Consciousness of Animals, page 2

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reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 10:25 AM by Live2Love

Great thread OP.

Are there anymore stories of animals behaving with increased consciousness? I don't have any animals unfortunately, I'm allergic but I love cats and dogs like crazy. I guess I'm living vicariously through these stories. More please. More, more.

I would star and flag this but haven't learned how to yet.

reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 10:34 AM by Solomons

I believe all animals have a *level* of conscious...dogs are pretty stupid though in all honesty...pigs outsmart them...but,as everyone should know,the great apes imo are very much near us in level of knowing self imo.In fact if you have ever seen a 2 or 3 day old baby gorilla,shipping it half way across the world imo is actually worse than shipping a 2 or 3 day human baby,they are far more aware of their surroundings than a human child of the same age.Ive always been an advocate of many primates having the right of a person...not human rights,but still the right of a conscious intelligent being capable of emotion and understanding.

reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 10:37 AM by mystiq

Its not instinct in the least. When scientists decided that animals had no altruism and lived by intincts, they did so as a credo. In other words, without conducting extensive experiments and observations. Credo is not science, it never has been. Lately there has been research, field observations and experiments done. Even Wolf Spider's display altruism, ie. they will rescue a baby that is not their own.

www.emagazine.com...

As a scientist who’s studied animal emotions for more than 30 years, I consider myself very fortunate. Whenever I observe or work with animals, I get to contribute to science and develop social relationships at the same time, and to me, there’s no conflict between the two. While stories about animal emotions abound, there are many lines of scientific support (what I call “science sense”) about the nature of animal emotions that are rapidly accumulating from behavioral and neurobiological studies (from the emerging field called social neuroscience). Common sense and intuition also feed into and support science sense and the obvious conclusion is that mammals, at the very least, experience rich and deep emotional lives, feeling passions from pure and contagious joy during play, to deep grief and pain. Recent data also shows that birds and fish are sentient and experience pain and suffering. Prestigious scientific journals regularly publish essays on joy in rats, grief in elephants and empathy in mice.

The bottom line is that we know more about animal passions then we often admit, and we can no longer ignore the pain and suffering of other beings. Many people in higher education are faced with difficult questions about the use of animals in their classrooms and research laboratories and today we must accept that there are compelling reasons stemming from scientific research to limit and perhaps stop using animals in lieu of the numerous highly effective non-animal alternatives that are readily available.

In scientific research there are always surprises. Just when we think we’ve seen it all, new scientific data appear that force us to rethink what we know and to revise our stereotypes. For example, spindle cells, which were long thought to exist only in humans and other great apes, have recently been discovered in humpback whales, fin whales, killer whales and sperm whales in the same area of their brains as spindle cells in human brains. This brain region is linked with social organization, empathy and intuition about the feelings of others, as well as rapid gut reactions. Spindle cells are important in processing emotions. It’s likely that if we seek the presence of spindle cells in other animals we will find them. Speaking of whales, there’s also a story about a humpback whale who, after being untangled from a net in which she was caught, swam up to each of the rescuers and winked at them before swimming off. The rescuers all agreed that she was expressing gratitude.

Neuroscientific research has also shown, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), that elephants have a huge hippocampus, a brain structure in the limbic system that’s important in processing emotions. We now know that elephants suffer from psychological flashbacks and likely experience the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Furthermore, all mammals (including humans) share neuroanatomical structures (for example, the amygdala and hippocampus) and neurochemical pathways in the limbic system that are tied to feelings

And who would have imagined that laboratory mice are actually empathic? But we now know they are. Research has shown that mice react more strongly to painful stimuli after they observe other mice in pain, and it turns out that they are fun loving as well...

When Elephants Weep was a bestseller. I loved that book!

Science is a method of inquiry, not a credo. From the beginning, this should have been approached as a question and then studied. Now that it is beginning to be researched, the answers are not what the PTB have pushed us to believe so they could rape and pillage.

reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 11:02 AM by amatrine

This is gonna sound crazy but I swear it is true.

I have a siamese 10 year old cat. He is very smart.
Every morning since he was a kitten he sits on the side of the tub with me when I take a bath.

As a joke , I said to him one day, OK, I know you are smart, give me 2 meows.
He meowed twice. He can do this all the way up to 7 . I can mix and match it, and when I say give me 5 meows, he meows 5 times.

I then took it a step further. I said one meow for yes and two meows for no.
I asked him, do you like to go outside. Got one meow. I asked him do you miss Majestic ( our cat that passed) one meow. Then I asked, do you want to go car car? ( he hates the car) got two meows. I thought , no way, so I asked questions again, and got the same responses. It really freaked me out.

I wish I had a video camera. He has health issues now, and I want to record this before he passes. Every day now though we do the counting game. He will meow on command any number up to 7.

reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 01:52 PM by Tallsorts

Amatrine, your Siamese is very fortunate that he/she didn't pick a human dumbo to live with. Your counting games are delightful to hear, and your puss is a real treasure.

When you meet a domestic cat, look at them and close your eyes and open them again. This means roughly that you mean them no harm, you are not frightened of them and they have no reason to fear you. You should then get a response by the cat closing their eyes briefly.

Then stick the tip of your tongue out and withdraw it quickly. In these circumstances, this means 'Hello'. The usual response is for the cat to stick out their tongue briefly to signal 'Hello' to you. If you haven't met that cat before, you may have to repeat these to obtain a response.

Like humans different cats are at different stages of their evolution, and I suspect that yours is getting close to their first human incarnation.

reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 02:14 PM by SailorinAZ

reply to post by mrwupy

I agree with you. I think some things are instinctual, but animals are getting smarter, especially dogs. Dogs are actually becoming more human like in their thinking, etc. Supposedly, it is due to them being pets for so many hundreds of years or more. I remember reading about this recently and it was from a valid scientific study. Wish I could post a link or something.

reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 02:23 PM by bigfoot1212

i have 2 cats- one named kitty and the other named 2. kitty is 2 years older and loves to go outside whereas 2 doesn't. they are housecats and only time i let kitty out is on a leash. she escaped once for about a week and 2 just sulked around and cried. i wish they could talk because they know everything that goes on. and i do construction and i once saw a doe teaching it's fawns to look both ways before they crossed the road. she walked up and looked both ways then nudged the fawn and when it didn't look she bit it on the neck and dragged it back. so do believe animals have some sort of intelligence and conciousness and not just what they are trained to do. they might not be as smart as us but they are to some degree. and i'm not a peta person- i love to hunt- but just sitting in the woods and watching animals is a killer experience. you see all kinds of stuff. try it sometime you will see stuff you never thought just bring a camera if you don't hunt

reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 02:36 PM by Sonya610

Originally posted by ashamedamerican
The reason I kept my dog outside was because he was a 95% pure Siberian Husky and I was told by my veterinarian that it wasn't good to keep a dog that pure indoors.

This wasn't a fully domesticated dog, or I should probably say that his breed wasn't fully domesticated. I even spoke with other Husky owners and they all confirmed what the vet told me, that a dog like him shouldn't be kept indoors.

The most "natural" thing for a dog is to be a part of a pack. Period. They do NOT live by themselves in the wild given a choice, they are very social creatures.

Psychologically they are shunned "outcasts" if they are not allowed to be a part of a pack/family, it is the worst fate imaginable in their world. Many breeds cannot handle living outside, but even those that can handle it should not be alone.

reply posted on 8-12-2008 @ 04:29 PM by ashamedamerican

reply to post by Sonya610

He wasn't alone I spent a ton of time with him every single day, that dog was my best friend for a long time. I'm not the type of person who would just leave a dog outdoors without attention, this dog went with me everywhere I could possibly take him, he was my sidekick.
I probably should clarified this better but the reason I was told that he should have an area that was 'his domain' with no other animals allowed into that area was after one day that a neighbors dog managed to jump the fence into our yard. My dog, being the alpha male he was decided to 'show him who was boss' and force him to be subordinate. Needless to say due to the size and strength of my dog, my neighbors dog was in pretty rough condition when I realized what was happening and stopped him. This dog was so big that if he ever felt inclined to do so he could have probably killed me in a matter of seconds, but I had absolutely no fear of him, he was subordinate to me and only attempted to assert his alpha male behavior on me once. I quickly put 'the kai bosh' on that (without hurting him) and ever since that day he was like a 150 pound kitten in my presence.

I understand that he was a semi-wild dog with a pack mentality and very social behavior but it's not like I went out into the wild and captured him. As for him not being able to live outdoors he absolutely loved it, on the days with the worst snowstorms I can remember he would be frolicking and playing in the snow. There were times that I would go out to take him for a walk and he wouldn't be in his doghouse, I would then suddenly be jumped by a snowbank, he would literally forsake his house and lay next to it and allow the snow to pile on top of him until all that was exposed was his nose. On the other hand when he was brought indoors, even as a puppy, he would act very strangely almost as if being indoors was causing him mental stress. He would pace back and forth near the door whining and whimpering and would never seem to relax until he was allowed back outdoors.

[edit on 8-12-2008 by ashamedamerican]

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