Real World Event Discussions

Are we animals, or something else?

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Monday, June 3, 2024 14:47
VIEWED: 10390
PAGE 8 of 12

NIKI2

Friday, March 19, 2010 10:47 PM

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

KPO

Friday, March 19, 2010 10:55 PM

Quote:
Linking 'soul' to mentation falls short in too many instances.

And then of course, how do you prove that it even exists.

I'm talking about the 'soul' as the seat of thoughts and emotions. It exists to the extent that humans and animals have thoughts and emotions, and if not in the brain then where...?

Quote:
In the first case then those people without mentation - and any severely brain-damaged person fits that description - can be said to have lost their 'soul'.

I have to tread carefully hear as don't want to upset people, but with dementia for example, I have heard relatives talk about having 'lost' their loved one long before actual death.

Quote:
BTW I have had my cat look me straight in the eye - something not instinctual to cats - and try to talk to me with plaintive, soft, highly modulated meows.

I like animals, and I don't want to burst bubbles, but I think humans project human psychology onto pets and animals allllllll the time.

Heads should roll

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, March 19, 2010 11:20 PM

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Asiatic wild ass 56

Is it bad that I was expecting a picture of Kim "the pufferfish" Jong-il under that one ?

-F

KIRKULES

Friday, March 19, 2010 11:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
kirkules :"Recent discoveries in anthropology may show that we are not great apes at all as has been to most logical assumption in the past."

Rue: FWIW - humans are great apes. We share blood s types, major histocompatibility sites, and humans share roughly 98% genes with chimpanzees. Humans have one pair of chromosomes fewer than chimpanzees and gorillas. However, human gene # 2 can be shown to be a fusion of two chimpanzee genes - from banding pattern, size, genetic content and the presence of a vestigial extra centromere in the human gene.

from various texts not available on-line -
however, you can check these fact by doing a quick google search

There is no doubt in my mind that we are closely related to the chimpanzee, but the question is which came first the chimp or the upright walking hominid. The jury is still out on whether the hominid from the link below is a chimp ancestor, human ancestor or neither. It does however introduce the possibility the our earliest ancestor predated the great apes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahelanthropus_tchadensis

"Sahelanthropus may represent a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees; no consensus has been reached yet by the scientific community. The original placement of this species as a human ancestor but not a chimpanzee ancestor would complicate the picture of human phylogeny. In particular, if Toumaï is a direct human ancestor, then its facial features bring the status of Australopithecus into doubt because its thickened brow ridges were reported to be similar to those of some later fossil hominids (notably Homo erectus), whereas this morphology differs from that observed in all australopithecines, most fossil hominids and extant humans."

Another possibility is that Toumaï is related to both humans and chimpanzees, but is the ancestor of neither.

RUE

Saturday, March 20, 2010 12:17 AM

"I'm talking about the 'soul' as the seat of thoughts and emotions."

But when you claim only humans have 'souls' you are doing so without any understanding of the thoughts and emotions experienced by other species. If you don't know that, how can you claim they have no souls ?

"I think humans project human psychology onto pets and animals allllllll the time."

And human interpretation of animals happens to be generally true for good reason. Higher animals must be able to read other animals. It's necessary within the species and between species. Friend or foe ? Predator or harmless visitor ? Anyone who has watched a cat stalk a bird AND THE BIRD WATCH THE CAT knows this is true (or, for a more exotic example, a zebra watch a lion). There is mutual observation and interpretaton going on.

I just finished watching a special on Temple Grandin, the autistic veterinarian who could keenly 'read' animals (though interestingly, not humans.) I have also seen studies done on other animals and the signals they give off though their eyes, ears, mouths, nostrils, stance, attention, agitation and other visual non-verbal communication. Those signals are clearly interpretable though with some species you must watch closely.

I’ve also been told by several veterinarians that they must depend on the pet owner to describe what the problem is, b/c the pet – if well cared for – will display signs of weakness that s/he won’t display when feeling defensive; and b/c the owner - if s/he is attentive – will know when the pet is acting out of his/her normal range of behavior and will be able to at least assign a general description (listless, weak, hostile).

There is far more real communication going on than you give credit for.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

SIGNYM

Saturday, March 20, 2010 1:08 AM

There was a book (Plague Dogs) and somewhere near the beginning- maybe even in the preface- there was a poetic discussion about how animals feel. I can't possibly do it justice, but what it said was something like: It's HUMANS who don't feel. We have a long-remembered past, we envision a future, we have rationalizations by which we explain our feelings, comfort ourselves, put it in context.

But animals feel everything as if there was no past and no future, no choices and no context. They feel a lifetime in a moment. We should never think that animals can't feel, because sometimes that is all they do. And because of that, we should be more careful of their feelings than our own.

I would add... very similar to children.

CHRISISALL

Saturday, March 20, 2010 1:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:

I would add... very similar to children.

Exactly similar.
All my adult pain can be traced back to careless smacks I received as a kid. And the careless smacks I witnessed perpetrated upon my Mother.
Lack of empathy might have made me another Cheney.
I escaped that course.
Mostly.

God help another mugger targeting me, though. In my teens I was much more lenient. Now I might seek more permanent damage in my rage.
But maybe not...

*catharsis over*

The laughing Chrisisall

"I only do it to to remind you that I'm right and that deep down, you know I'm right, you want me to be right, you need me to be right." - The Imperial Hero Strikes Back, 2010

CHRISISALL

Saturday, March 20, 2010 1:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

There is far more real communication going on than you give credit for.

Less communication of any worth goes on between most humans IMO.
Except hostility.
My cats bite me when I play too rough, but then lick me in the same minute when they remember they love me.

Lucky I'm not an Incredible Shrinking Man, eh?

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, March 20, 2010 1:48 AM

Temple knows his stuff, oh yes.

I couldn't even come as close to describing it as you two did, but yes, animals are psychologically, very, very different from us.

That doesn't mean they can NOT be understood, or that they are unwilling to make themselves understood by us - most feline vocalisations are in fact an effort to communicate with us, since we're as a rule (according to the cat) half blind and dumber than dirt about reading inter-cat communication like scent and body language.

And even IF you can make the connection, your ability to communicate back is very limited cause you have a different physical form, the body language doesn't work so well, you lack the right scents or even detection of em, etc etc.
Not to mention you really can't apply most human concepts since the whole "mind" you are trying to tune into is so very different from our own.

That said, communication IS possible, IF they wanna communicate with you - which often as not, they don't - seen from an animal perspective we're friggin obnoxious.

-F

CHRISISALL

Saturday, March 20, 2010 1:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
seen from an animal perspective we're friggin obnoxious.

BUT, we do feed 'em!