Animals & Identity (Animals)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 19:50 (4511 days ago)

The other day ... prior to our 4-year-old grandson's departure to the States ... we went on an outing to Bristol Zoo. By good fortune we were there at feeding time for the seals, and this gave rise to some thoughts which may or may not be of interest. The keeper introduced all the seals by name ... this serves the same identifying function as with us, and should not be regarded as anthropomorphism ... briefly described their different characters, and then while his assistant fed the rest, he and the large male "head" of the seal family put on a show. There were all kinds of tricks, involving leaps, acrobatics, and bellyflops (splashing the spectators), each of which was rewarded with a fish.-Nothing new here. We've seen it many times, in life or on film. And that's part of the trouble with much of our thinking. We take for granted whatever is familiar, and we don't delve into the processes involved. (I saw a TV programme a few days ago about the workings of the intestines ... amazingly complex machinery which operates completely independently of our minds.) I've called this thread "Animals & Identity", but the questions raised by the seal show relate just as much to us as to them. -Anyone who has lived with or studied animals will tell you each one has its own identity, just like us, and it's the process linking thought and identity that fascinates me. To learn a trick, a seal must understand instructions, will itself to perform the action, distinguish between different types of action, make the connection between action and reward, and remember that connection for each subsequent occasion. How is it done? And why was this particular seal better at learning tricks than the others? We have two opposing theories about the brain: the materialist version, in which the brain cells produce thought, and the immaterial one, in which the brain is the receiver of signals from some form of unknown energy that contains whatever makes up our identity. I see no way in which we can apply a different approach to animal thinking: either the brain is the source of everything, or animals must have the same unknown energy, albeit on a different scale.-David believes that our minds are different in "kind" not "degree" from those of our fellow animals. This may be important in the context of belief in a divine purpose, but what interests me at the moment is the implication for those who believe in this unknown energy, or "soul". If our thoughts and identity depend on it, then so do those of other animals. If there's a spiritual universe, then, it should contain every seal, gorilla, dinosaur that ever lived. It has to, unless the "soul" either IS the brain, or dies with the brain (in which case it might just as well BE the brain). Some mystics believe that ALL consciousness merges into a great oneness, but that would mean the loss of individuality. It runs counter to reported NDEs, which are the closest we can get to experiencing the non-materialist concept of consciousness and identity. (It also makes nonsense of Christian/Muslim ideas of an afterlife punishment for the wicked and reward for the good ... which may well be nonsense anyway.) If thought and identity are independent of the brain, they must be so for each of us and our fellow animals individually.-We have a choice of unknowns. Either thought and identity are a product generated by material cells in a manner unknown, or they arise from the other unknown: the energy shared by us and our fellow animals. So what the heck would those seal souls do without their bodies? Imaginary jumps? Imaginary consumption of the souls of continuously "reincarnated" imaginary fish? The first unknown is infinitely simpler. But of course, despite Ockham, simplicity is no guarantee of truth.