Quote:

Now the big question is do animals have a conscience? I say no.

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manna_man said:

A few weeks ago, my friend and I somehow got into an argument concerning this very question.

      Take the common scenario you see on the Discovery Channel: there's the nice peaceful wildabeast frolicking about the African Savannah, nonchalantly drinking from the local water hole. However, unbeknownst to the poor wildabeast, the cheetah lurks from within the tallgrass, strategically drawing closer and closer to its unsuspecting prey. It waits for just the right moment, and then strikes, sending the wildabeast into an immediate flight response. The chase between predator and prey ensues.

Now here's the question:      Why does it run?

Is it because all animals have a concept of death, and that the only reason it runs is to avoid its death? Does the animal -hypothetically speaking- think to itself: "Oh shit, if I don't get my ass outta here this things gonna kill me."


Or is it just some built-in instinctual response that is elicited whenever there is the presence of what it considers "danger"? Does it think: " Uh oh, something tells me that this cheetah is bad news, so I'm just gonna run based on this instinct I have."

( By the way, we're not talking about apes here, as it has already been scientifically proven that the orangutang has the ability to abstract)

Anyways, what do you guys think?
Kind of a dumb post yes, but just help me out so I can hopefully put an end to this silly argument I have with my friend.

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Swami said:

At least the antelopes are not so primitive as to make up stories of a heaven to ease their fear of lions. They are much more zen than the average hominid.

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And thanks to Maggot & Ravus for putting this thread back on topic. Phewf!





I'm starting to wonder whether death is learned in humans or not. And not just death, but danger in general.

  If you send your average two year old human infant out on a busy highway, chances are, the baby will not be able to recognize the danger of these fast moving objects, and will probably be drawn out of curiosity even closer ot the cars, resulting in no more baby.

      For humans, one of the most common examples of a potential "predator" is the vehicle on the highway. If knowledge of death and danger were truly innate, wouldn't we  have an instinctual avoidance response to the presence of cars (a potential life ender).

    Because these insticts are not present in humans, we have to rely on the experience of our parents, who teach us that cars are bad (that they have potential to kill us).

And thus, the conclusion follwos that since animals do not posses the abillity to teach, or even to conceive of such abstract concepts as death, then they would only recognize the predator as a source of "danger" , and not as a potential life-ender.