Animals Are As With-it as Humans (Animals Are Conscious)

reply to post by smyleegrl


It is a known fact, animals are in no way in possession of even close to the same mental facuties as man. The only people who think so are greenies, that will do anything to change your oppinion.

I mean what are they saying, animals brains have as much potential in a grain of sand as humanbrains in a hand full? Because that makes no sense. Humans haveas much brains at birth, as 1000 dogs, cats, birds, etc to say that we aren't more aware with thousands of times more brains is silly.

reply to post by butcherguy


So very true !! I think we are fairly humane in the way we slaughter animals for food consumption . Maybe the way they are raised and caged or penned is questionable . But at least we our omnivores and our diet is not totally meat !!

How could the slaughtering of stock animals ever be considered "humane" ??! We would never kill and eat a human, would we? If you can't do it to a human, why do it to an animal that we can agree has every desire to prolong its life just as a human would?

reply to post by inverslyproportional


The point is that animals each have unique mental capacities which we may never be able to measure but you can be certain these creatures are aware of themselves, their surroundings and they have emotions, needs, and can organize themselves and make plans, social hierarchies, etc. Don't be so arrogant as to think that your life is more important than any other living breathing creatures, or that the same energy which allows you to exist does not exist in every other living creature. (And plant and meteor and dinner table and on and on)

Originally posted by smyleegrl
reply to post by ollncasino

 

That's very possible. Maybe PETA funded the research, I don't know.

But at the same time, I've had relationships with animals who I swear were very self-aware and displayed consciousness (at least as we know it).

I just think its interesting.

Sentience is highly circumstancial I think. My horse is self aware, and overall just as "conscious" as I am. I don't think that all animals are like this however; although I've met plenty of people that I wouldn't consider sentient or conscious either. I have found many people that are a testimony to my belief that the capacity for speech does not necessarily mean a capacity for sentience.

The criteria for defining things like "awareness", "consciousness", and "sentience" are pretty plastic anyway, and in circumstances where you are applying definitions across species it gets impossible to agree on fundamental definers that can be applied across the board. This is where results get skewed, because researchers (such as they are) can sort of make up, cherry pick, and ultimately agenditize these criteria going in.

So, I'm pretty skeptical about studies that attempt to address this "How much do animals think like we do?" question, regardless of their results. I do suspect the funding for this research. It does sound like it was conducted with a pre-determined agenda already well in place, and damn the actual results. I'm sorry, but as interesting as the question is, this study seems like a lot of hand flapping to me.

reply to post by smyleegrl


I've always thought that animals have a consciousness of who they are, so this is nothing new to me, just confirmation.

But what I have always wondered is do dogs look at a squirrel or fire hydrant and think…Woof! Woof! Of course it would make sense to them, but not to us.

reply to post by TDawgRex


Are you capable of having thoughts that cannot be expressed through the use of your vocal cords? I believe I do and dogs may experience this as well.

Originally posted by jeantherapy
reply to post by TDawgRex

 

Are you capable of having thoughts that cannot be expressed through the use of your vocal cords? I believe I do and dogs may experience this as well.

Of course! Even though I do communicate with my buddies (Some call them pets), I really do wish it were a actual conversation, rather than interpretation.

So far, I seem to be doing pretty well, but I do have plenty of scars on me because I misunderstood from my younger years.

But I've always wondered what a animal actually thinks at any given moment.

Other than Play, Sex, Eat and Sleep.

Oh, and Poop.

reply to post by jeantherapy


That's the way it's been since the beginning of time , is it wrong for a bear or lion or wolf to kill its prey to survive ?

reply to post by rick004


No, I'm just pointing out that the word humane implies treating like a human, but you wouldn't eat another human. Maybe we should call it animane treatment.

Originally posted by redhorse


Sentience is highly circumstancial I think. My horse is self aware, and overall just as "conscious" as I am. I don't think that all animals are like this however;

If one reads the article in question and further ones about this study, it becomes clear that what is being refered to as "consciousness" is affect- the ability to feel; to have emotions, in response to perception.

"Self consciousness" is not exactly the same thing, and not what the study is refering to. It is more widely accepted at this time that certain animals have capabilities of that sort (like primates, elephants, dolphins). The ability to begin separating and "observing the self".... I percieve that that develops much through domestication and human partnership with individual animals.

But general consciousness, or the ability to have emotions and affect, is what is being refered to here, and I personally find it hard to believe that it has taken this long for the general public to acknowledge that!

Though I think that has been caused by a trend in considering emotions as something much more magical than they are- which is, at the base, physiological responses to stimuli of a repulsion or attraction type!

reply to post by jeantherapy


Right -- animals and even plants can think through coherent photon visions.

Just check out quantum biology.

It's now proven that birds use quantum entanglement so that the Earth's electromagnetic fields transmit or communicate consciousness to guide migration.

This same quantum entanglement is called "quasi telepathy" for electric fish using the ampullae of Lorenzi.

This works through the lateral line -- which is like the vagus nerve in humans -- it works through proprioception which connects the inner ear to the pineal gland for vision -- so you have sonoluminescence.

Check out Dr. Mae-Wan Ho's work on quantum biology and the rainbow worm -- Quantum Jazz biology consciousness

So modern humans think of consciousness as left brain language but actually consciousness is right brain holographic coherent photon visions and this can work through plants and animals.

So modern humanity is left brain dominant using right-handed technology that is logarithmic. This is destroying ecology which is right brain dominant using left-handed carbon-based molecules.

Originally posted by jeantherapy
How could the slaughtering of stock animals ever be considered "humane" ??! We would never kill and eat a human, would we? If you can't do it to a human, why do it to an animal that we can agree has every desire to prolong its life just as a human would?

In that we usually perform a strike to their central nervous system via a bullet or steel penetrator to the brain in larger stock or an electrical shock for poultry and such.

Maybe we could 'play' with them for while like cats do before they kill their prey. Maybe we could fashion a pair or mechanical jaws to pull them into a tank of water and drown to imitate the 'humane' methods of our friend the crocodile. We could cut them into pieces slowly like a shark does. Maybe a giant pair of talons to pierce their bodies like the kind eagle.

Or we could imitate the most humane of those caring animals, the Komodo dragon. To do that, we would inoculate the livestock through a bite wound with bacteria and follow them around watching them suffer until they died of sepsis. That would be sweet too.

We do it humanely, compared to those compassionate animals.

reply to post by butcherguy


Again, the word humane actually has the word human in it. Also, I did not say animals killed each other compassionately so I am not sure where that sarcastic comment comes into play.

reply to post by jeantherapy


You asked how the slaughter of livestock could be considered humane. I believe that we are a great deal more humane to livestock that we slaughter than other animals are to each other.

The word humane is used to gauge how we treat animals, I'll use the Humane Society as an example. PETA uses the word 'ethical'. Ethics are determined by the society we live in. Our society slaughters and eats animals, so do many species of animals.

This is Not Big News.

I know animals are conscious. My cat is certainly self aware and not just going through the motions like some controlled zombie.

However, that does not mean we must not use them for science. Humans have dominion over all the animals to use as they see fit. As long as we are not unduly cruel to them, we should be able to use them for testing to help humanity as a whole. iIsee nothing wrong with that at all.

I think your asking the wrong question. You should ask is it wrong to test animals because they have a soul? I don't believe they do as far as religious data goes anyway. Even if they did, by those same tenets, we still have dominion over them to use as we see fit.

Who doesn't know animals are conscious? If you accidentally step on them they scream.

We need to really really really get way more humane slaughter houses than we do now.

People want to talk about slaughtering animals but the real issue is "factory feedlot farming" versus free range animals.

I think that's been clear from the comments here. Some people claim that the factory feedlot slaughter is more humane since an electric prod is used, etc. but what this ignores is the logarithmic or exponential energy growth use of factory farming with the huge cesspools of animal manure.

A proper domesticated animal system has the manure in an aerobic environment with enough carbon to create a healthy compost to give back the nutrition to the plants to feed the animals again. This is why pastures are now using fencing to control how long animals feed in one area and then move the animals off to let the grass regrow - so it's a more intensive rotation system to fertilize the area with animal manure.

So domestication is just as much the animals getting free food and protection from predators by the humans but it needs to be done in a sustainable manner.

This also includes human manure since humans are also animals -- so when I visited the most traditional Berber village of Morocco they herded wild sheep for meat and wool to make clothing but then the Berbers relied on humanure composting to transform the desert sand into fertile fields of vegetables and wheat.

Actually if you look at the history of farming -- what happened is that lime casing was used to water proof the housing and this required burning tons of the forest -- this is back in the origins of large scale farming in Western Asia -- what became the Levant -- around 8,000 BCE. Back then even cattle were not domesticated yet.

So then the ecology was depleted because once the forests are cut down it causes local desertification and so then people were forced to go into a pastoral system using domesticated goats that can survive on more marginal grass lands.

Actually the ancient word for tragedy is tied to the ancient word for goat. The goat pastoralism then led to the desertification -- along with the big wheat farms supplying the Roman Empire but also the limestone casing for the Egyptian pyramids required again vast deforestation.

So yes we can continue to slaughter animals "humanely" in factory feedlots but the mathematics of exponential energy use says this is completely unsustainable. People can say it is fine but it will end no matter what.

As the above video demonstrates -- "zero population growth" will happen.

So we can debate the emotions of animals as consciousness but there is a larger consciousness of ecology that is self-correcting -- just as mushrooms help trees grow by transferring the nitrogen to trees -- from the dead trees to the live trees.

As Lynn Margolis documented symbiosis and cooperation are the key to ecological consciousness -- humans are products of symbiosis with mitrochondria being bacteria that used to live on their own outside the body but now are integrated as part of the consciousness of humans.

We think of consciousness as being some emphemeral thing like self-reference or complex emotions but actually consciousness is integrated into the whole interaction with the environment just as humans need to eat vitamin C and fruit, etc.

Dr. E. O. Wilson's new book -- "The Social Conquest of Nature" completely debunks the "competitive" model of NeoDarwinism whereby consciousness is defined by humans as the "top of the pyramid" that can "dominate" and "control" Nature.



So there is an environmental feedback -- epigenetics -- that express DNA differently even though it is the same DNA passed on through different generations. This creates a "eusocial" environment as a larger "hive" consciousness of humanity. It's not kin selection by competition but instead group selection so that cooperation as consciousness -- quantum coherence - is what enables natural selection and adaptation and evolution.

"Individual selection is responsible for much of what we call sin, while group selection is responsible for the greater part of virtue," he writes in one of the book's bluntest passages. "Together they have created the conflict between the poorer and better angels of our nature."

The Saturday interview: Harvard biologist Edward Wilson

Now all they have to do is realize that human children are conscious beings and we'll be all set.

I think killing animals is a kind of bullying. There really is no need for it in this day and age. We can eat perfectly well without killing to do so.