• Question: Do you think it is possible that before humanity dies out another species will acheive sentinence?

    Asked by joepennycook to Darren, Deuan, Duncan, Lori-An, Michelle on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Darren Nesbeth

      Darren Nesbeth answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Yes. It’s never happened before to have two sentient, unrelated species on Earth (counting Neanderthals as relatives) so it would be an interesting development.

      My bet would be dogs and cats to be front runners.

    • Photo: Michelle Hudson-Shore

      Michelle Hudson-Shore answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Well this depends on your definition of sentience. For me there are degrees of sentience and these are related to how capable an animal is of feeling pain, how it experiences that pain, if it can understand what is happening to it, if it can anticipate if something is going to happen to it and if it can understand what another animal might be thinking. Many of these things have been shown in primates and to lesser extents in other species. So I would argue that many species especially the primates (which also includes humans) have achieved sentience.
      Is this what you meant or have I misunderstood?

    • Photo: Lori-An Etherington

      Lori-An Etherington answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Many people would argue that other animals (apart from humans) are sentient and this forms the basis of animal rights acts. It is a very hard concept to prove

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