Kill the Economy

[OKIsItJustMe]

94. Re: “To be blunt, most animals cannot even prove they are self-aware”

My guess is you haven’t spent much time with “animals.” (It’s been my experience that people who make statements like that, haven’t.)

“Animals” don’t try to prove their self-awareness. Human observers attempt to deduce whether or not an “animal” is self-aware.

It used to be accepted fact that “animals” (other than humans) didn’t think. Well, that’s pretty clearly false.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/how-smart-are-animals.html

It used to be accepted that “animals” (other than humans) didn’t have emotions. That’s pretty clearly false as well.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2301820722/

It used to be accepted that “animals” (other than humans) didn’t have language or grammar.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/clever-monkeys/monkeys-and-language/3948/
http://video.pbs.org/video/1778560467/

So, you believe that most “animals” (other than humans) aren’t self-aware. I suspect you’re wrong. I suspect the failure is on the part of the human observer.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/200907/do-animals-know-who-they-are

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Do Animals Know Who they Are?[/font]

There are degrees of self-awareness in animals
Published on July 6, 2009 by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. in Animal Emotions

[font size=3]…

In his book, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Charles Darwin pondered what animals might know about themselves. He wrote: "It may be freely admitted that no animal is self-conscious, if by this term it is implied that he reflects on such points, as whence he comes or whither he will go, or what is life and death, and so forth."

Darwin also championed the notion of evolutionary continuity and believed that animals had some sense of self. In the same book, he wrote, "Nevertheless, the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind." Thus, there are shades of gray and not black-and-white differences between humans and other animals in cognitive abilities. So, while animals might not ponder life and death the way humans do, they still may have some sense of self.

…

So, my take on animal selves means that David Graybeard and Jethro knew they weren't one of their buddies. Many animals know such facts as "this is my tail," "this is my territory," "this is my bone or my piece of elk," "this is my mate," and "this is my urine." Their sense of "mine-ness" or "body-ness" is their sense of "self."

How do animals differentiate themselves from others? Many studies of self-awareness have used mirrors to assess how visual cues are used. They've been effective for captive primates, dolphins and elephants. Although mirror-like visual images are absent in most field situations, it's possible that individuals learn something about themselves from their reflections in water. But we also need to know more about the role of senses other than vision in studies of self-awareness because some animals for example, rodents who can distinguish among individuals don't seem to respond to visual images. Odors and sounds are very important in the worlds of many animals. Many mammals differentiate between their own and others' urine and glandular secretions, and many birds know their own and others' songs. Moving Jethro's "yellow snow" from place to place allowed me to learn that Jethro made fine discriminations between his own and others' urine ( http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/200906/hidden-tales-yellow-snow-what-dogs-nose-knows-making-sense-scents ). Perhaps a sense of self relies on a composite signal that results from integrating information from different senses.

…[/font][/font]