[ExI] Taxonomy of Minds

[Ben Zaiboc]

On Saturday, 4 April 2026 at 12:05, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 5:12 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>> We should be extremely careful when looking at what dolphins do. The tendency to anthropomorphise is almost irresistible.
>
> Is that always a bad thing, isn't anthropomorphism exactly what we're doing when we reject solipsism and ascribe consciousness to our fellow human beings?

Not at all.

Anthropomorphism is the tendency to ascribe human characteristics to non-human things.

Solipsism is the position that I am the only thing that really exists. Rejecting it just denies that statement, it says nothing about the nature of the other things that we assume to exist. Ascribing human characteristics to other humans isn't anthropomorphism.

You could ask "But how do we know they are human?" but that's just heading down a rabbit hole.
I think the thing to focus on is the 'non-human things' part. Things that we already know aren't human, like dolphins.

I'm not sure what to call 'ascribing human characteristics to things which seem to be humans', but it's not the same as anthropomorphism.

As to whether anthropomorphism is always a bad thing, perhaps not, it probably evolved for a good reason, I doubt that it's a spandrel. But it does tend to get in the way of accurately seeing what's going on when we observe non-human subjects.

---
Ben
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