--that humans do. It is INHUMANE to place behavioral expectations on them as you would a human. You cannot expect an animal to understand that if they eat their handler, their handler will go away. You cannot expect them to understand that pain will go away.
-
-
Replying to @CWGaither @arthur_affect and
I highly disagree with that actually. My dog portrayed behavior that only makes sense if you assume the dog has some amount of self-awareness. In his later years when his body started failing, he actually showed signs of shame over wetting himself, trying to clean his mess up
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @ComicsExalted @arthur_affect and
There's a difference between being aware that an animal has done something that will cause an adverse effect in their enviroment and being self-aware. There aren't a lot of animals with the sense of self to pass the mirror test, for example.
3 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @CWGaither @ComicsExalted and
Yeah, i mean, sentience seems to be a continuum? Some animals definitely have SOME self-awareness and even ability to anticipate the future, but AT BEST it's like on the level of a very small child.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @iridienne @ComicsExalted and
Watching my daughter's self-awareness come online was amazing, and it really showed me how many expectations we place on animals and how unfair that is. Animals aren't emotionless machines, but they're not humans.
1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes -
Replying to @CWGaither @iridienne and
And it's no more fair to place an expectation of adult human awareness and understanding on a dog than it is to place it on a child. There are connections that we make that animals can't make. As in it is physically IMPOSSIBLE for animals to function like that.
2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes -
Replying to @CWGaither @ComicsExalted and
Absolutely! As i say, it's pretty obviously a continuum. (Elephants? Elephants have a lot of self-awareness. They're still not HUMANS, and you can't treat their cognition like human cognition, but they're not large hairy vegetables either, you know?)
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @iridienne @ComicsExalted and
Animals pass the mirror test for sense of self, FYI.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @CWGaither @ComicsExalted and
Some do, yeah. (Cats, it's really hard to tell, because cats mostly don't cooperate with animal psychologists
i've had cats that i'm pretty sure DID pass the mirror test and at least one i'm absolutely positive did NOT pass it.)2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @iridienne @CWGaither and
I've seen a cat literally attack its own reflection in a mirror, consistently, so yeah
2 replies 0 retweets 7 likes
Unneutered toms really do go around with roid rage when they're in that mood, though Like you wouldn't be asking why the Kzinti are cat-people if people still generally dealt with real toms as part of daily life
-
-
Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
This same cat got so stir-crazy he made a game of chasing his own tail, *successfully caught it*, gave it a killing bite, and then howled in terrible pain
2 replies 0 retweets 12 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
Humans do this as well. Sans tail.
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.