I think 'intelligence' represents how slippery all concepts are. Think about the definition of intelligence. According to the most common scientific definition, it's basically the ability to see patterns. The funny thing about that is that the ability to see patterns is basically what makes someone a good scientist, so scientists have defined 'intelligence' to mean having the potential to be good at science. Similarly, if you look at the CIA, intelligence means having information about enemy countries, because that's what makes a good CIA officer. If you were to ask a painter about the definition of intelligence, they'd probably tell you that it has something to do with being good at painting.

All words are defined by the types of people who are most likely to spend time thinking about the definition of that word, which means that essentially every concept in the every language is fundamentally biased by the worldview of the sort of person who would spend time thinking about that concept. And since science, logic, and knowledge are fundamentally based on these concepts in terms of looking for what to talk about and measure, I think this may be a serious epistemological problem that leaves humans capped at a certain level in terms of what we can know.

This is also why I'm generally skeptical of sites like Less Wrong, as I think the real limits of rationality and human knowledge have almost nothing to do with the 'official' list of logical fallacies that these sites tend to focus on.

I took Latin in high school because I liked etymology (and because greek letters were really too weird):

From Latin intellegentia ("the act of choosing between, intelligence"), from intellegō ("understand"), from inter ("between") + legō ("choose, pick out, read"). [taken from wiktionnary]

So intelligence is the ability to understand, that's all (the etymologic link with dichotomy is beautiful).

Now how we understand (and please don't confuse yourself again with "oh yeah but what does 'understand' really mean") is the hard part.

Note the focus on a species, rather than individuals.

Until then, I don't want to see such beautiful intelligent creatures harmed -- but murder/manslaughter charges would be inappropriate if one were inadvertently killed.

The current animal protection/endangered species protection rules are sufficient.

This is of course a really bad requirement. A lot of people in the world do not know English, and would thus be unable to let anyone know that they will mutually honor some sort of Interspecies Protective Treaty. Mostly, they would be unable to read any such treaty, or reply with the word "yes".

First create a requirement that all human being will pass. Then see if cetaceans do pass it.

English? Where did I say that?

However, communication verbal or nonverbal that conveys agreement to participate in a society is a requirement.

This kind of communication would need to happen either individually or representatives cetaceans would need to come forward who could vouch for others of their species. From there, we'd need to observe whether or not the agreement(s) were being followed. This starts to sound silly, doesn't it? But that's what being a member of a society entails. That's what being "human" or reasonably equivalent to oen entails.

I'm also not sure why they would need to agree to some kind of treaty with humans just to be spared our cruelty. There's no evidence they mean us harm, we have the ability to protect ourselves if they did, let's just leave them alone.

That's a strawman. The proposal was to give Dolphins "the same rights as humans".

Protection of the creatures from hunting and physical exploitation is sufficient and something normally agreed to through international treaties. Equating cetaceans with humans is unnecessary and illogical.

The proposal is not equating humans and cetaceans. It is stating that cetaceans are close enough to humans that we should respect their life and not treat them a property. One hopes that an alien species landing on Earth would feel the same about humans...

Humans have to make the first step and propose a first draft because of their current position of power. Unfortunately, cetaceans so far haven't taken time to try to learn how to communicate with humans. A treaty with cetaceans would be a display of pure goodwill, as opposed to e.g. peace treaties between mutually menacing powers.

Another interesting question is how many treaties are needed, since cetaceans are obviously no more unified than humans.

The recently and soon to be extinct species would disagree with you.

Also, if homo sapiens had the same levels of "protection" I'd be able to cull yuppies when too many of them moved into my neighborhood.

The things that I have been thinking a lot about lately are --

What happens when natural death is reduced by 99% and human levels of intelligence are extended to countless genetically customized biological lifeforms?

Do sentient computers that consume non-renewable resources have the right to reproduce and live? Who would enforce either option?

I think we are at the early stages of experiencing a paradigm change in human philosophy. In some part, because much of traditional human beliefs simply hold no foundation with reality (religious and otherwise.) Secondly, the things that were distant science fiction now exist or is within reach. The Star Wars/Star Trek view of the future and space travel mere decades later has become archaic.

I happened to read "The Age of Spiritual Machines" by Ray Kurzweil over a decade ago. It completely changed my thought process in regards to much of life. (I doubt without it I would have been as strongly convicted about dropping out of college and starting an internet business.) As technology has advanced since then, I believe it has kept my thinking a step beyond where it would have been otherwise.

The average person, even equipped with the latest smartphone, is unequipped to deal with these radical changes. Children can no longer look to their parents for patterns on how to live their lives, because their parents lives will not remotely resemble their own.

These are very good opportunities for start ups.

This stands for at least a century when the big shift from the village to the city occured. I'd say it wasn't any less radical than the shifts ahead us. Maybe a bit more radical even.

Protecting helpless/non-contributing life was happening long before Christianity.

Protecting helpless/non-contributing life is seen in almost all vertebrate+ life forms and seems to be a requirement for species advancement. The alligator mother allows its spawn to swim in and out of its mouth for protection, it doesn't eat them even though it could.

For instance, could a person with Down's Syndrome be denied protection from murder?

As thinking, social beings, we've extended the umbrella of protecting life to members of our species that are functionally disabled, even to the point where they can't take care of themselves.

It would be a significantly slippery slope hole in our Social Contract if we started trying to define who can and can't be murdered based upon genetic mutations.

Protecting offspring, and relatives more generally, is an expected consequence of natural selection. It doesn't require any kind of intelligence, compassion, or even consciousness. Witness the many ways plants invest in protecting their seeds, for example.

What's interesting in this context is caring for the elderly, disabled or injured. The article mentions a case where a killer whale with a broken jaw was fed by other members of its pod. As far as I know, this kind of behaviour is only known in a few large mammal species.

Wolves lick each others wounds, for example.

Although the behavior evidenced by cetaceans is fascinating, it just isn't societally important enough to justify the push by the AAS to recognize them as fundamentally equivalent to people.

Of course, nothing in biology is that simple. The individuals could have some other use, such as navigational memory. The carers could be gaining reputation, i.e. they'll get more benefits from other members of the group. Or it could be an evolutionary 'accident': the injured or weak individual triggers a response that evolved to restore a productive member of the group, even if it won't work in that case.

You can make similar arguments about human altruism. But in some cases, the most simple explanation is a personal relationship between individuals and a sense of compassion.

I don't have strong feelings either way about the initiative in the linked article. But I'm fascinated by the questions of consciousness and how we assess it.

Not really. The Social constructs are beneficial to gene survival. If a woolly mammoth injures you, I take care of you because I have a social bond that works both ways. Prehistoric me does not necessarily understand if the injury is permanent, but our bond is there to assume that the help I'm giving you will be conferred upon me or my offspring at some point.

Love, cooperation, and compassion are (situationally) survival traits.

When you consider further that individual survival isn't as important as genetic survival, you can see that social behaviors are selected for in animals capable of exhibiting them to some degree.

You say that as though the matter has been completely and definitively decided. In fact, humans often disregard that protection and hurt harmless people. Which is why moral debates are still being had, and why it's worth asking about the philosophical underpinnings of a moral position.

I suggested that Christianity offers such underpinnings. You may suggest alternate ones, but I think it would be naive to say that no such moral arguments are necessary because Nature Takes Care Of It.

I understand your sentiment, but 1) you're making an "ad hominem" against Christianity, which I could argue is not justified but in any case is not pertinent, and 2) what you're asking ultimately doesn't make sense.

We're having a discussion about what is or is not moral. Any answer you can give necessarily depends on views which can only be classified as religious, even if you are a purely a materialist; they involve the purpose of existence, what it means to be human, etc.

Consider this exchange:

A: "We should not commit genocide." B: "Why?" A: "Because protecting life is a universal human value." B: "It's not universal if I don't agree with it. Why should I care?" A: "Because we can't survive as a species unless we protect one another." B: "What if I don't care about the species, but only about myself?" A: "Genocide is still wrong. You shouldn't do it." B: "Says who?"

Ultimately A has to answer "there is a larger moral principle outside of you which, whether you agree with it or not, you are obligated to obey", which is a religious statement.

The only other option is "many of us prefer that you don't do this and we will use force to stop you." That's pragmatic, but it's not about morality at all; it could just as well be applied to playing the bagpipes.

You can't exclude religion from moral debates because morality is inherently about religion.

Existence doesn't have a purpose. Existence simply "is". Purpose (in general) is the goals of pre-planned actions taken by intelligent agents acting to achieve specific ends through whatever agencies they believe themselves to control.

My answer to what is moral is to undertake actions that work to achieve those ends, as opposed to random junk and hoping for the best. Moral is to think, not accept dogma. For me, that is the exact opposite of religion.

I don't know precisely where we get morals from without religion. Clearly it can't be as simple as what the majority prefers: the phrase the tyranny of the majority refers to the problem with that.

We have a deep seated sense of fairness, even without religion. A recent experiment put two monkeys within sight of each other. One did a task and was given a piece of food, then the other did the same task and got a much tastier piece of food. The first does the task again, and again gets the low-value food, but this time he threw it back at the experimenter and beat the bars of the cage, trying to reach the high-value food. That sense seems likely to be where our concept of morality comes from.

Any relevant principles can be talked about without a religious carrier signal; including it only serves to alienate those who do not share the same beliefs.

Person B is not fundamentally immoral, only by the standards of a society and if his moral framework is incompatible with his society then they will leave or be terminated.

Since nobody seems to have given a straight answer to this, I will. Someone with Down's Syndrome easily counts as an intelligent being, and is not even close to any borderline.

I suppose your question assumes that, since intelligence comes in degrees, any value based on it must also come in degrees. But instead, most people who see personhood this way believe in some sort of threshold above which everyone deserves equal protection.

The medical establishment, at least where I live, tends to take the view that there's no intrinsic value in trying to prolong the life of such a body.

Now, are dolphins at the same level as vegetable humans? Clearly not. Is the bar to which we hold them higher than that, since we lack the same emotional connections? I suspect, in reality, yes.