
Do Elephants Have Souls? (2013) - seinundzeit
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/do-elephants-have-souls
======
_ph_
Elephants are faszinating creatures with a complex social behavior. My
connection with elephants comes from the Zoo of Cologne, which opened a new
facility for elephants in 2005. Built from scratch to allow keeping up to 20
elephants in a herd, giving them as much freedom as possible. So it is quite
large and set up to keep the elephants with minimal interaction with the
keepers (protected contact). Starting with 5 elephants, the herd has grown to
14 today, to a large part by births. Whoever visits Cologne and is interested
in elphants, shouldn't miss to visit them.

The elephant facility is equipped with a wide range of cameras, there is a
"control room" for running the camp. In the first years, there was a web
stream (anyone remembers real player?) running 24/7 allowing everyone to watch
the elephants close up. Especially after in the hours after the zoo is closed
for the public, a lot of highly interesting behavior could be observed. The
stream for example settled the question: do elephants lie down to sleep? Yes,
at about 1am in the morning the would lay down for a few hours, often in a
larger group together.

The observations via the web cams gave me a deep impression of the social
interaction of elphants. They have a lot of individual personality and the
groups have a tight social structure and interaction.

~~~
r00fus
Man, I miss Köln. It was a very interesting winter in 2002, where
archaeologists were unearthing an entire underground city (you could see it
through a pyramid-like window).

If you ever visit, down some of their Kölsch and get a Kölsch key (their beer-
rival is the nearby region of Alt - at the company I was consulting for, many
of the folks had replaced their Alt keys with Kölsch ones)

------
sovande
"Descartes reasoned that since animals are not rational, they are not
conscious, and since they are not conscious, they cannot even be aware of
pain; their piteous howls during the horrible experiments he conducted on them
were to him mere reflex, the unfelt expression of material reactions akin to
the shrieking of a teakettle."

The Cartesian world view on biology has been catastrophic to our fellow
mammals and even today aspects of this perspective survives. Physiologically,
humans are not very different from other mammals, even if we want to be. We
all have a limbic system and that means we all have the same emotions. Animals
have feelings and emotions. When things happen to them, they react with
emotions be it sorrow, anger, happiness, fear.

~~~
wazoox
The cartesian view on biology was a necessity to avoid public burning, and
essential to make positive science possible.

Before Descartes, it wasn't at all clear and obvious that mere _things_ had no
intention, no wants, no "soul". In fact, Aristotelian physics considered that
a stone drops because of its "grave" nature, that it somehow wishes to go down
(The last gasp of this magical thinking lasted well into the 19th century,
until Pasteur finally demonstrated that there is no spontaneous generation).

By excluding everything non-human from any "soul", Descartes made science as
we know it _possible_. It was a paradigm shift of immense conceptual
importance.

------
dang
All: This article is not about souls. It's about elephants, humans, how we
relate to elephants, how they relate to us, how humans relate to non-humans.
It is erudite and beautiful. It uses the astonishing literature about
elephants to ask about ourselves, them, and the world. "Soul" here is a trope
for aspects of humanness that we may or may not have in common.

Usually we just edit titles that are triggering people. If I were to do that
here, I might rename it "Elephants and Anthropomorphism". But when an article
is this rich, moving, even profound, taking away its title would maim it. It
bears a much better discussion than the thread has given it so far, so please
let's talk about what's interesting.

~~~
solipsism
_please let 's talk about what's interesting and stay off the metaphysics._

Most would agree there's a point at which moderation goes too far. I can't
tell if you're making an appeal as a person, or making a decree as a
moderator.

I read the article, and it's absolutely full of metaphysics. From the
questions surrounding determinism and free will, to the questions of the moral
responsibility of those in dominant positions, to the nature of love and pain
and grief.

These metaphysical topics interest me, and apparently they interested the
writer, even if they don't interest you.

~~~
dang
That's fair, and if you want to respond to the actual article on that basis,
as opposed to just reflexing on the title, there's certainly nothing wrong
with that. I've taken out the bit about metaphysics from my comment above,
since it isn't necessary. The point is simply that the article deserves a
better discussion.

I'm making an appeal as a moderator person. When the delta between an an
article's quality and the HN discussion's quality gets that severe, it's
proven helpful.

------
grecy
I've spent a lot of time with a lot of elephants in the wild over the last 3
years driving around Africa.

I strongly believe that anyone who believes a human has a soul would believe
an elephant has a soul if they observed them for as long as I have. They are
incredible, extraordinarily intelligent and as the article says, capable of
very sophisticated social structures like empathy, justice and vengeance.

~~~
blotter_paper
I think you underestimate the human ability to ignore that which challenges
our world views. I've known people who loved their dogs but still felt that
their dogs didn't experience the world, only acting as if they did. Not just
that the dogs lacked self-awareness or something, but that the dogs _did not
experience anything,_ because they don't have magical metaphysical souls like
we _obviously_ do. I've known these people, and discussed this topic with them
at length. If somebody can have a loving relationship with a social animal and
still feel this way, I have a hard time believing that spending three years
with a significantly more intelligent non-human animal would necessarily
change their mind.

~~~
hoseja
It could be argued that dogs have evolved to elicit more empathy from humans
than would be objectively proportional to their cognitive capabilities.

~~~
blotter_paper
I agree with this view of the effects of domestication, but that's a nuanced
view of much dogs experience _like we do_ ; going from this to "dogs don't
experience anything at all" (which I don't think you're doing, but correct me
if I'm wrong) is more than a bit absurd, it actually undermines the whole
sliding scale of experience that the original notion is based on.

------
ggm
They certainly seem to have concepts of empathy and justice, and retain memory
of people as distinct individuals and acts of good or bad intent by same in
past times.

What they don't seem to have is a grasp of the nuances of language in the way
we do. They undoubtedly communicate but it's hard to see a sense of analogy
and synthesis of new ideas in anything elephants communicate to us.

Of course on the same measures we fail to communicate these metanconstructs
back to them and since overwhelmingly our treatment of elephants lacks
evidence of empathy and concern and shows no sense of justice perhaps the real
question is:

Do we?

------
cicero
There are lots of ideas floating around today regarding what is a soul and
what makes humans different from other animals. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th
century had a very clear conception of this, rooted in Aristotle, that I
believe is still relevant today.

First of all, he said all living things have souls because a soul is the
principle of life. By definition, it is the thing that is the difference
between something that is alive and something that is not. Although we know a
lot about the mechanisms of life today and how that breaks down as something
dies, I think it's safe to say we still don't know exactly what makes a thing
alive, and we certainly don't know how to create or restore life. If nothing
else, soul is a useful label for that principle.

According to Aristotle and Aquinas, what makes humans different from other
animals is not the existence of a soul, and neither is it consciousness or
emotions. What makes us different is that we have a _rational_ soul, which
means we are capable of recognizing universals and dealing with abstractions,
which is connected with our use of language that can express and communicate
these concepts.

I recommend biologist and theologian Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. [1] for an
explanation of how this developed and how the biblical idea of Adam fits in
with modern evolution. I also recommend philosopher Dr. Michael Augros [2] for
a very rich explanation of how we can understand that we have a rational soul,
and what are its characteristics. Both of these men draw heavily on Aquinas,
but they bring his ideas into modern biology and philosophical discussion.

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MsJ67qtHYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MsJ67qtHYY)
2:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0746R3TXN/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0746R3TXN/)

------
inflatableDodo
This article makes a few statements that are currently being demolished;

>"Also a matter of conventional wisdom is the idea that human beings are on
one side of a great divide while all animals are on the other"

>"To modern science it is, if anything, the hard problem of consciousness,
also commonly thought to be the province of just one species."

My usual response to these kind of assertions is to direct people towards,
'The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness' \-
[http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...](http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf)

Here's the summary;

>"“The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from
experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human
animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological
substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional
behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not
unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.
Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and manyother
creatures,including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”

Also, I'd add something to the section on anthropomorphism. One that is
touched on by the first paragraph in that section;

>"Though thanks to Darwin (if not Aristotle) it should come as no surprise
that animals seem to experience in some way many of the same things we do,
physically and emotionally, in science the supposed imposition of “human”
characteristics on non-human animals is a powerful taboo."

I have long thought that from an evolutionary perspective it would be
incredibly surprising if the characteristics of humans appeared in some
catastophic development, such as in Julian Jaynes' book, 'The Origin of
Consiousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind'. Anthropomorphisis of
animals is often dismissed as being an arrogant practice that serves the
person and not the animal. I would argue that a flat denial of 'human'
attributes to other animals is far more so.

------
danielam
Cartesian metaphysics has been problematic and disastrous in many ways, but
many modern philosophers hold fast to some variation of Cartesianism. For
instance, materialists are still Cartesians in the sense that they still hold
to a Cartesian view of matter, having dispensed with the Cartesian view of
mind. This has left them either seeking in vain for a way to account for
things like so-called qualia within matter while preserving an essentially
Cartesian view of matter, or left denying the reality of things like qualia
altogether (eliminativism).

On the other hand, Aristotle (who is only mentioned by the author in passing)
and his philosophical heirs like Aquinas do not deny the common sense view
that animals are conscious, have emotions, show affection, etc. However,
Aristotelians and Thomists (A-T) don't always appear to be comfortable with
the word "soul" perhaps because of the connotations it has acquired in the
modern era, Cartesian or otherwise (think ectoplasm or ghost in the machine).
For A-T philosophers, the "soul" is the form of the organism, that is to say,
that which makes the organism what it is (by analogy, the form of a bronze
sphere is sphericity). Thus, at the moment of death, the form is no more and
what we have is not an organism nor even a body but the _remains_ of the
organism (here, A-T philosophers would say that the substantial form had
ceased to enform the organism while the accidental form may persist and hence
why the remains of the organism continue to hold the shape and structure of
the living organism for some time after death).

In any case, according to this view, all living things have "souls" because
the soul is just the form of the organism. However, what A-T philosophers _do_
accept is that the known non-human animals lack immaterial faculties like the
intellect (i.e., the faculty by which humans beings abstract univerals from
particulars). Thus, animals do not possess general or universal concepts like
"Man" or "Number" or "Triangularity". But none of this is to deny that non-
human animals are conscious, experience emotion, form bonds, and so on.

------
noonespecial
We want it to be binary. Does or doesn't. It probably isn't. The right
question is probably _" How much soul do elephants have?"_

And by that, we probably just mean (in the most roundabout of ways) how much
of ourselves do we see in them.

~~~
blotter_paper
Depends on the person. Ignoring the metaphysical question, some people mean
"how much of ourselves do we see in them?" Other people mean something like
"how much of a theoretical limit of intelligent capacity do we see in them?"
The distinction here is that if we use ourselves as the definition of 100%
soulfull then anything more intelligent than us has less of a soul simply
because it deviates from our norm, whereas if we use some theoretical limit of
intelligence we allow ourselves to potentially recognise something else as
being more soulfull than us. What we mean by intelligence, and whether we care
about specific types of intelligence (e.g. social intelligence) more than
others, is left as an exercise for the reader.

~~~
noonespecial
I'm actually quite certain we _would_ experience a superior intelligence with
inscrutable motives as "soulless".

~~~
blotter_paper
What about a loving, benevolent intelligence that was only three times as
intelligent as the smartest human, never lied or cheated, didn't turn us into
paperclips, and liked to write poetry more beautiful than anything we'd ever
read before? Inscrutable motives are not necessary for this thought experiment
if you accept the orthogonality thesis, or if you limit yourself to conceiving
of intelligences so close to our own (while still superior) that their motives
don't degenerate into whatever you think the motives of sufficiently advanced
intelligences degenerate into.

~~~
noonespecial
Well I'd say that those limitations would bring us back around to recognizing
ourselves in them with the small superiority pegging our "soulfulness meters"
as it were. (I doubt I'd be able to gauge the difference between say a 3x and
a 6x. They'd both seem maximally soulful)

As far as sufficiently advanced intelligences go, I'm not sure I'd even be
able to tell if they're _alive_ , much less soulful.

~~~
inflatableDodo
I like Socrates take on this, from Phaedrus;

"The soul through all her being is immortal, for that which is ever in motion
is immortal; but that which moves another and is moved by another, in ceasing
to move ceases also to live. Only the self-moving, never leaving self, never
ceases to move, and is the fountain and beginning of motion to all that moves
besides. Now, the beginning is unbegotten, for that which is begotten has a
beginning; but the beginning is begotten of nothing, for if it were begotten
of something, then the begotten would not come from a beginning. But if
unbegotten, it must also be indestructible; for if beginning were destroyed,
there could be no beginning out of anything, nor anything out of a beginning;
and all things must have a beginning. And therefore the self-moving is the
beginning of motion; and this can neither be destroyed nor begotten, else the
whole heavens and all creation would collapse and stand still, and never again
have motion or birth. But if the self-moving is proved to be immortal, he who
affirms that self-motion is the very idea and essence of the soul will not be
put to confusion. For the body which is moved from without is soulless; but
that which is moved from within has a soul, for such is the nature of the
soul. But if this be true, must not the soul be the self-moving, and therefore
of necessity unbegotten and immortal?"

[http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html)

I think I particularly like it for being a proto-physics and non-religious
attempt at a proof for the immortality of soul.

------
elephriend
_Answer:_ Yes. Elephants have souls. Or, at least, they have the same exact
thing humans have, if humans can safely agree that a human can possess
something worth referring to as a soul.

But there is no social consensus thereof ( _whether or not they have the same
thing we seem to have_ ), between them or us, because they cannot speak, write
or use sign language, to communicate their subjective experience to each other
or any other species.

We are the only species to represent a best bet for noticing their sentience,
and we would not have contemplated such a thing in a meaningful way that
overrules to collective preference among humans, to hunt and poach for things
like sport and trophy ivory, at least not until roughly the middle of the 20th
century.

------
torgian
Answer: We don't know!

------
mtnGoat
are we trying to justify torture?

i can think of some others doing similar things that were jailed and not
applauded. if we do it for science its ok? or only sometimes?

~~~
wazoox
No, I'm trying to state facts about history of philosophy and history of
science.

First, you're obviously applying your current world view to 1640, which
doesn't make any sense. OK, all people from the past were barbaric, racist,
violent, misogynistic, credulous so whatever they did and say should be
dismissed without any further reflection, is this your point?

Second, I don't even understand what you're trying to convey. Did Descartes
advise to torture puppies for science?

~~~
mtnGoat
all i picked up from your original comment was... its ok to think animals
don't have souls because then we can torture them and call it science? And the
first person to make that leap should be applauded?

sorry, i don't subscribe to his nonsense, never will. and i wasnt trying to
make any point, i was asking you a question about yours.

have a good day.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
Humans were torturing animals and each other long before Descartes. We
basically don't need a justification for it, it is a natural tendency, just
look at small children (among all animals really, we are just so much better
at everything).

If anything we need a justification _against_.

------
colechristensen
There are a few possibilities.

No souls: you take a definition of "soul" as something supernatural and reject
it's existence.

Binary souls: souls exist in some beings in an absolute way either existing or
not. A body gains a soul at some point during birth or development and loses
it at death. Some creatures have them others do not.

Continuous souls: everything has one, some more than others. A rock has a tiny
bit, a tree some more, an intelligent animal more, and a human the most. Soul
develops as you gain consciousness in childhood. A philosopher has more soul
than a comatose person.

Souls can be an emergent phenomenon out of certain kinds of complexity like
consciousness. Souls can also be something outside physics as we understand it
now. You can accept or reject either one.

Whatever elephants have, there is quite a lot of it. You wouldn't be so wrong
calling it soul.

~~~
TelmoMenezes
I will assume below that soul = conscience = first person experience of
reality

> No souls: you take a definition of "soul" as something supernatural and
> reject it's existence.

This position is technically called eliminative materialism, that
consciousness or the first person experience of reality is an illusion. I find
this to be the most absurd idea in the history of ideas, for the simple fact
that I have direct experience of consciousness (my own). Or, to quote
Descartes: I think, therefore I am.

> Continuous souls

This is a version of Panpsychism. I do not hold this view, but a lot of people
that I respect do (for example, Ben Goertzel, the AGi researcher).

> Souls can be an emergent phenomenon out of certain kinds of complexity like
> consciousness.

This is known as emergentism. It is more or less the mainstream view nowadays
with the scientifically literate. I consider it to be pseudoscience, because
it uses the term "emergence" to hide a magic step. It is a complicated and
technical discussion, but long story short, things emerge from building
blocks. Markets emerge from individual transactions. Swarms emerge from
certains behaviors of birds, and so on. What are the building blocks of
consciousness in this model? I am not saying that they do not exist, but just
saying "well it emerges somehow" is the same as believing in the supernatural,
but hiding it in scientific language (aka scientsim).

The list above only contains hypothesis based on physicalism (a not super
rigorous definition: the belief that matter is the fundamental stuff of
reality). Physicalism seems obvious to the current status quo, but if you
become more sophisticated with the mind-body problem you will see that it does
not really rest on a sold foundation. For example:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie)

What the list omits are the idealistic or neo-plationist hypothesis: that
consciousness is the fundamental stuff of reality and matter is a second-order
phenomenon. I am not defending any sort of supernatural or religious idea, I
am simply pointing out that people assume too much out of a lack of
philosophical sophistication. Idealism is perfectly compatible with all of
modern science, and there is no particular reason to assume physicalism. The
absolute belief in physicalism is akin to a modern religious dogma and it does
violence to science and extends logical reasoning and empiricism beyond its
current limits.

~~~
dodobirdlord
> This position is technically called eliminative materialism, that
> consciousness or the first person experience of reality is an illusion. I
> find this to be the most absurd idea in the history of ideas, for the simple
> fact that I have direct experience of consciousness (my own). Or, to quote
> Descartes: I think, therefore I am.

What is an illusion, but a thing that can be experienced yet is not real?

> Physicalism seems obvious to the current status quo, but if you become more
> sophisticated with the mind-body problem you will see that it does not
> really rest on a sold foundation.

The ability to induce altered states of consciousness (such as death) through
entirely physical means demonstrates that consciousness is a physical
phenomenon.

>
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie)

The logical possibility argument for philosophical zombies is essentially
flawed. It posits that the conceivability of a philosophical zombie is
sufficient to demonstrate meaningfulness, but plenty of conceivable things are
not meaningful. Suppose I conceive instead of a person who knows a
counterargument to mind-body dualism. Accepting the philosophical zombie
argument requires accepting its refutation.

~~~
frankling_
I guess this goes into definitions of consciousness, which I don't have the
background nor inclination to do. But if we define it, as the grandparent
does, as "first person experience of reality", then there is something special
about this particular illusion. Usually, one would reject the interpretation
of an experience, not the experience itself. For instance, this could go as
follows: "yes, from your vantage point, the experience was that a rabbit was
pulled from an empty hat, BUT what actually occurred was that the rabbit was
pulled from a hole in the table below."

With consciousness, "the experience of the trick" and "the trick" are one and
the same: if I have a "first person experience of reality" (which I have),
then I struggle to see how it can be viewed as a trick. Due to the property of
consciousness being a subjective state, it seems that eliminative materialists
claim that even the EXPERIENCE of the rabbit being pulled from the empty hat
is an illusion, which to me is just nonsensical (but I assume that with
suitable definitions you can work around that).

------
protomyth
I guess the answer is do you believe you have a soul? If you get that far do
you think that extends to animals? Some? An elephant or a whale, but not an
ant? all?

One part of the anthropomorphism part they touched on (but I'm not sure the
last line is universally agreed to)[1], is that humans will do that to more
than living things. We once talked about the souls of ships and lately a piece
of metal, mechanisms, and circuits was mourned like family member when it lost
its battle against the conditions on the next planet over. We pack up and form
tribes with other humans, animals, and even inanimate objects that we claim
have lives of their own. We invest in things. To the point, I'm pretty sure
someone, somewhere added retrieving our lost probe to the must do immediately
upon getting their ourselves list. I get the feeling if we have souls, then we
invest little parts of them in the things we value.

1) from article: _Meanwhile, on our end, we the human race are masters of
projection, from the teddy bears (or in my case, stuffed raccoons and
walruses) that we befriend as children to the humanoid robots that we may
build or purchase as adults, engineered to cue us to respond to them like
sentient beings. We like to feel that these inanimate objects have reciprocal
affections for us, although we always know at some level that they do not._

------
29athrowaway
The soul is defined to be an "incorporeal" part of you. But what is it?

Is it your memory? No.

Is it consciousness? No.

Is it your cognitive ability or creativity? No.

Is it your what defines your emotions? No.

Drink enough or hit your head hard enough and you'll see that all of those get
affected in one way or another. So they're not incorporeal.

So what is the "soul" really? It is an ambiguous and archaic term.

If souls are real then "surviving" becomes much easier. That's why people like
the concept.

------
dvh
Do humans have souls?

~~~
DoreenMichele
If that's a sincere inquiry and not witty criticism of the implicit assumption
in the title that they do, you might look for the book written by/about the
first heart-lung transplant recipient.

I saw an interesting interview with her many years ago. She talked about
experiences where she seemingly channeled the personality and preferences of
the donor for a time following the surgery.

~~~
everdev
That's an interesting example of information being stored in parts of our body
besides our brain which is a theory gaining more popularity. I wouldn't be
surprised if further study confirmed this.

A soul usually implies a religious / supernatural energy that survives our
death. It's an inherently non-testable theory.

I think the question if "do humans have souls?" is just an example of how the
question "do elephants have souls?" can have no testable answer, just personal
opinion based on your belief system.

~~~
DoreenMichele
She also had interesting dreams about the guy who donated her organs and
similar. Some belief systems would see that as in line with souls being real.

It's all a simulacra in 4D anyway. I think it's fine to go with whatever
mental models float your boat in that regard.

(Mind you, I reserve the right to do the same thing and don't feel compelled
to agree with anyone else about such topics.)

~~~
mikeash
Seems to me that mind alteration due to an organ transplant is solid evidence
_against_ the existence of the soul.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I didn't chime in to initiate debate on the subject. I was merely suggesting a
potential resource for someone potentially interested in exploring the topic
for themselves.

I generally do not debate such things.

~~~
everdev
Thanks, I think it was a relevant anecdote.

------
perrygrande
The elephant is one of my favourite creatures on this earth

------
leshokunin
We haven't even been able to define the meaning of what a soul is, measure it,
find it, or anything. On top of that, we don't speak elephant, and our tools
to assess whether they have souls don't exist (since we can't even define
them, as per above). So... Who knows?

They sure show a lot of empathy and emotions.

~~~
incompatible
"Soul" is a religious concept, not a scientific one. Religion doesn't care
about "the meaning of what a soul is, measure it, find it, or anything".

~~~
shmerl
I'd say it's a mystical concept, not specifically religious (some religions
are viewing it the same way). And it's incorrect that the meaning doesn't
matter.

In short, most mystical schools view the soul as something that defines the
being. It's not a physical thing, but rather spiritual, or in other words -
informational.

~~~
jsgo
I believe the person above was saying that those who are most inclined to
believe in the concept of a soul would find the importance of a definition of
what a soul is to be on the low end of the totem pole.

I'm not a huge fan of things that get that close to all or nothing, but I do
know quite a few religious people and they aren't particularly concerned with
the definition of it so much as what it represents. Whether it is a fear of
questioning something or just finding it of minimal value, I do not know.

~~~
shmerl
_> I believe the person above was saying that those who are most inclined to
believe in the concept of a soul would find the importance of a definition of
what a soul is to be on the low end of the totem pole._

Not in my experience though. But I agree that it depends on religion.

------
hi41
Ya dang right!

------
crankylinuxuser
Mu. (Unask the question.)

Define "soul".

Define "spirit".

Define "consciousness".

Now show me how to measure them in some capacity.

We cannot make informed decisions without a way to measure these things.
Without measurement, is no science. It is belief, not science.

~~~
wintorez
Came to say this. Asking "Do Elephants Have Souls?" is the same as "Do
avocados have mana?" or "Does yeti catch cold?"

------
ARandomerDude
> let's talk about what's interesting and stay off the metaphysics

Assumption: metaphysics isn't interesting.

Clearly many in the HN community disagree.

~~~
dang
I've detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19836524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19836524)
and marked it off-topic.

Yes, that's a case I'd make quite strongly. Internet metaphysics isn't
interesting in the way the HN guidelines use that word. Such comments tend to
be generic, predictable, and self-referential. They're rarely motivated by the
article at hand—this case being a perfect example, since it was only the word
"soul" that triggered the discussion, not anything the article actually says.
They're not inspired by curiosity, and don't gratify it. They're mostly about
rehearsing philosophical scripts, and the internet comment is too trivial a
format to support genuine reasoning about those.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
etxm
No. And neither do you.

Edit: How dare I have an opinion on opinions.

------
modzu
what? this is like asking, do elephants go to heaven?

isn't the proper question, phrased scientifically (albiet a nascent science),
whether elephants have consciousness?

EDIT: skimming the article i see it's quite literary so i think the choice of
words was meant to reflect more humanism than merely saying "concsious" would
capture: ie, meaning or purpose, emotion, etc

~~~
DonHopkins
I don't know if elephants go to heaven, but I do know how you can tell if
there's an elephant hiding under your bed:

Your face is pressed up against the ceiling.

------
dusted
Do souls even exist?

------
mbfg
Likely, elephants are more intelligent then humans in that they realize
there's no reason to think they have souls.

------
voodootrucker
Why is such an unscientific question so high on HN?

Or to rephrase, if we don't know what a soul is, how can we hope to answer it
WRT elephants? So how and why should a reasoning person rate an article like
this?

~~~
dang
Three answers: unscientific things are welcome on HN; the title is not to be
taken literally; a good comment reacts to more than just a title.

~~~
DonHopkins
Plus elephants make really great floppy disks, because they never forget.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Memory_Systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Memory_Systems)

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/ElephantFlopp...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/ElephantFloppy.jpg)

The brand was originally devised as an inexpensive, mass-market product. Its
imposing pachyderm logo, designed by Rollin Binzer was often paired with
bright orange or yellow and black packaging, which was in stark contrast of
the more conservative silvers and blues used by competitors like IBM. Shane's
advisers feared this would undermine the credibility of the product. However,
Elephant eventually became viewed as a premium product, eventually becoming
one of the highest-margin floppies on the market and one of the best-selling
media brands in history.

~~~
aitchnyu
Now I get the Postgresql logo, and Hadoop too, even though the latter was
named after the creator's boy's toy elephant.

