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Annoyed When People Compare Human Traits w/Animals
Whenever someone mentions a human trait or characteristic and compares it with other animals (i.e. when someone makes a remark along the lines as "dogs are quite like us", etc.), I get quite frustrated. Believe me, I'm quite an animal lover, but it wasn't until recently I began feeling this form of disdain for such remarks. The reasons why are difficult to form into words, but the closest explanation I can come to is because I feel like a unique sentient, and so is every other human being.
So yes, I become depressed and empty when those sort of statements are made around me, even suicidal at times. HELP!
So yes, I become depressed and empty when those sort of statements are made around me, even suicidal at times. HELP!
Do you think it's normal?
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Ya'll need to chill.
I can understand you getting mildly annoyed about it if it's something you feel strongly about, but feeling suicidal about it's not normal. Were you hyperbolising or what? If you were serious, is there anything else going on in your life that could be stressing you out? Sometimes that makes us over-react to the little things.
do you feel less valuable as a human because you are not so unique in the animal kingdom? That's sad. Get over it.
Any one who has owned a dog cat or even pet rat knows that animals have emotions, and that they learn things and figure things out and are not guided "instinct" alone. And they are capable of love. Or, if they aren't, then neither are we.
I think this is more about your lack of consciousness than that of the jellyfish.
it will be interesting to see any scientific study classicalman can cite "proving" that jellyfish do not possess consciousness.
Basic logic, would you like a crash course in it? Pitiful. -_-
*Brrr*, it makes me shudder when primitive instincts in humans are brought up. -_-
It makes ME shudder when people destroy their Earth and don't even realize that what they do to NATURE they do to THEMSELVES. When you ignore your instincts, it means destruction.
We are not the masters of our own design. We are a part of the grand design.
Please, overcome your pride and realize that it only hurts us all.
You're missing the point not at all to my surprise. -_-
I am all for animal rights. I am all for saving our planet.
Yet when it comes to instincts within ourselves, it makes me feel like vomiting. Why? Perhaps a journey inside my mind would answer all your questions (step inside me and you'll never come out the same).
"We are not the masters of our own design."
I disagree to the end. Sorry, but I'm a unique sentient capable of thought transcending the confines of the matrix. End of story.
yet you say " The form of consciousness WE EXPERIENCE(emphasis added and spelling corrected) is the result of the frontal lobes..."
look at and examine your own statement and you MIGHT get a clue into your own mental limitations.
I have to ask, however, what makes you question that we are all part of Earth and the universe, aka the grand design? Is it your "uniqueness"?
Humans have amazing brains. There's no doubt about that. But many animals also have this amazing ability to fly, in the same way we have this amazing mental ability. Salmon have the amazing ability to travel miles and miles back to the very place they were born years and years ago -- isn't that amazing?
We all have our differences that make us great. We are all connected. Now, tell me, is this bad?
If i were him i'd start with authors of classic studies on animal and human behavior such as the austrian naturalist konrad lorenz and the great sociologist desmond morris. that would give this ignoramus a slight glimpse into what he does not know about either humans or other animals.
From there, if i were him, i would read the great works on the nature of consciousness as well as new research and findings on animal and even plant intelligence and consciousness.
because right now classic man is a moron. his pathetic whine about being a "unique sentient" or whatever reminds me of that ape scientist in "Planet of the Apes" who willfully ignores evidence before him so he can declare apes as the only superior beings.
Well, it's good to know you feel as I do, PooLTOY. People get so scared when they discover that "OMG! Maybe I'm NOT so great"...Just look on the news. Are these the rulers of creation? Looks like a pack of wolves ripping up a rabbit...only we have machine guns and tanks.
Truly, are we at all that different?
at least that's what I get from reading some of his other posts.
ROFL Perhaps YOU are the one in need of dire education about OUR own species. If you were to take a trip inside my mind you wouldn't come out the same. You're simply ignoring the point at hand and simply not thinking about what I say. It requires CONTEMPLATION, which obviously is something you lack on this situation. I AM UNIQUE. I AM A MASTER OF MY OWN DESTINY. If you merely knew me, your attitudes would change drastically, GREATER IGNORAMUS.
Anyway, here's the thing: the majority of animals other than us only are what they are and do what their instincts tell them to do. However, we POSSESS A SELF-AWARENESS THAT NO OTHER ANIMAL HAS. It is simply this self-awareness that creates our statuses as unique sentient beings, and permits us to create states of mind that completely and utterly transcend the limits of fundamental instincts. I can prove this by even one simple statement : SEX CONCERNS ONLY 1.5% OF MY LIFE (that's true). Can any other animal declare that? Of course not. And the reasons are obvious.
no doubt.
My cat follows me all over the house because I pet her all the time and it feels good to her. Obviously, her INSTINCTS didn't tell her that -- how could she be born knowing I'll scratch her behind the ears and give her a belly-rub? Obviously, she learned this, which would require thought. This may seem like a silly example, but it's entirely true. Other animals think and learn, perhaps in a more primitive fashion, but learning is learning and thinking is thinking, no matter to what degree it is.
this applies to even what are considered "stupid" animals. I had 2 red eared slider turtles for over 15 years before i donated them to a zoo.
i can tell you that the two turtles had distinct personalities, one was shy but could be quickly aggressive while the other was bold but relatively gentle. The shy aggressive one also figured out how to escape the tank they lived in, and I saw her more than once looking at a part of the tank at a certain area where a bar spanned the top. Sure enough, she made her initial escape by pulling herself over that bar. The other turtle could never figure out how to do that.
I could also tell you how i deductively came to the conclusion that they both possessed SELF CONSCIOUSNESS, but maybe that's for another post.
btw, I studied biology at a university for several years, and have raised many types of animals of various zoological classifications, including insects.
Well, of course you're unique. And yeah, of course you're the master of your own destiny. Anyone could tell you that. Notice I said "masters of our own DESIGN." There's a difference. DESTINY means you control your own life. Entirely true for any living creature. DESIGN means you don't own the world. It's not all for you, you, you. You are part of a great design, called the universe. If you hurt someone else, you'll get hurt, because we are all part of one body.
now the rest of this is towards shaka zulu, the author, (mainly)classicalman and people who share the same thought as them. well your jellyfish idea is invalid at this moment because they dont even have a brain. i dont know if they, or plants or other brainless things, have a feeling or not but that doesnt really matter at this point because at least as of right now that is a epistemological question, but i beleive the one about animals that we can see have reasonable thoughts would be like us in certain ways if not all. ones that have brains but are obviously not very smart like bugs or cows(i dont like cows, live on a farm and you will understand) will not be very similar to us. those that do have rational thought that we can actually prove ,like ravens, chimps, dolphins, parrots, and the list goes on, definatley would be able to think in similar ways and act in similar ways as us. they will not be excatly like us because they have obviously evolved to use their inteligence for different reasons but they still have inteligence nonetheless(and a strong inteligence if i say so myself). i also know, and yes i say know, that many of those non-stupid animals can be self cognitive, for instence a both an elephant, chimp, and crow will use a mirror as we would(more prevalent with a elephant and chimp because the can hold it) but the point is they can look at themselves and know that it is themself and not another thing (some animals think its soemthing else though like my dog he barks at the mirror its kinda funny). there is other things to like what others have said about individual animals having individual feelings which most people who care can distinguish.and of course a majority of other animals do not have selfconcious so much because a majority of them are insects and fish(now some fish could be smart but all i have met are not). if your not talking about the neurological similarities then i beleive we act on our instincts to but you dont think they are instincts because its how you act and how everybody acts. i beleive that more of our world though is based not on instincts and what we were raised with because our period until adulthood is very long and that is one key factor of it. it does not make us sentient or better than anything else it was just our INSTINCT to raise our kids for a long period of time rather than telling them to go get food, show them how to do it , and leave them. the animals that do more than this are most likely the ones that have more of a form of self conciousness than others although i am sure that others do.
besides from arguing(which i hate) i am just going to state the rest of these ideas as if there out in the open because i dont feel like directing them towards your arguments classicalman. so yeah, i do not think that just because we have put ourselves at the top of the food chain means we are better. we have in fact cheated to get where we are as a whole today. i mean cheated as broke the natural order of things and tried to defy the natural rules that are in place. those of balance. we broke it when we started to totaly control all of the factors in our enviroment when we farm. for example, their is a farmer who owns cows(i know how this generaly works in real life to, used to live on one). so in our style of farming first we need to make sure that the cows get food, so we utterly control every factor that is going to affect the grass that the cow eats, like weeding and killing all the plants that try to get in,scaring all of the natural herding animals away from the land etc. then we need to control the things that would normaly eat a cow, like wolves, and we would(and have) hunt them until they werent a threat anymore(or to near extiction) so we can totaly control our food(totaly as in completly not like totaly dude!). thats completly different from the natural order which is in balance. the natural balance is for example using a cat and mouse example. lets say that this one area has a lot of mice in it and their is no natural predator for them in this area and there is no other factors agaist their food that could hinder their numbers. so somehow cats get introduced to this area and eat them as their amin source of food. well the mices numbers would go down of course. now asuming that all of the cats are succseful hunters the numbers would fall below the amount that would be able to support the cats for food, so less cats would be around because they would die of malnourishment or something. so, because their are less cats the mice would have more of a chance to live and therfore reproduce more and their would be more mice. now becasue their would be more mice their would then be more cats and the cycle repeats. for those of you who question the credibility of this cycle take a biology class or something. now what we have done is not broken the cycle by controling our food but made it bigger. we are slowly reaching the point at which our "mice" supply is not going to be able to feed enough people to reproduce in large enough numbers. and because this is a cycle prevalent everywhere in the world i beleive it is definatly going to go on the reverse. now we are making a gigantic upwards turn in the cycle meaning we are going to have a equaly gigantic turn down and because we have made it such a big cycle we have included many other species that are going to unfortunalty follow us down. so this is one, and the main, reason why we are not better than animals but in fact much worse in the regards of what we do. i beleive in many regards we are not similar to animals in the be idea of things but on the smaller points like inteligence or instincts we are very similar.
(sorry to all who actualy read or tried to read through this i know its way to long. i probably woulndt read it bu i thank all those who took the time.)
my main point it in the third part so those who kinda care but not all that much read that part
what do we know or don't know? thats epistomology 101 and also epistomology phd level. but the thing i dont understand is your linkage of "having knowledge" with the worth of being alive. i don't make that same connection. sorry.
haha, that was my original point when you were insisting that "science" had "proven" that certain animals do not have consciousness.
I'm glad we agree. no, i do not think every living thing is the same. i think different living things have different natures and different consciousness. But I also believe there is some degree of commonality in all the variant consciousness and that many of the quality of consciousness that you believe to be uniquely human, are in fact not so.
You're absolutely right, I have yet to find a single piece of information about what lies inside our head. I once heard from a leading scientist doing intense research that there's this thing called a brian or something like that in the head, but I think it's pretty sketchy. It would really be more believable if I could actually find some information about this so-called "brian."
To the author, there are obviously many similarities and dissimilarities between humans and animals. You just need to know which are which if you don't want to sound like an idiot.