what a lucid dream is. it’s easy to jump tp superstition because a lucid dream is so surreal and unlike anything you encounter in your waking life.
but who knows, maybe you are going to beat the crap out of me when you go to sleep tonight
The sad part is that the majority of the people are eager to even view human freaks.
Animal ones more so. The famed unicorn-goat is one example of the past, it is a simple operation that makes a goat grow a “Unicorn” Horn.
People flock to see the Lion/tiger hybrid “Ligers” and the Whale/dolphin hybrid “Wolphin.” and these animal hybrids will never occur in the wild.
It is simply human curiosity that makes people want to see them.
Although I do admit, I would be very curious if a Dragon could be made, if you consider actual animal antaomy, creatures like Dragons, pegasus, and Griffens are not really possible, but a unicorn is.
If they can, then I will be surprised. But that is way too soon to say anything.
I agree with you on this completely. I think that there are certain levels of intelligence that exists. Even some that we humans do not have ourselves.
Example being of knowing or rather sensing when natural disasters occur. I get Earthquakes here and it is amazing how the animals freak out many minutes before the quake even occurs. Although it is very questionable…
that’s like saying the cars we have now are slaves. these things wouldn’t have brains to wonder about what life would be like if they weren’t a vehicle, wouldn’t have nerves to feel pain if they crashed. it would be an organic car.
How can you compare chimeras to dragons? What kind of cross would have have to be done to accomplish this? I’m not all that sure that it would be possible. Anyway, just because I’m a fan of Panzer Dragoon doesn’t mean that I would want dragons to actually be around.
Well, it would be kind of strange. Organic machines? I don’t know. I don’t think I could support it, because it’s just another interference which doesn’t need to happen. Also, it’s a questionable idea anyway - where do ethics end when it come to genetic modification? Or do animals not deserve our consideration in situations like this?
A more sensible solution would be to develop clean sources of energy for cars rather than using fossil fuels and slowly killing us all… but anyway, I’m digressing. :anjou_embarassed:
Yeah… well, there’s no accounting for taste.
Thanks!
I quite often feel that our intelligence is something of a double-edged sword.
I’ve often wondered about that myself. I think that animals are so much more in tune with their surroundings and nature itself - something which we have lost in the transition to high technology and convenient lifestyles.
the tech would have to advance a ways further and our understanding of genes would also have to increase. but i theorize it could begin with a reptilian base (perhaps a serpent), add wings from the creature of your choosing (i expect birds would be easier than bats), increase size and decorate it with horns, feathers, or scales of your choosing… voila.
here’s my stance on the matter: humans have never approached a technological precipice and turned back. curiosity, the availability of information, and the desire to be famous will drive someone to pursue any scientific frontier. the atom bomb is evidence of this. i don’t doubt that this trait will ultimately lead to our end but it is also this trait that may preserve life a little while longer.
for all the other things that we have set in motion becoming a chimera may be the only way a person can survive in the future. i’m sure many people (especially religious people) would decide that that would be the end times and would not undergo whatever process there was. i personally probably would (depending on the consequences/side effects).
we unanimously agree that this is not a good development, but no one is going to stop this from happening. if we don’t think about potential ‘good’ uses, we’re just being pejorative.
[quote=“Atolm”]People flock to see the Lion/tiger hybrid “Ligers” and the Whale/dolphin hybrid “Wolphin.” and these animal hybrids will never occur in the wild.
It is simply human curiosity that makes people want to see them.[/quote]
Actually those hybrid animals could occur in the wild, it’s just that they’re extremely rare and the few that are created die off quickly (since they’re rarely accepted by animals from either side, and are unable to reproduce usually). It’s really quite comparable to breeding a horse with a donkey to produce a mule.
But yes, people will be facinated by these things, simply because they want to experience something that they haven’t seen before or defy what their idea of “normal” is. Same reason people are so interested in the concept of cloning dinosaurs really: to take an animal that’s been extinct for so many years and be able to see it once again. But really, would creating hybrid animals be any worse than cloning dinosaurs? Both use science to produce something that shouldn’t be possible, both create creatures that don’t belong on this Earth (anymore), the only difference is that one modifies the animal’s DNA code while the other doesn’t (unless they take the Jurassic Park approach to cloning dinosaurs and slip in a few genes from other animals to fill the gaps).
As far as the whole “soul” thing goes, I’m not sure what basis there is for it really. Nothing really proves the existance of it, and I’m unsure of how the previously mentioned experiments really would relate to it. Has the “28 gram test” been observed in animals? There are several possibilities for why it occurs, but I’m not sure why it would be linked to a “soul”. Also, I’m actually SURPRISED that people were unable to contact eachother when they believe their on the “astral” plane, because there HAVE been experiments that show many animals (including humans) are able to have a sort of “bond” with eachother. For example, taking a mother cat’s kittens away from her and killing them later on at a random time in a totally different place (even many miles away) will cause her to react quite violently as they’re killed. Also, pets also seem to form a type of “bond” with their masters: one test simply had a dog owner go out of the house to do whatever she felt like while a camera viewed both the dog and the person, and the very moment that the owner said that she decided to go home, the dog’s ears perked up and he walked over to the door. Most likely a sort of telepathy, although not as extravagant as hollywood movies would have you believe. Probably the same way animals are able to sense earthquakes and other natural disasters before they happen. The point is, there are many occurances that we simply can’t explain with our knowledge of the subject, and much of the time that lack of knowledge makes us create convenient fantasies to support our views.
the tech would have to advance a ways further and our understanding of genes would also have to increase. but i theorize it could begin with a reptilian base (perhaps a serpent), add wings from the creature of your choosing (i expect birds would be easier than bats), increase size and decorate it with horns, feathers, or scales of your choosing… voila.[/quote]
Oh well, that’s interesting. Sounds like quite a task though!
Humans’ advancement worries me more than many other things - as do the people in power and their suitability for their roles.
I just hope the world never comes to that. Way to make me scared about the future, Mega!
I see your point now - thank you for elaborating. I’ll just hope that this doesn’t get too out of control in the wrong hands.
I do believe that animals have things which we don’t - bonds, environmental awareness; and I think it’s possible that they have things such as consciousness, reason and the like that we do. But to what extent, I obviously can’t say.
I see your point… often, people get scared of something they don’t understand and lash out. However, I understand this fine - it’s dangerous and I won’t be supporting it.
