Animals are sentient

Alright, thank you for your argument. It is rare to see an opponent who actually cites their work. Rebuttals: The human brain: All right, so I did a bit more research, and it turns out I was wrong. While it is true that there are animals that have a higher brain to body mass ratio, I discovered that there are more significant changes between the human brain and our nearest rivals in intellect among the animal kingdom. The major difference is that our cerebral cortex, the part of the brain many scientists say is what makes us us, is three to four times larger then any primate (or other animal our size)[2]. That is a huge difference when we are talking about the ability to be aware. Its this huge cerebral cortex that puts us much farther ahead from any other animal and gives us the ability of consciousness. Yes, the definition of self-aware is, "When an individual can identify, process, store information about the self, and has knowledge of one's own mental states they are defined to have self-awareness.". What i'm saying is that animals are capable of identifying and processing information, but it is not about its mental states, and that is not the same as self-recognition. I do know that computers are not alive, in fact thats part of the reason I chose to use a computer in my analogy. If a man-made non living machine is capable of passing tests designed to find sentience then how can we say that those tests truly work? While it is true that tests like the Turing test [1] have not yet been passed, we are moving closer and closer to that goal. There is no indication that animals (or computers) have sentience based off of the fact that they can recognize themselves in a mirror. Self-recognition is different the self-awareness. "Of course a dolphin could not do it, they have no fingers to learn sign language." Yes, I know that they don't have fingers. I chose the dolphin because they are a famously intelligent animal. Part of the reason that Koko was chosen was because Koko was smart, but a significant factor was also because Koko had fingers. There has been research to suggest dolphins are smarter then most species of primates. The only draw back is that they don't have the capabilities to speak or convey language. I realize choosing the dolphin may have been a poor choice of animal, however they main point of my argument was that there are more intelligent animals then gorillas and so the ability to convey language isn't necessarily a mark of sentience and/or a large intellect. Arguments: While it is true that speaking a language can be a sign of sentience, there is a difference between learning a language and speaking a language. What I mean is a computer (or gorilla) can speak a language in that it can learn patterns and repeat those patterns back to the human. Whereas learning a language is actually knowing what those words mean. A computer chatbot can repeat back quasi logical answers to a human to create a conversation, but it has not actually learned how to speak english. The computer was taught patterns, it received those patterns from the human, and it responded in regulation to its program. It is similar with Koko, Koko was taught patterns, saw those patterns and responded based off of the patterns it had memorized. If I may use another analogy, I would like to convey this idea in another way. As suggested by my username "Rubikx", I am fond of Rubik's cubes. Now a Rubik's cube, when you really break it down, is just patterns. Speed cubers can solve them in less then 10 seconds because they have memorized these patterns [3]. They are then given the cubes and based off the patterns they memorized they can solve the cube. Once again, it is the same with Koko. Koko was taught patterns. If Koko had learned sign language simply by watching a person doing sign language over a long period of time, then I would say that Koko would be sentient. But Koko wasn't, it was taught specific hand gestures to respond to specific other patterns. Cites: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.theguardian.com... [2] http://www.appsychology.com... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...'s_Cube