Ghostly presence explained?

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Pierre

But then no animal I'm aware of wants to be killed and eaten.

The instinct of every animal, I think, is to survive.

Survival isn't the same as 'not wanting to be dead'. Not wanting to be killed really comes from the fact that the act of being killed is usually rather painful. Fear of heights after all, doesn't come from not wanting to be high, it comes from the fear of rapid lithobraking when you lose height too quickly.

They know they cannot do that if they're dead. So they try to avoid lions and sharks. Therefore they are aware that they are alive, and if they are eaten they are dead.

So wouldn't that suggest they are aware of their mortality?

No. Would you say a baby who tastes something that's disgusting and then avoids it necessarily does so because they are 'aware of poisons' or the concept of rotting food? Would you say an animal that avoids electric shocks is necessarily aware of electricity?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Survival isn't the same as 'not wanting to be dead'. Not wanting to be killed really comes from the fact that the act of being killed is usually rather painful.

Do animals know that being killed is painful?

Fear of heights after all, doesn't come from not wanting to be high, it comes from the fear of rapid lithobraking when you lose height too quickly.

I'm not afraid of heights and I know lots of species that aren't either.

No. Would you say a baby who tastes something that's disgusting and then avoids it necessarily does so because they are 'aware of poisons' or the concept of rotting food? Would you say an animal that avoids electric shocks is necessarily aware of electricity?

Does an animal avoid an electric shock? Probably not the first one.

After that it is aware of the pain that a shock gives and it avoid it. So yes it is aware of electricity. Does it know how electricity works? No. But neither do many humans.

In regards to the baby, I don't understand your point.

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by Pierre

I agree to a point, especially about lower order organisms.

But when you start looking at some mammals and birds I'm not so sure. It's not all just " instinct".

If you've ever observed a cat, for instance, they are very measured, they weigh up,their surroundings, they make clear decisions based on the inputs around them.

What about chimps, you can't say they just run on instinct? They are every much self aware.

Birds!, crows, magpies etc show proper reasoning and problem solving skills. Not just Instinct.

Do they lock themselves away and ponder the meaning of life. Who knows, cavemen probably didn't. The luxury to ponder the meaning life probably came when we didn't have to think about surviving from day to day.

It's interesting because we can never really know what an animal is thinking, and even if we could hear their thoughts their point of reference to existence would be so far removed from ours we wouldn't understand it anyway.

Cognitive reasoning is not the same as a developed ability to question on an existential level. by far, humans have the largest pre-frontal cortex in relation to the rest of the brain. we are far more developed in the realm of being self-aware. we are planners - big planners. other species may show an ability to reason, predict and logical processing, but not the the degree of a human adult. if cavemen presumably didn't ponder life / death, I doubt that animals do either, regardless of them being lower order or primates.

Originally Posted by Pierre

Do animals know that being killed is painful?

most likely is that the animal learns to avoid dangerous situations from its main caregivers. an adult zebra will run in the presence of a predator. the child learns to run in the presence of that predator in future.

3 chimps in a cage with some steps. there are bananas on the top step. one chimp goes up the steps to get the bananas and gets sprayed with cold water. another of the chimps tries and the same thing happens. the third chimp tries and the other two warn it off.

one chimp is replaced by a new chimp which has no experience of the cage and steps. when it tries to get the bananas, the other two warn it off. another old chimp is replaced as before and again, this new chimp tries but it warned off by the other two.

finally, the last chimp is replaced. the cage now has 3 chimps that have never been sprayed with water, yet they all know not to try and get the bananas.

animals may not know the danger, but they know to avoid certain animals and situations through a level of semantic knowledge.

Originally Posted by Pierre

Does an animal avoid an electric shock? Probably not the first one.

After that it is aware of the pain that a shock gives and it avoid it. So yes it is aware of electricity. Does it know how electricity works? No. But neither do many humans.

this is getting into Pavlov and Skinner territories of conditioning, reinforcement and superstition, and we could talk about that all day along with learning types. The animal does not know what electricity is, it is simply aware that a particular action results in an 'unpleasant state of affairs'. it has gained no knowledge of the technicalities of what happens, it just knows it hurt, and to avoid it.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Do animals know that being killed is painful?

No, but that's the point. They avoid being killed because it is painful and they avoid pain. They don't avoid being killed on principle itself. Give an animal a choice of two identical options, where one will kill them instantly without pain, and another will not, it will make a completely random 50-50 choice. You'd have to indicate somehow that the lethal box contains the concept of death.

Can you figure out any way of communicating or indicating to an animal that 'this box features death' that does not actually indicate 'this box features pain'? Without doing so there is no way to determine or prove whether animals avoid being killed.

In regards to the baby, I don't understand your point.

The point is your argument is flawed, simply avoiding something from your point of view, does not mean the animal understands or possesses awareness of it's underlying concepts. Animals (including us) avoid harm by reacting instinctively to environmental cues and senses, that can be proven. Without an experimental methodology that completely excludes this aspect of their behavior it is impossible to prove if an animal is avoiding 'being killed' because they are aware of mortality and death verses simply avoiding harm because they associate it with pain.

---------- Post added at 15:04 ---------- Previous post was at 14:58 ----------

P.S. This article is a good overview on the matter of animal self awareness and 'awareness of mortality':

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a..._suicide_.html

---------- Post added at 15:05 ---------- Previous post was at 15:04 ----------

Originally Posted by idi banashapan

this is getting into Pavlov and Skinner territories of conditioning, reinforcement and superstition, and we could talk about that all day along with learning types. The animal does not know what electricity is, it is simply aware that a particular action results in an 'unpleasant state of affairs'. it has gained no knowledge of the technicalities of what happens, it just knows it hurt, and to avoid it.

Exactly this.

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

No, but that's the point. They avoid being killed because it is painful and they avoid pain.

debatable, i think. would it not be more likely an animal avoids death because of a learned response (usually through observational learning - i.e., peers / caregivers will run from certain other animals), or through classical conditioning or operant conditioning (whereby an animal may not go an sit in a raging fire because the nervous system creates unpleasant sensory feedback when the animal gets too close to something hot and thus learns not to get too close next time, for example)?

I'm not sure an animal is aware that being killed is painful per-se. not unless it has been lucky enough to escape the jaws of it's killer, or drop and rolled when it walked through a fire, to use the previous examples.

it's also true that the animal may learn a fear response when it hears the cries of fellow animals during the killing process, but it may not necessarily understand the pain which its peer is suffering.

as a comparison, humans will let out screams when in extreme pain and extreme terror too (unless they are British, of course!), but they may not always be discernible from one another.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by idi banashapan

debatable, i think. would it not be more likely an animal avoids death because of a learned response (usually through observational learning - i.e., peers / caregivers will run from certain other animals), or through classical conditioning or operant conditioning (whereby an animal may not go an sit in a raging fire because the nervous system creates unpleasant sensory feedback when the animal gets too close to something hot and thus learns not to get too close next time, for example)?

Isn't that what I just said?

I'm not sure an animal is aware that being killed is painful per-se.

Isn't that what I just said?

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Isn't that what I just said?


Isn't that what I just said?

No. You stated that an animal avoids being killed because it is avoiding pain. Yet without the experience of being killed or at least caught and escaping, an animal will not necessarily know that being killed is painful. Thus, it is fair to presume that an animal avoids predators through observational learning rather than first hand experience. That is to say, it sees peers and caregivers running, so it runs too.

Unless I am reading your post wrong? Which plausible!!

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by idi banashapan

No. You stated that an animal avoids being killed because it is avoiding pain. Yet without the experience of being killed or at least caught and escaping, an animal will not necessarily know that being killed is painful. Thus, it is fair to presume that an animal avoids predators through observational learning rather than first hand experience. That is to say, it sees peers and caregivers running, so it runs too.

Unless I am reading your post wrong? Which plausible!!

I think you're reading it wrong. My point was animals avoid pain, and don't know anything about death or being killed, that's been my core point all along. Avoiding pain indirectly leads to not being killed because they have evolved to feel fear or pain when encountering dangerous things likely to lead to death. Just like many animals fear heights, even though heights alone will not kill you (well, unless you exit the atmosphere and suffocate), but associating fear with heights has the protective effect of also protecting you from falling dangerous distances which does kill you.

If you somehow told an animal "this will kill you but not hurt" vs. "this will hurt but not kill you" they could well avoid the painful experience and choose death.

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

I think you're reading it wrong. My point was animals avoid pain, and don't know anything about death or being killed, that's been my core point all along. Avoiding pain indirectly leads to not being killed because they have evolved to feel fear or pain when encountering dangerous things likely to lead to death. Just like many animals fear heights, even though heights alone will not kill you (well, unless you exit the atmosphere and suffocate), but associating fear with heights has the protective effect of also protecting you from falling dangerous distances which does kill you.

If you somehow told an animal "this will kill you but not hurt" vs. "this will hurt but not kill you" they could well avoid the painful experience and choose death.

Ah, ok. Cool

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

I think you're reading it wrong. My point was animals avoid pain, and don't know anything about death or being killed, that's been my core point all along. Avoiding pain indirectly leads to not being killed because they have evolved to feel fear or pain when encountering dangerous things likely to lead to death. Just like many animals fear heights, even though heights alone will not kill you (well, unless you exit the atmosphere and suffocate), but associating fear with heights has the protective effect of also protecting you from falling dangerous distances which does kill you.

If you somehow told an animal "this will kill you but not hurt" vs. "this will hurt but not kill you" they could well avoid the painful experience and choose death.

Did you see David Attenborough's life story last night, the elephant herd came across the bones of a long dead elephant, it looked like they knew all about death.

[Julian]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Did you see David Attenborough's life story last night, the elephant herd came across the bones of a long dead elephant, it looked like they knew all about death.

Amazing series and that was indeed a wow moment...

All that article seems to do is show that they can emulate certain feelings, I fail to see how that proves (or disproves) the existance of ghosts.