Are we animals, or something else?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Monday, June 3, 2024 14:47
VIEWED: 10390
PAGE 11 of 12
"My point is, the cat would not comprehend my mentality at all ..."
They comprehend enough to manipulate you into doing things for them. And - and it depends on the cat - they can even try and 'talk' as they observe humans to do. I had a cat do that, others have had a cat and a dog each repeatedly do the same things - something I've observed personally.
Here's where house cats' thinking falls down, and that is with feet, hooves, and tires. (Though they do understand claws and teeth.) They don't seem to realize that those are attached to large moving objects up above them. They get underfoot, get trampled by horses and run over by cars in high numbers. It's a real deficit in their conceptualization. They don't seem to have that category in their brains.
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Niki
I don't mean to say we can fully understand the motivations of animals - for example, what is it that causes an elephant to 'go rogue'; a group of dogs to attack, kill and partially eat an owner; or a killer whale to drown a trainer - but we can read their emotions. Are they feeling aggressive ? Trustful ? Anxious ? etc
Though some animals are much harder to read than others - for example the intense interest I received from a beluga whale when I talked to her. To this day I don't know if it was a friendly, neutral or unfriendly interaction from the whale's point of view.
At the time I was VERY tempted to put my arm out over the water. I had the very strong impression that something would have happened if I had done that. But I didn't know if I would be merely contacted or pulled in - the interaction was completely ambiguous from my point of view - so I never tried.
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Just a giggle: Had a book once, called something like "Field Guide to Roadkill". Funnier than hell; rather than photos of different species, it had silhouettes of what they looked like once squashed.
The entry on 'possums made me giggle. Something along the lines of (short version) "The 'possum's main defens is playing dead. It doesn't work too well, however, against things like the Ford Mustang..."
Dogs manipulate us as well, don't kid yourself. Pets learn so much about us from the things we either don't notice or only notice subconsciously; body posture, facial expression, smell, tone of voice...both dogs and cats know how to use these to their advantage. Sometimes huskies seem more like cats than dogs in this respect. It often takes thinking to outsmart them.
"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
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Kirkules
But back to the great apes topic - of COURSE we didn't evolve from chimps ! What is claimed is a common ancestor - nothing more.
There is a large gap of ~14 M years (I think that's a current number) in great-ape / human evolution. A lot could have happened in that time.
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Just wanted to test the waters here. Some think we are above animals- that we are unique due to our superiour intelligence, opposable thumbs, souls or whatnot.
Others (like myself) feel that we are merely well-groomed talking chimps, with no exclusive franchise on "souls" or varieties of intellect.
"We are all animals, my Lady."
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
ChrisisAlldrunk,
Every thing you state people "feel" is a scientific fact or a major religious belief,
But not one thing you "feel" has any bases in anything.
I've never even heard a Darwinist say we are talking chimps(common ancesters), "varieties of intellect"? What?
Nice try. You come off as a baiting douche on this one.....Must have been some kind of day for you to post this crap......Well, it's true......and I 'm sure you knew that.
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Rue: You post went up while I was posting, so I didn't see it right off. I get your point, and agree. Wish I'd been there with the beluga, tho'--tho' on the other hand, probably not. I WOULD have stuck my hand out...and heaven knows what the result might have been!
My experiences with dolphins and whales have always been good, luckily, so I'm probably pretty stupid about situations like that!
"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
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I don't know if you remember me posting about it on another thread - it was at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Whatever it was, it was EXTREMELY unusual and very intense, given that not much was 'happening'.
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Oh man, don't even get me started on them possums..
Firstoff, one of em is a friggin monster mutant or something, she's *HUGE*, like, big as the damn raccons kinda huge, imma try to get a picture for ya if I can catch her close enough.
Worse is that because of the wildlife population problem caused by a lack of natural predators, since our presence at night seems to have run em all off - we got 3-5 of em runnin around near the buildings, and what with them and the raccoons I worry about someones dog getting into it with em and so have been tasked by the complex to chase em away from the buildings, since DNR will apparently throw a fit if the maintenance dept was given leave to knock them off.
Well, apparently possums are capable of making quite a bit of verbal noise if they want to, and I got seriously cussed out TWICE last night by her, her mate, and one of the smaller ones on the other side, for chasin em off.
Would that I could lure an owl here, the fox won't come back over this far no more, but an owl might do for some of that plethora of bunnies, although how he'd even LIFT one of the fat little boneheads is beyond me - although since they've become fat, stupid and lazy without predator pressure, they'd be easy pickins.
Oh, and if you do wanna keep rabbits, gophers and other wildlife out of your garden, put some castor bean plants at the edges, that'll discourage em some, as will a few drops of ammonia or burying a chunk of used cat litter nearby - the latter scent emulates fox pee, and that's one thing that'll scare em off well enough.
-F
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I found that all interaction with dolphins and whales is intense, to me at least. There's such intelligence (and humor) behind the eyes, it's disconcerting and very touching.
When we did night walks with rescued whales and dolphins, it felt like such an honor that they put themselves in our hands and let us walk them around to keep their blowholes free when they were too sick to do it themselves. Unlike the seals and sea lions we rehabbed, it truly felt like they trusted us.
For one thing, we had to "board" and jump on seals and sea lions to hold them down to treat them--usually took four or five people on even a subadult seal or sea lion. But I walked pilot whales and dolphins around tanks all by myself, it only took one person tho' they were still quite strong enough to hurt me...they trusted us, in some way they understood we were there to help.
And that dolphin we were supposed to swim with as he got better, to give him the feeling of someone being there with him. He teased and teased me to grab his dorsal so he could pull me around--he was still a bit weak (tho' not much) and should have been swimming around getting stronger, but he WANTED to play with me so badly that he kept putting his dorsal under my hand as I sculled until I gave in and let him pull me through the water (getting in DEEP shit for doing so!).
Domesticated sea lions, yes, they're very friendly and enjoy putting on antics and the laughter of the crowd--but not wild ones; tho' some do tease divers, you never know what to expect. It's damned rare when a whale or dolphin in the wild harms a human, and less rare are the stories of them interacting and even protecting or saving them.
I guess all of that is what formed my prejudice in their favor, despite the fact that it's not always valid. I'm convinced that recent killing had to do with the fact that the killer whale involved never worked with humans. Doesn't explain it fully, but I think that was part of it, personally.
By the way, I rarely get into other threads, as Firefly is something I don't find much to talk about, given how long ago and how much has already been hashed over. I'm pretty much exclusively here, where I enjoy new topics and discussions and debates. So I'd love to read your account of that encounter, if you could tell me where I could find it.
"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
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Niki
It sounds like you did what I dream of doing.
I wish I could remember the thread - to recap:
I was at the Shedd Aquarium and they were doing their last demo for the day about belugas - what they eat, how they communicate etc. At the end everyone else in the audience got up and left. I don't know whatever possessed me, but I stayed and decided to go down to the railing and literally TALK to the whales (there were three belugas). I thought about what they would hear well and it occurred to me that they would either be attuned to low pitches (carries well in water) or high pitches (communication). So I pitched my voice higher, like baby-talk. And one of the belugas spy-hopped for the whole 15 minutes I was there, just staring at me. Never once did she take her eyes off of me or change position in the water. (Though for a while she turned her head to look at me with one eye, and a few minutes later turned her head to look at me with the other eye, then resumed looking at me with both eyes.)
I have NO idea what transpired. But I was SO tempted to put my hand out - I just had this gut feeling that if I did, something would have happened.
One of the trainers was standing nearby watching the whole thing. Afterwards she remarked that she had never seen anything like that before.
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