Quote:
Originally Posted by jscott
I think i read your sarcasm, quite ingorant, especially an "intelligent" (???) human being as we are, who seem to think animals have no capacity to be aware that death exists. 
Truth of the matter is, same as humans, realizing that they are in a critical situation that is painful, exhausting, torturous and that they are fighting for their life (and actually maybe think they have a chance to live thru it, the thing they do not understand is there is 0% chance they will live thru it)
Bringing pain for entertainment. Can't one find something better to do? |
We are humans not animals. There is very little which is "the same" for humans and animals with respect to brain function and our understanding of the world around us. Most of what we assume about animals experience as humans, also assumes there is a high degree of "consciousness" which there isn't and that the animal is experiencing a wide range of feelings and emotions which it has no capacity to feel or experience. These are our projections based on our own sense of empathy, feelings and emotions which we experience.
We are humans because our brains and its higher level of organization and functionality, separates us from animals, as does its sophistication, its capacity for multitudes of different types of information processing, communication, thinking etc. An animal doesn't need to know about death to avoid death. Like any animal, there is just a hardwired program in the brain (instinct) called "avoid danger". Thats it. A snake has no more of an idea of what death is than a cockroach does.
And i think bull fights are stupid. The emotion about bull fights has nothing to do with the hard facts of human neuroanatomy and brain function. It has to do with the simple path of decision making in the human brain. When presented with the idea of a bull fight or dying animal, our unconscious mental processes (processing this as a moral issue, not a logica;/rational issue), sends a strong feeling of "wrong" to our conscious awareness. We really don't know anything more than that and our rationalizations, however good they may be are simply post hoc rationalizations for a feeling about something, the origins or "reasons" of which, we have no direct access to. The very fact of how our brains processes moral questions unconsciously tells us with certainty that we have no idea if our negative response is due to innate genetic wiring or anything else as we have no ability for our conscious minds to probe those unconscious processes. Instead, we just search for "makes sense" explanations and go on with our day as if we knew it all along.
Much of your whole world is an illusion. Your ideas. Your beliefs. Even your own understanding of reality and amusing need to cling to an idea of an objective reality which doesn't even exist. In the real world, there is no such thing as colors, sounds or smells. Like much of what you think are real, these are simply constructs of the brain. So its a bit silly for you to argue what a cow is "feeling" or "imagining" or that it can actually be "comforted" as its bleeding to death after a traumatic event.
Do i think a bull should be killed for amusement?
No.
Do i think a dying bull can be "comforted" which assumes a wide range of emotions it has no capacity to experience?
No.
A dying animal for the most part knows nothing but "i cant get up". It's not wondering about its sins, an afterlife, its death nor does it have the capacity to ponder death, its meaning and so on.
Incidentally, context is everything. If it was a crocodile that had just ate a baby and someone shot it, the story wouldn't be "poor crocodile is agonizing and dying and needs comfort" and no ones minds would ever go to that place or consider the crocodiles "feelings" if he had them.