Your objection to the comparison between plants and animals is quite ridiculous.  Humans and dogs are totally different lifeforms, and they evolved simultaneously, humans did not evolve from dogs.  When you compare the two, you cannot judge dogs based on the criteria that would make a human "superior". 

I most certainly can use a single vertical hierarchy to describe the level of their intelligence.  It's not their fault that they don't need intelligence and therefore never evolved much of it, but that doesn't change the fact that animals are much much smarter, to the point that they are on a whole other level of intelligence.  I could understand if you wanted to put them on different graphs because of how much smarter animals are, but you could easily put them on the same graph if you wanted to. 

Why wouldn't natural radar be more special?  Well, a significant part of my post was devoted to trying to explain what made intelligence more remarkable than (for instance) natural radar, but apparently you just ignored it or something because you certainly didn't respond to it.  And in point of fact the rest of your paragraph is completely off topic as far as I'm concerned. 

Regarding different cultures, I assumed you meant cultures today, that have one way or another been evolving in a sense from earlier cultures.  I would suppose that cultures today are much, much more developed than, say, cultures from 50kya, even the cultures that are still hunter-gatherer-type.  I would argue that although individuals from different cultures will argue that their culture is better (and many people say better means more advanced) they will also agree that other cultures have things theirs does not.  For instance many would agree that the culture of medieval Japan had very very advanced protocol in the ruling class, but I would argue that it was not a good thing, that it was stultifying -- but special. 

He is judging our value (I believe) by how special we are, specifically our special intellience.  And your argument that plants are more valuable is crap because you have no justification for talking about wiping out all humans vs. all plants, and if it was us vs. a single species of plant then you have no argument.  Also WTF is this about the top of the food chain being the most disposable.  Oh right your baseless combining of all the species in the bottom into one unit. 

I will say however that your examples on the paragraph I said was off topic are ridiculous. Aliens look human in sci fi movies? It must be entirely due to human superiority complex, not because Hollywood is pandering to people afraid of too-different, or they don't feel like blowing their SFX budget on octopus people, etc. etc.

Star Trek had emotions trumping logic? Oh it must be human centrism, not the fact that half the episodes were parables.

User post removed - spamming

~ Barozi

Humans and dogs are both animals and humans and dogs are both mammals. They certainly are not totally different lifeforms, and they cetrainly have more in common than plants (the plantae kingdom) and animals (the animalia kingdom). The main thing that plants and animals have in common is that they're all part of the eukaryote domain (meaning that they're both organisms made up of cells with complex structures that are enclosed in membranes).

You cannot use a vertical hierarchy to describe "the level of their intelligence", because you could only include in such an heirarchy being for which "intelligence" is an actual characteristic. Including plants in a "hierarchy of intelligence" is like including humans in a "hierarchy of being able to perform photosythesis", which is simply nonsensical.

Why people from all cultures would agree that people of other cultures have "things" that their culture does not, they'll typically also view those "things" as being negative (note, I'm referring to uneducated individuals here, which sadly makes up most of the population). Also, the strict social hierarchization, rituals, and protocols present in Japanese culture (both then and to some extent now), come from Canfucianism where such elements are considered necessary to assure the proper functioning of society. You may consider them negative, but that's viewing it from the POV of your own culture, and not taking into consideration that what you view to be "good" is also something your culture has taught you. A person from medieval Japan (and from current-day Japan also) would find the lack of a proper protocol to be outrageous, confusing, and a sign of not being "civilized".

Arguing that a species is "valuable" based on its "specialness" is definately not gonna lead to any objective ideeas, because "specialness" is itself a subjective criteria. My arguments were based on very objective criteria, this being the importance in the ecosystem that is Earth. Not to mentiom that you're being a hypocrite. You said that due to their intelligence, humans are essentially a kindgom in their own right, so it would be quite adecquate to compare humanity to the entire plantae kindgom. Even disregarding that nonsense, in the food chain you have to compare life-forms on the different levels, and humans are alone at the very tope of the food chain, so they can essentially be compared to entire inferior levels - in other words, it is still apprppriate to compare humanity to the entire plantae kingdom.

First of all, plants are the chief producers of oxygen, element without which practically every other lifeform would die (including humans). Second of all, plants are located at the very bottom of the food chain. They are the chief producers of Earth (they sythesize anorganic materials into orgnic nutrients which other lifeforms eat, plus they themselves are eaten).  The food chain is like a pyramid. Take away it's foundation and it crumbles. In the food chain every animal is dependent on the animals below it in order to survuve. Humans are at the very top of the food chain. We're almost exclsively "takers", meaning we eat other lifeforms, but other lifeforms don't eat us (heck, nowadays even decomposing a dead human can prove to be a challenge). No lifeofrms need us in order to survive. However, every lifeform needs plants to survive (includign humans). Going back to the pyramid analogy, if you take away the top, the rest of the structure will still stand. If this isn't objective way to determine the "value" of a lifeform, I don't know what is.

How does this infirm in any way what I said?

What if you had to chose between your mother and an alien with superior intelligence?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_intelligence
BOOM HEADSHOT

So now you've retreated from your stance that people are universally convinced their culture/whatever is automatically superior, to it's just the stupid majority that does that. 

Look, you're simply wrong.  I didn't argue that human intelligence is as much higher than other animals' as animals' are compared to plants' intelligence.  That was Kasz.  I just agree that the claim illustrates how dramatically more intelligent we are than other animals. 

Second, you are being ridiculous when you claim that Kasz's claim that the difference in intelligence is as great as the difference in intelligence between the plant and animal kingdoms would make us an actual "human kingdom" separate from animals and that therefore the value of the human species should be judged against the value of the entire plant kingdom. 

As for "in the food chain you have to compare life-forms on the different levels, and humans are alone at the very top of the food chain, so they can essentially be compared to entire inferior levels":  you have yet to justify this. 

No lifeforms depend on us?  You are so ignorant.  We have cultivated/created many species that would be devastated if not destroyed if we disappeared, because we spread them and use them around the world.  And removing predators will cause the lower lifeforms to destabilize their own population, so that argument is bunk as well. 

1.  Fearing something and believing it is inferior are not the same thing
2.  Hollywood thinking it's so doesn't make it so
3.  Even if it's true for a lot of people (which it is) doesn't mean it's univerally true which is necessary for your argument to hold water. 

I don't see what this statement is supposed to be in relation to.

I specifically removed emotional attachments to make the point.

Outside which a being with such a superior intellegence... aka... well I can't even come up with what a next layer of consiousness would even be.....

I wouldn't even be able to comprhend.

I would be like an animal looking at a human. 

A different alien race would pick the supeiror being over my mother everytime and three times on sunday though.

@Final-Fan:

BOOM HEADSHOT

Don't count your chickens before they've hatched. If you look at the "criticism" section in the very article you linked, you'd see that this issue is still disputed (is it "intelligence"or is it just adaptation), and it all comes doesn to what definition you give intelligence.

Second, you are being ridiculous when you claim that Kasz's claim that the difference in intelligence is as great as the difference in intelligence between the plant and animal kingdoms would make us an actual "human kingdom" separate from animals and that therefore the value of the human species should be judged against the value of the entire plant kingdom. 

I never actually took this seriousl FTR.

As for "in the food chain you have to compare life-forms on the different levels, and humans are alone at the very top of the food chain, so they can essentially be compared to entire inferior levels":  you have yet to justify this. 

Um, it is a scientific fact that humans are at the very top of the food chain, and only themselves are located at said level. Also, it's a fact that animals located on the same level are of the same importance (that's why they're on the same level after all), and since plants are all located on the same level (the foundation), then you can easily compare all plants with humans.

No lifeforms depend on us?  You are so ignorant.  We have cultivated/created many species that would be devastated if not destroyed if we disappeared, because we spread them and use them around the world.  And removing predators will cause the lower lifeforms to destabilize their own population, so that argument is bunk as well.

You'd better watch your tongue. You're actually bringing into discussion man's interference in nature? The fact that they would be unable to survive on their own in nature shows that they are not adapted to live in the natural world. Without us these specias would either have to adapt to living in nature, or die. If they cannot defend themselves and procure food for themselves, then they do not deserve to exist (it's called survival of the fittest). Plus, the food chain reffers to how animals eat eachother in order to survive. Those animals you mentioned still eat plants or animals lower than them on the food chain. They do not eat humans, therefore they do not actually "depend" on the existence of humans (when we're talking about the food chain).

And if you remove predators, what would lead to the destruction of the environment would be that the herbivores would eat all plant life, thus again signaling the maximum importance plants have for the ecosystem. If you remove herbivores too however, plant overpopulation would really not be an actual problem (natural selection and evolution would fix everything right up). Remove humans... nothing significant happens in the ecosystem (in many ways it would probably be better), so humans really are quite unecessary to Earth's ecosyste. Plants however... remove them and we'll be dead way before we run out of food, simply because we'll have no more oxygen.