What Animals Think of Death(aeon.co)
aeon.co
What Animals Think of Death
https://aeon.co/essays/animals-wrestle-with-the-concept-of-death-and-mortality
22 comments
Crows also hold funerals for fallen comrades:
* https://www.livescience.com/53283-why-crows-hold-funerals.ht...
* https://www.audubon.org/news/think-crow-funerals-are-strange...
* https://baynature.org/2020/10/29/flying-in-for-the-crow-fune...
I witnessed this once. A larger than usual murder of crows on the roadside looking at a road-killed comrade. It was surreal.
I generally think we give animals too little cognitive credit, but this argument doesn't convince me. A predator, in finding prey that looks dead, does not have to understand either that death is permanent or that it implies non-functionality. It just has to believe that the prey would probably, if eaten right now, be gross.
It’s likely even simpler than that. Animals live mostly by instinct. Predators usually sneak up on live prey and chase it, whereas scavengers will happily eat animals that are already dead. I’m willing to bet that the “play dead” strategy backfires spectacularly against vultures, for example.
It doesn’t take more than an encounter with a house cat to see how their hunting instincts work. They’re just not triggered by dead things.
It doesn’t take more than an encounter with a house cat to see how their hunting instincts work. They’re just not triggered by dead things.
There is some evidence that cows feel fear just before the slaughter process, and we know from their grieving wails that they have learned that their calves and friends never return after the slaughter truck takes them away.
My desperately ill dog screamed when we got within about half a mile of the humane society to be put to death. It was in a crowded urban area we had never visited before.
Reminded of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJkWS4t4l0k
I know this isn't reddit, but thank you so much for posting that. I was cruising through the comments looking to see if someone had beaten me to the punch. Nice work.
- You are going to die soon.
- How are you so sure, human?
- How are you so sure, human?
I don't know why the assumption is that animals don't understand death. They deal with it a lot more than most of us ever will.
As a short-cut to where I'm coming from, I'll say I'm entirely sympathetic to Peter Singer's utilitarian arguments with respect to animals.
If we were to balance on the one hand a human life and the life of a fish or deer or cow or chicken, I'd be hard-pressed to essay them as equivalent. And yet, if anyone should threaten to inflict suffering or harm upon my pet, I would react with violence if need be, to whatever extent I could muster to prevent any harm to my little pal (an awe-inspiringly predatious indoors cat). And yet I recognize that such a threat-reaction is, in itself, reducible to an evolutionary-biologically trained threat-reaction.
Article thesis:
> "...the widespread notion that only humans can understand death stems from an overly complex view of this concept".
This appears non-controversial to me, merely a hasty set decoration to buy the audience's indulgence -- an argument which yet needs recourse to the hedge "overly complex". What can follow but a recitation of interesting factoids (which would be more compelling without the sententiousness) or the grinding of an axe?
> What I want to argue is that, if thanatosis has evolved, it’s because there are some advantages – regardless of the concrete form they take – to appearing specifically as though one were dead.
This is like taking up the courageous position that water is wet. Predators don't need to learn, of necessity, that yellow and black markings indicate venom. This is an Encyclopedia Britannica entry dressed up as a school report on natural selection, the guilty license for which was planted by tacking on "overly complex" to the thesis.
If the author actually had something to say, perhaps she reached her word-count too soon or merely failed to perceive the essential distinction: what various modes of awareness of death may tell us about consciousness in animals. Or possibly, we just don't know enough to say anything clearly on this topic (in which case, I would have much preferred the assistant professor in the department of logic, history, and philosophy of science to simply lay out nakedly what her intuitions are for weighing and examination).
If we were to balance on the one hand a human life and the life of a fish or deer or cow or chicken, I'd be hard-pressed to essay them as equivalent. And yet, if anyone should threaten to inflict suffering or harm upon my pet, I would react with violence if need be, to whatever extent I could muster to prevent any harm to my little pal (an awe-inspiringly predatious indoors cat). And yet I recognize that such a threat-reaction is, in itself, reducible to an evolutionary-biologically trained threat-reaction.
Article thesis:
> "...the widespread notion that only humans can understand death stems from an overly complex view of this concept".
This appears non-controversial to me, merely a hasty set decoration to buy the audience's indulgence -- an argument which yet needs recourse to the hedge "overly complex". What can follow but a recitation of interesting factoids (which would be more compelling without the sententiousness) or the grinding of an axe?
> What I want to argue is that, if thanatosis has evolved, it’s because there are some advantages – regardless of the concrete form they take – to appearing specifically as though one were dead.
This is like taking up the courageous position that water is wet. Predators don't need to learn, of necessity, that yellow and black markings indicate venom. This is an Encyclopedia Britannica entry dressed up as a school report on natural selection, the guilty license for which was planted by tacking on "overly complex" to the thesis.
If the author actually had something to say, perhaps she reached her word-count too soon or merely failed to perceive the essential distinction: what various modes of awareness of death may tell us about consciousness in animals. Or possibly, we just don't know enough to say anything clearly on this topic (in which case, I would have much preferred the assistant professor in the department of logic, history, and philosophy of science to simply lay out nakedly what her intuitions are for weighing and examination).
Animals certainly seem to understand birth. In my experience, cats and dogs, at least being mammals, notice and act differently around pregnant women and newborn human children. If they can handle that, why not death?
Because if humans would recognize animal suffering, it would be harder to continue treating them like wood, or oil, or grass. Objects with no feelings.
I hate how we abuse animals just because we can. It's very cruel and primitive. But this entire planet is cruel and primitive because that's the general state of consciousness of leaders and corporations.
I hate how we abuse animals just because we can. It's very cruel and primitive. But this entire planet is cruel and primitive because that's the general state of consciousness of leaders and corporations.
Do any literary buffs understand the gendering going on here? Do authors generally have an optional convention of just choosing? Do animals get "she" just like watercrafts do?
I appreciate the consistency of choosing the same pronoun for all the animals...
I appreciate the consistency of choosing the same pronoun for all the animals...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English#Animals
I'm a non-native English speaker, but with the SJW thing in the US, nothing about genders really surprises me. As a rule of thumb, I'd say that putting some "she" here and there never hurts and always beats consistency. Not sure if that's what's at play here. Maybe they just want to "personify" the animals to make the story more touching.
I'm a non-native English speaker, but with the SJW thing in the US, nothing about genders really surprises me. As a rule of thumb, I'd say that putting some "she" here and there never hurts and always beats consistency. Not sure if that's what's at play here. Maybe they just want to "personify" the animals to make the story more touching.
Yes, and I'd build on that to say that the author is anthropomorphizing the subjects in an attempt to give the story emotional resonance; the choice of the female pronouns also seems to be specifically aimed at eliciting empathy from the reader.
> When the Virginia opossum feels threatened, she plays dead.
Well, the opossum is named "Virginia", so it is only natural to use "she". As a comic in all seriousness, though, the usage here did confuse me because I thought the implication was that only female opossums exhibited this behavior. Better style would have been to use "it" and not wade into the scrum around which pronoun to use when human gender is indefinite.
Well, the opossum is named "Virginia", so it is only natural to use "she". As a comic in all seriousness, though, the usage here did confuse me because I thought the implication was that only female opossums exhibited this behavior. Better style would have been to use "it" and not wade into the scrum around which pronoun to use when human gender is indefinite.
I assume the ellipsis implies you do not appreciate the pronoun chosen.
it means a lot of things that can mostly be summarized as "why"
appreciate wouldn't be the right word, I don't have an actual feeling towards it, but I'm open to joining some consensus' that I find convenient, so that relies on the author's choice or convention being articulated
appreciate wouldn't be the right word, I don't have an actual feeling towards it, but I'm open to joining some consensus' that I find convenient, so that relies on the author's choice or convention being articulated
They also exhibit some even more ritualistic behaviors[1][2][3][4] around other dead elephants, such as throwing leaves and branches over their bodies.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_cognition#Death_ritua... [2]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/elephants... [3]https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/animal-grief/ [4]https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20120919-respect-the-dead