Genetic Engineering: Giving Animals Consciousness

As was told before, I love reading. I was always eager to get back into it around the Summer of 2016. By then, I had a part time job enough to pay for my bills, and school was not demanding in the slightest; I had to make myself busy. Fast forward to now, if I see a good book, I'm more inclined to read the first few pages and determine off of that to decide on the purchase. And a while ago, I decided upon D'Arc by Robert Repino. The story goes that hostile and highly intelligent ants instill consciousness within nearly all forms of animal life. With the sworn purpose of rising up against the apex predators hunting them to near extinction: humans. Curiosity instills in me as what the responses would be to create a race of conscious animals who are to reintegrate into the world after the war is over. But it is interesting to realize that in this storyline, the only method of gaining a chance of victory against humans is granting them intelligence themselves. To m...

While the summer was a relaxing one sleeping in the back of my car and working out in a company gym, that luxurious time is over, and there are more things to do. In one respect, I managed to get a new book I'll disclose later. This matters because the story is very much a playout of the world I so envisioned for you from the fantastic mythos of film and literature. As well, many new topics have come up in my head which I'm quite eager to share my insights on, including Regrets, Further Analysis of a vegan movement, and even War in this new world. I hope the Fall is picking up smoothly for everyone, and naturally I'll be sitting by, watching it with a fantastic cup of nice, hot Pumpkin Spice Latte! Festivities as always, and Happy Thinking!

Sadly, I have been largely inactive for the past few months. I was hoping employment would free up time but instead, it seems I have less time to engage with online activities and am forced to rather spend time away from the internet. All the while, I will be drawing, reading, and probably practicing my coding. The life of a struggling engineering intern is a unique to its own discipline, but by most means alike to the students of any other major of study. I thought I had more to add, but by this point, I can say that I will return by late August. And until then, Happy Thinking!

Nudist colonies are ingenious for one reason: they have highly reduced costs in terms of clothing cleaning, and everything with the like. Downside? It's super weird. Because everyone, aside from service folks, are exposed. And because nudist colonies are typically in lower tropical and warm climates, the inhabitants must be more generous with the sunscreen. That being said, chances are, I wouldn't join one. Why do I mention it? Because it's really obvious, or will be later on. Social Media Surely the concept of social media will apply just as well for sentient pets as well as for any regular person. The more obvious accommodations are as follows, with the lack of fingers, how does one type? More likely than not, it's true pets will rely on speech-to-text applications that capture their unique thoughts. Assuming the family affords the pets privileges of their own, it's possible the pet becomes familiar with technology possessed by the family, or even the fa...

So today might be a short talk about what would be the case if adoptions would ever go into effect. This would lie mostly towards if conventional household pets were chosen to be the recipients of a procedure to learn consciousness. Food What sort of family would a dog or cat or parrot be given to? Selection through government and scientific procedure would determine the ideal family. And chances are, the ideal  family would be those who have two parents and/or children all at a decent age who are well-cared for and responsible. So what considerations would this family have to have? First and foremost, diet considerations are part of any normal pet owning family. No chocolates, grapes, alcohol, and the usual suspects of food toxic to nonhuman animals. Additionally, the question comes up as to whether the family would incorporate the new member as an equal, or as a pet. And this is where you can of course, see serious confusion both for ourselves and these hypothetical families...

Very rarely do I present a post on which the post is more than not focused on the  animal's point of view. So then, obviously there is a unique was that any sentient animal would view us. But then, the question comes with: Should the higher powers that be make it possible to increase the exposure of the sentient animal, what would happen if the animal were to be exposed with members of their own species and how would that affect them? Views of Us Obviously at this point, if the publicity of the animals being sentient were widespread much time after the initial creation, they would already be in contact with us, and a sense of trust would be deeply ingrained between the human handlers that work with the animal, and the animal itself. Would the innate culture of the animal place emphasis on height? Obviously, normal animals receive information on physical cues given by other animals in place of spoken communication, so would the actions of a few unaware people denote signs of...

It's very possible that in the mark to create new sentient species can also grant them the ability to read, write, and perform arithmetic. In which case, more cerebral densifying needs to be done. Allow me to dispel some certain things about using only 10% of our brains. As far as we know, there are some individuals who, in certain cycles can activate 100% of their brain. Such an instance is what medical experts call a seizure. So then what happens in the event we decide to give animals the ability to read and write on top of speaking and coherently understanding spoken word? Should this be the case, major steps toward increased intellect, then this would mean a lot bigger girth of independence for any augmented species. Plausibility It would be natural to think that if an animal knows how to speak, then it would now how to read, and by extension, write. But given that humans should be proficient at writing. If that were really true, dyslexia wouldn't exist. So by that n...

Where would the impulse lie to spread awareness of a sentient animal? If you have been following my posts, you would know the awareness was widespread enough. Everyone knows. Everyone is cognizant of the experiments that lead to sentient animals being created. However, the depth of knowledge would most definitely be superficial. Somewhere along the lines of the fact there exists one, the lab or research facility that created it, and possibly the name of the scientists and researchers and the creature itself would be common knowledge. But what steps would the facility take to protect the creature in such travels? What would each conference be about, whether it's to an audience of research professionals, or a regular (and somewhat) exclusive public audience? Creature's Willingness Something that's become a common theme of this thought experiment is asking if the creature for its opinion on the matter. Strange but true. We are aware some animals and some individua...

Where would the impulse lie to spread awareness of a sentient animal? If you have been following my posts, you would know the awareness was widespread enough. Everyone knows. Everyone is cognizant of the experiments that lead to sentient animals being created. However, the depth of knowledge would most definitely be superficial. Somewhere along the lines of the fact there exists one, the lab or research facility that created it, and possibly the name of the scientists and researchers and the creature itself would be common knowledge. But what steps would the facility take to protect the creature in such travels? What would each conference be about, whether it's to an audience of research professionals, or a regular (and somewhat) exclusive public audience? Creature's Willingness Something that's become a common theme of this thought experiment is asking if the creature for its opinion on the matter. Strange but true. We are aware some animals and some individuals bet...

Obviously with the new rise of a sentient species, it seems natural to want to move out from the narrow confines of the lab to more open spaces, what should be the considerations for living? Will it be outside or inside? Of course, I think the question depends on who we modify to be granted consciousness which you can already tell will be the subject of today's post. Of course, for this scenario, I'd be assuming there were more than one of a certain species that are indeed conscious animals. Right After the Cage With animal testing, for better or worse, the subject(s) are kept in clean cages where they can hope to anticipate tests that determine, and uphold the fact they are truly sentient. So then, the desire is going to arise to stay out of the cage and in an open environment. I think what is truly remarkable is if the request comes from the animals themselves, suiting the fact they can have distinct preferences and wants, and therefore, vocalize their desire to stay whe...

-A nation is truly divided when neither act of great Heroism nor deepest Tragedy can unify its citizens- What happens on the largely outside aspect of it. What sort of responses would the public and the opposition hold against the rise of new sentients. I already discussed how in the early days of the announcement of such a lab creation the world will instigate various hate groups under possibly religious pretenses or animal rights pretenses (ironic. they should read my blog) and how they can evolve. Social Media Obviously with the shared news being spread all over Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and the like, basic groups will rise up. Anti-GMO pages would be strengthened and opinions would grow polarized. But how far would we end up going? Peaceful and Loud Oftentimes within these movements, slanderous articles and news sites from internet news columns will be shared like wildfire. I can already see the headlines now: Scientists Intend to Replace Humans , Superhu...

This comes from personal accounts, but one thing obviously the most emotionally devastating things to happen is to have a pet die. Whether from old age, or horrific accident, or other sad route, the end of such a beautiful chapter in our lives can shut us down. True story: I was reading Old Yeller in elementary school, hoping for a happy story featuring a dog, lost from the outside and brought into a family. Spoilers lay ahead. Three quarters of the way into the book, my own dog passed away from old age. My younger self was already emotionally fragile, and I myself was devastated. Then I read the end to Old Yeller... Moving On Currently, we have no way to extend life with genetics. If you didn't know already, aging is caused by the process our chromosomes divide to multiply to replenish our body. That being said, this takes a cost as life goes on. Telomeres at the end of our chromosomes become depleted and are the indicative factor of aging. The obvious solutio...

Clearly what I've been doing was focused on what might happen as a result of our ongoing research into recombinant DNA. What was the motivation behind it, and what might happen in the next year. This is more of a tangent with the recent work and how viable it is, and not much a theme into consciousness Insulin One of the least controversial methods of implanting DNA into nonhumans was featuring the work of putting human insulin DNA into bacteria. Normally, the shortage for insulin was widespread and was dependent on blood and insulin donors. And now, we are able to, through the power of millions of bacteria, harvest and distill insulin in enough quantities for an inexpensive cost. (Ignoring the artificial price hike from the distributor company management.) This raises nearly no questions of ethics because bacteria, some of the simplest organisms on Earth, are not capable of assembling themselves to work through to create a consciousness. That comes with another interesting ...

Sad but true, I am posting this late at night, at home. I am usually the type of person who will take a nice long walk alone to various places. ideally, I would walk through the hills of San Francisco or the rolling beaches of Huntington Beach, or Orlando, or even the loud bustling streets of New York. This gives me so much chance to think, which sort of brings me to the subject for tonight. Before, I was always focused through how the world would see a first sentient animal. When I say bottom up, I mean to turn the tables and think about what the animal would see. What are his or her impressions of life, and what could be present in their minds and consciousness? It's honestly tempting to take a break from myself and try to post this blog from the point of view of said animal. But admittedly, that would be hard to do. And I feel the better purpose of this post was to take a look the usual way. Edit: Then again, I might be wrong Learning and Growth Interestingly enough, t...

Last post , I talked about how the first animal was created, the one to have consciousness. I touched on how this will affect the courts, and how every legal document would have to be changed to accommodate the new species. And as a parallel event, the turmoil that is caused by the public realization and acceptance (and lack thereof) that there is an animal capable of creating their own unique thought like a human is. How would it play out if the animal was a pet species? I also touched on an early societal events sparked by the announcement including but limited to the social movements immediately born after the event. The endless news stories, periodicals, and blogs that touch on this. What will I be doing when the event happens? Nonetheless, now we can take a look on the global level. For this hypothetical, I will stay with the assumption the United States are the ones to create the animal. The World and the United Nations Say what you want about the United Nations, inte...

The deed is done. A supposed animal now has consciousness deep within the confines of a lab is now somewhat or fully able to reason, think, and communicate. While actually forming the words with a distended mouth may be a harder event to think about, the final ruling is official. Of course, now the wide effects have to be considered. Can these animals be considered pets anymore? Can they be sold? Would they be able to lead lives of their own, apart from humans. This makes me think that this is where I really want to branch out with the theoretical here. Now into social order, now into law, now into integration. I.e. the stuff I really don't know much about but would like to think about. Not necessarily all in this blog; I'll try to lightly touch on each, but the bigger projects would definitely come later. Courts There's still, turmoil, uncertainty, and excitement everywhere. And bear in mind, a lot of documents will have to be changed as an effect. Should Congress rec...

It seems I'm holding up a bit of a story line. Personally, that's what I wanted. Because what happens next is less scientific and more hypothetical in regards to how a person would react, how the researchers would react. And because it seems like I'm adding new tags all the time, and hardly reusing old ones. And lastly, as terrible as it sounds, how the world and media would react. After supposedly a few trials where an animal, dog, cat, tiger cub, wolf, cow, or any type of animal would affect the entire lab. "I Passed?" Brain scans are  the more obvious way to analyze the workings of what happens in the brain. MRIs, which emit radio ways to the brain in a super strong magnetic field. (Why did I include that in there? Because that was the only takeaway from a bioimaging class I had.) It would be necessary to compare the brain activities in the frontal lobe to see how well they mirror humans' brains. And of course, there would be a plethora of tests. And...

An internet board of college or high school memes will often feature consistent content about tests and the like. How obsessive they are, how continuous they are, and how endless they are. Seeing as a new animal will achieve consciousness will be tested, its... something to mark a new era of humanhood to an animal... with a test. Specifically, which ones? This is probably the most famous test in establishing higher consciousness and what we call a qualia. A qualia, in some terms, is the definition of the receiving of consciousness. It's actually hard to define, because unfortunately, it's so innate. It's so normal. It's so... us. And not all animals have it. The lower animals only seek to carry out their life instincts, and what is often unchanging life instruction to achieve homeostasis. The kingdom Cnidaria and Porifera, (basically jellyfish and sponges) both have very loose networks of neuroganglion that can communicate and receive environmental stimuli. But what d...