Do animals have a coinsence?

Post Reply New Topic

Well? i don't think they do. i mean isn't that what gives humans the ability to speak and relate to others and such? do animals have it better off because they won't know what will happen to them in 5 minutes let alone the next day???? i say yes.

I would say that animals lack the intellectual complexity to really have a conscience as we would consider it. I don't think that the human conscience is the source of our strength so much as the result of our intellectual capability, human communication is just a result of how we are a social species but it is arguable that without a conscience of some form we would not be able to exist as species. As humans we have conflicting desires and can formally express our beliefs on them and such where animals would not. I would say that animals are not better off though, there are certain advantages to being an animal but I think that being human is a better package.

I take it you mean the ability to feel remorse etc.? I'd say they do, but I don't think it's related to the specifically defined ways we use it in, i.e. along the lines of "rationality". Dogs e.g. usually behave as if they have a conscience when they get a signal from the alpha male that they've done something wrong. They probably don't have any specified moral values like we do, but it's emotions that controls it all, applied to a nervous system capable of processing survival instincts, which all entities with an ego must have in order to continue regenerating their organisms. This means they have a feeling that "something is wrong and I shoúld try to change" whenever an "immoral" act has been undertaken, and that has nothing to do with the ability to be rationally reasonable, but is, as said, rooted in emotions. They're simply different ways of looking at the same basic principle of survival. It's about the principle of alignment in order to adapt and overcome, or succumb to the forces of the group having turned against the individual - stick or stay.
Btw, I say "rationality" above within quote marks (when applied in this context), because the only thing it represents is the ability to use some kind of logical deduction applied to political correctness, which can just as easily be expressed through the medium of feelings or abstract insights (something in between imo), for the reason given immediately above.

animals just behave the way they are programed to. (i doubt they second guess themselves and have mental problems) although i have seen some domesticated animals with clear signs of mental problems. but wild animals like deer, just go with the flow, and if they get hit by a car and die i don't think they worry about where they will spend the rest of eternity. see what i mean?

I think some animals are conscious in the way say like a ret*d person is conscious, they function at a level of crude consciousness but they simply do not reason in a complex fashion, after all if they were as smart as human's they would have figured out a way to communicate via language, human beings have a remarkable ability to learn a language in a foreign culture once they live there long enough. I'd say MOST animals do not experience consciousness they are just robots. I certainly do not believe bugs are conscious for example. In that the react but killing a bug or small rodent is the same as me crushing a stone, it has no sensation like a human, just a response.

Like when most of us were very young children we weren't aware of our existence or "have consciousness" until our brain had developed 3-4 years after we had been born.

Some humans don't have a conscience.

I don't think animals do, really. I doubt they feel bad if they do something that they have been taught is wrong.

But they might, I mean, if dog gets caught eatinga cake when it knows it's been taught not to, then it gets told off, some dogs would wimper and run off and hide under their blanket?

To quote my 4 year old nephew "people are animals". So yes animals have a
"conscience". In a million years your dogs offspring may be typing on a computer
forum asking "do cats have a conscience?" We are just a machine.

Back when Shed, my lizard was still alive, she had a small crack in her cage she could fit through (it was because the lid couldn't close completely due to the wire for the heat rock). Once, my Mom caught her sitting on top of the cage. Sheddy, upon seeing Mom, quickly dashed back inside the cage, even though we never punished her for anything.

well humans are animals? the difference is we have the intelligence to lie and complicate things. maybe this is what created this whole "conscience" and right/wrong bs in the first place?

The are unaware or careless of the impact of their actions beyond themselves or what they consider vital to their continued survival. They have no actions and thoughts outside of instinct (maternal instinct isn't love for them).

Maybe. Do you mean that the only thing that gives a conscious sense of moral is society in order to point out that society is in some way flawed in that attitude?
My attitude to the whole question of whether or not animals have souls where humans do, if they have consciousnesses and so on is that it's pretty pointless, because I look at it analogously, not "here ends humanity and over there be dragons", but simply more and more and more complexity in regulation systems, but I think the behaviour of not killing/hurting unless you have to (desperation, fear, hunger, etc.) is inherent in everything in the universe (even in minerals!). It's a fundamental drive that is easier to see if we look at it strictly physically: particles want to unite with each other. They can't unite unless they compromise/cooperate. Simple as that afaict.

I would say that you should get to know an animal before opening your opinion on this one. The idea that beings that lacks our communication methodology and our looks are inferior, are the basis of all prejudices. What you are saying about animals is like saying - like some psychiatrists and amateur neurologists - that people born with autism lacks feelings or something equally stupid.

Different kind of animals have different intelligence levels. Dolphins and dogs are really intelligent for example, while insects more or less seems to have only a sense of survival. Neurologists marks out that all spine-based animals have the same basic brain construction, even though reptiles only have the most primitive and basic parts of the brain. The brain of the monkey have exactly the same components as the brain of the human being.

But yes, animals, does not have feelings, because I am a human being, not an animal.

And women does not have feelings either, because I cannot judge if they have the same feelings as you or if they just copiate the feelings of men.

And you do not have feelings, because I cannot feel or think of you.

Solipsism and dualism, death to them both.

Wait, is that a joke or are you claiming a moral similarity between ourselves and dogs? I mean, I understand that you may like animals and that some of his logic might be somewhat fallacious in your eyes, however, the all out statement of moral similarity in judging an animal to have a weaker mind in some ways to judging a human being to be inferior seems to just be drawing a false similarity. After all, animals are not members of our society and do not hold the same status as a brother or sister or anything of that nature, after all, a few individuals here do eat animals.

This is not about whether or not animals have feelings, this is about animal moral structures and is more of an issue of conjecture and thought than anything else. After all, it is hard to say whether or not an animal would have what we would consider a conscience if only due to the abstract nature of such a thing.

This has little to do with solipsism, as the author has accepted the existence of other thinkers and even addressed them(the forum), which is something a solipsist would hardly see a reason to do. In fact, the author even acknowledges the existence of some level of thought in animals, only indicating that he believes that it is significantly less than our ability. Essentially, what you seek to inject into this conversation is mostly moralism and not an appeal to our logic, after all, you in essence invoked the Aspie version of reductio ad Hitlerum to demean the thinking of your opponent and then attacked his assumptions as evil assumptions without even trying to dispel the real questions or issues of whether or not they have the ability or not. After all, like women and aspies, the limits of an animal's intelligence are hard to determine as they are not things we can directly communicate to, nor can we directly assess such things given the abstract nature of a conscience. We can prove that aspies or women are people, and we can do so with great ease, prove to us the intelligence of animals and we will gladly listen, I seek to pursue the truth as do many others here, but I am not easily persuaded by pathos and rhetoric and would prefer logos and facts.

I do not use Godwin's law, but what I am attacking is the antropocentrism that is prevalent here. The human being is an animal as well, biologically. We cannot use religion or our own superstitious belief about the concept of a non-humanoid animal as a "thing", unless we should act non-partisan and agree that human beings could also be defined as "things" given that logic. Human moralism is just developed pack-mentality for survival. We could agree that other pack living animals also have social rules which results in stigmatisation if broken by any of the members of the pack.

No animals are innocent and cannot commit sin and they go to heaven when they die.

It's easy to underestimate the intelligence of animals. Personally, I think that we're a evoloutionary step above animals, but it's only a step and we shouldn't get above ourselves in thinking that they don't feel or have a sense of self.

Any test we could devise is only going to test if something has the same TYPE of intelligence as ours, which is usually based on communication type intelligence. Aspies of all people should understand that being able to communicate well isn't a valid expression of intelligence.