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Which is crazy, because if you say you are not an animal you're denying taxonomy, there is no "figurative" terms here, we talking about biology and reality. So when you deny you are animal, you're automatically denying that you are part of all the subsets that fall below the animal kingdom (Animalia/Metazoa), that is, for example the Mammalia class, you can't say "im a mammal but not an animal", a mammal that is not part of the animal kingdom simply does not exist, if you are a mammal you must be an animal, same for vertebrates, all vertebrates are animals but not all animals are vertebrates. Very few people (especially the most indoctrinated religious literalists) directly states "im not even a mammal/vertebrate" for example, but this statement sounds extremely idiotic to most.
Every time I come home and my black lab Luna does this little full body wag with an obvious smile and starts barking with pure joy, my neglected, calloused, black orphan heart is melted with appreciation to have never felt such affection from my own species.
Well just seems like you are around shitty humans if a dog is the only thing thats been nice to you....or maybe you're just the shitty person , whos to say lol
I am glad you have each other. Being part of others lifes, whether it be animals or humans, in a way that makes their life better.. Those are the best relationships we can only hope to experience.
I have partnered with service dogs for 15 years. I cannot explain how they work out what’s best for me, outside of accepting that they do have some theory of mind. When I first started working with service dogs, the law in the US allowed other animals as well. People reported the same thing about a wide range of species: from reptiles to birds to all sorts of mammals, and even amphibians and frickin’ _arthropods_ - eek!
Unfortunately not everyone. My mother has recently said that her cats don't have a single thought in their heads. She's had cats all her life. It is difficult to understand how anyone can think that.
I think people have to pretend that animals are less than us because otherwise a lot of the stuff we do to them has some frightful implications about humans.
Being the offspring of a predatory and omnivorous (and therefore carnivorous) ape isn't our fault. We are clever enough to be able to predate without causing suffering - but we don't. That denial has set back the quality of life for everything alive at an increasing rate. Foolish, because we will be the first to pay..
Wish I had one of those, I think of course but I think being able to play sounds in my head would be fun. Also it would be nice to be able to understand my thoughts easier without talking outload or writing them. Even when trying to think in my head its really hard and I have to still move my throat to correspond to syllables or I just cant properly understand. Aphantasia isnt a help either since I cant imagine anything in my head, not voices, not images, not smells, not tastes, and not even emotions. Cant look into my own head at all, not even dark and silence can be found there because I cant imagine those in my head either.
Years ago I had two Alaskan Malamute. When my male died, the female was howling for days. The neighbors found this very annoying, and rightly so. But there was no way to make her stop. Don't tell me that animals have no character and feelings?
When our last dog was in his last days, he went missing, either in the house or garden (he was a Bichon). I figured that he might have gone where our middle dog had gone when she was dying, but panicked a bit, and rushed down to the bottom of the garden, beneath the trees, barefoot through the thistles, thorns and nettles and, sure enough, he was in the same spot. He loved her so much, so I wasn't surprised to find him there. Sadly, he died the next day.
A couple of years ago, one of my three alpacas died suddenly and unexpectedly. His two besties wouldn't let me move the body for three days; they quite literally lay across the corpse so I couldn't move it. Eventually the old ram came and shooed them away for me so I could dispose of the body. While the alpacas were purchased years before as protection animals for lambs and birds, they all deferred to the old ram who kept the whole flock under control and made sure everyone behaved nicely.
@@MortenSjgrenThat's true. Me and my wife had to put our cat down yesterday. He had mouth cancer,and died in my wife's arms. It's going to hurt as long as I'm alive.
@@johngavin1175I had to ask the vet to put my 10-year old, best friend german shepherd-labrador mix Rex last December, he got cancer in the jaw. On his 10th birthday we went on a 5 hour hike and he played like a puppy. 4 weeks later he couldn't even stand up much less get in and out of his bed. I stayed awake for days at night to comfort him when the bleeding would start, and it tore me up so much I think I developed some sort of PTSD because I can break down into uncontrollable crying if I think about one or two particular moments during those last weeks. I am crying right now.
Both have one. But humans sometimes destroy theirs. It isn't their fault if they do. They may not have had any alternative. This can happen to dogs too.
When my late fiance died our cats mourned her missing. One of them always played a game when I went shopping. As I put things away he would always crawl into one of the fabric shopping bags. I would pick up the bag and bring him to wherever my fiance was sitting and put him down next to her. After she died when he crawled into the bag I carried him into the living room and put him on the couch. He mewed at me distressed that I didn't bring him to her. He tried this three time after she died. After that he never wanted to play that game again.
After my dad became born again, we started going to church regularly. One Sunday the preacher gave a sermon on man's dominion over the "stupid" animals. While not the reason i became atheist, it was sad and eye opening.
Yeah. We are obviously special in some of our abilities, but we aren't special in regard to our place in the world. We are all animals, the need plants (whether we eat or our feed eats it), bacteria help us process our food and such, and fungi help restore resources back to the environment. We are all needed to varying degrees.
I'm so sorry. I had to do that 4 years ago and it still hurts sometimes, but time will heal the pain. I'm still not ready to get another dog, yet because I'm hesitant to want to go through that end experience again. I will eventually, though because all the days of joy they bring is worth the pain you have to suffer when they're gone.
I'm sorry for your loss. Dogs are not "just pets", they're family. It is quite easy to see from comments how impactful dogs/cats and many other support animals are to people.
I had a Border Collie that lived with my family for 15 years, best dog ever. We could leave for a whole day and she would never leave the property, never go in the road, never bother anyone, just hang out and do whatever a doggy does. When she would fuck up, all I had to do was talk to her and she would never do it again. A truly kind and gentle and damn smart dog. When she got to where she couldn’t walk anymore I put her down and it truly broke me. She was my best friend and a member of the family. 8 years later and I still refuse to get another dog because it will never measure up to our Bitty. I’m tearing up as I write this thinking of my good, good friend, Bitty.
In the book Shiloh (a story of a boy saving a dog from an abusive owner), one of the other characters says something like "Animals don't go to heaven because they don't have souls". The hero's immediate thought was, "If my dog isn't in heaven, I'm not going!"
Honestly, the most real response possible. I'd imagine if I was in a similar situation, I'd be the same. But I was lucky to have a religious grandmother who would never think that way. She was the type of person that believed animals did have souls, and they got their own heaven altogether called Rainbow Bridge. She's seen more animal personalities and thoughts then most people and she actively showed me just how human they really are.
Afghan vet here, I have a full time Service dog for PTSD and I can say without a doubt dogs feel love as we do, but rather then go into my personal experience I'll just say there is now overwhelming scientific evidence that dogs genuinely experience love and deep emotional bonds like we do, brain scans of owners and their dogs show identical brain activity especially when physically interacting while looking into each other's eyes. People have known this for a long time but up until recently there wasn't a definitive way to prove the obvious, but with the tools we have particularly with MRI machines and other brain imaging tools there's no doubt about other mammals capacity to experience love and deep emotional connection. I mean elephants will return to sites where their loved ones have passed away, even traveling vast distances to reach these sites and marking them with branches and other items similar to head stones. Orcas have been documented taking mercy on seal pups when not hungry and returning them to beaches so they won't be eaten by others, bottle nose dolphins in captivity have committed the self delete s word after being separated from their handlers. The list goes on and on, the evidence is overwhelming at this point.
I still see all the cats I’ve had that died. Sometimes in dreams I see them playing in a field. I know they had consciousness. After my best friend fell through ice and was drowning, he was saved by his German shepherd Kyle.
No cat I ever knew could jump up to a chair under a table without bumping his/her head on the underside of the table, catastrophically, for the cat's dignity. The number of times . . ..
Sure looks like imagination, empathy, curiosity, learning and understanding to me. We may be dialed up to 11, but that doesn't take away from the fact that (other) animals do learn and communicate and they show signs of what we'd recognize as emotions and empathy in humans.
Clearly his dog couldn't have shown this empathy without the influence of the dog reading the bible. After all, all morality originally comes from the bible.
One thing that always bothered me about the Christians around me growing up was the complete lack of empathy for animals. Whether it was animal cruelty or endangered species, they just couldn't care less. Thankfully, those attitudes seem to be changing now, I think.
A lot of my family were hunters and fishers. They said that when you kill an animal, it should be quick and clean because that animal is feeling pain and you should not make it suffer more than you have to.
My large family, most of whom are hunters, say exactly the same thing. We were taught to follow any deer or pheasant that was wounded to make sure the animals suffered as little as possible. Woe betide the kid who walked away from anything they bagged because they were too lazy to track the animal. The adult present would consider that cause to cut a switch.
@@TheWhimsicalMimzy Same in my family. I'm not a hunter myself but I have cousins and so on that hunt or have hunted. They also genuinely count on it for their grocery budget - mostly deer which then means they have to buy less meat. Apparently it works out to their advantage? I have no idea how much the things associated with hunting cost.
Yes, I used to fish for food. (This isn't the only recession the UK has gone through). Any fish I was keeping I dispatched quickly, before it was off the hook even with a sharp rap in between the eyes using a lead weight on a stick stunned it, severing the spine immediately behind the head stopped it waking up. I couldn't leave it to suffocate in obvious distress and panic!
I have seen a video of a crow, lying on its back, screaming, mauled by a dog. Heart braking, the cries of panic and terror. And then the dog gets bored, turns round and trots away. And the crow, still on its back, looks around itself, "Hey, what is going on?", jumps up, hops after the dog, "Hey? How can you? Let's keep on playing!"
Somewhere in the jungle, crows rip of strips from fibrous leaves, then cut in near the end, and partly pull off a bit, so that they make a perfect little hood. And that hook they use to pull out maggots from under the bark of trees. A self-made tool, DELIBERATELY made. All on their own, they have understood the problem getting at the maggots, They must have understood about what the properties of a solution could be. They have understood the principle of a hook. Then they have searched where to get a hook. A twig with a branch or so. And have found "from that we can MAKE a hook - in several construction steps. That is high class intellectuality.
And when crows have something that they want to keep, not eat immediately, and know that the others of her swarm watch her, then she watches that the others see her how she is looking for a hiding place, and how she hides it so that all are focused on that spot. So that then they do not notice that she takes her trophy along when she flies away The others dive down on the hiding place, and she has time to REALLY hide it. Behaviorists say that requires a "theory of mind", the ability to think what others might think. That takes years for kids to learn.
Yep, birds are smart. The magic is in their light weight. What brain size? When we extinguish ourselves, and our high mammals, the birds will take over.
I have a wild crow that has become used to me and comes to hang out when I am outside, sits on my shoulder, and talks crow chirps. He or she is my familiar. Freaks out my religious in-laws.
A few months ago I found a hole dug under my fence, lined with a piece of glossy magazine paper. I realized that the raccoons had lined their access hole to make it easier and cleaner to crawl through.
@@ironsausage808Some years ago I started feeding birds on my balcony. The standard blackbirds, tits, nuthatches, but also two coloured woodpeckers and up to 3 jaybirds. The latter have mainly moved down the road. But as for the jays I started to feed tiny pellets (ca. 2 gram, 2 at a time) of frozen minced meat, 2 crows also came. In principle just a couple. 2 years they had a child, last year another one. so now they are sometimes all 4 and who is the boldest gets it. But they do not get really tame, even though they know me now for years. Usually they do not like me on the balcony. If it works, I have to stay at a distance of 2-3 meters. Funny is that when I talk with them, they trust me more. Probably "When he is loud, he does not try to prey on me". In between I put the pellets in a transparent box where they had to pull up a drawer on a string. But then they stole the drawer, ripped it out, I am sure that was intentional, they wanted to have it on an open tray. Then I thought I give the tits some of these fatty food, in a 300 gram tray I placed on the feeding platform. But the crows quickly pulled it around, and one time, a brand new one instantly disappeared. And it did not lie down on the ground. I have the impression they really carried it away.
@feedingravins. I help the local birds out also. I live in the country and feed all winter. I have had the Chickadees and nuthatches eat from my hand but so far no luck from the Jays. It seems corvids are smarter than most other birds. But I will say that chickadees are smart, tough, and brave. I love to feel their little feet grab hold of my hand. They are just so sweet.
As a dog owner (who has a dog that jumps into my arms every time i come home from uni and wags its tail so hard it almost breaks it) i can say that people who say animals don't have feelings are inferior to any animal. А еще, я не знал, что ты понимаешь русский, это так круто! Огромное спасибо за твой контент и успехов в борьбе с псевдонауками)
Ty google for translating this. I too wish Aaron gl in fighting pseudoscience. He is one of the coolest content creators, you can find out there, both in style and knowledge.
@@tomwanders6022 I didn't understand what you meant by the first sentence, but if you say that I translated the text with google translator, then you are wrong, I am half Russian and Russian is actually my native language)
@@Viktor_GitThey were referring to RUclips giving us the option to translate comments. It allowed us non-Russian speakers to understand that part of your message. Also, I agree with you. Long live Aron.
Growing up I had a beagle who would eat the dry cat food. And when he did we'd warn him away and point to his bowl. One day I saw him take a mouthful of the cat food and take it back to his bowl to chew it. That's when I accepted him as one of the family. That was devious.
I was raised being told by my hyper-religious mother that animals don't have emotions. She said that even though they seemed to, they didn't. I will never forget a trip to the vet with our dog, and the vet was pointing out that humans ARE animals, which made perfect sense to me, as he pointed out the fact that all the same structures are present in human and nonhuman animals. My mother was grousing all the way home about how she didn't believe that. She was wrong.
@@kellywalker1664 _"sadistic depravity"_ - Hollywood. The depravity is in the ignorance. BTW, to believe in God (an evidence-less made-belief) is also sadistically-depraved, so it's no wonder you're confused..
I never understood that perspective. If you look inside a dog or a cat or any other mammal, it's not full of mystery organs. It has the exact same ones we do, used for the same purpose. Some medications can be used by people and dogs. I remember the first time a doctor prescribed me Tramadol, I asked "Isn't that dog medicine?" And it is, but it's equally effective for humans, as is diphenhydramine. This would not make any sense at all if we weren't essentially the same thing.
Being a veteran of numerous tours to the Middle East and other countries, I have seen every way possible a human can suffer and be killed. The reason I shared this is because I now truly understand humanity and its capacity. I grew up in a very small farming community in Utah, we raised livestock, and I helped our neighbors do the same. You inadvertently develop an understanding that killing animals is how we live, as horrible as that sounds it’s a reality to survive in a lot of places. Every spring brought life and death. Calves were born and cows were brought to the auctions to be sold for meat. I never thought how did the animals feel. Hunting and fishing was part of the culture and even celebrated, as we would have a deer hunters ball every season. After I retired from the military about 8 years ago, I was excited to go hunting with family. About a year after that, I took a deer with a bow, not an easy task. I truly struggled with that feeling, as the feelings of my military experiences flooded my mind. Like I did once with religion, I now go through the motions. My family still hunts and I still purchase a license and even go out into the mountains and look as if I’m hunting. I’m really not, I’m just taking advantage of the few times my family gets together. I will admit I’m an avid fisherman, and even then it’s therapeutic more than anything. I don’t even care if I catch anything. I have had dogs and cats since I was a kid, they are amazing animals and a lot of times they are more civilized than man.
@@littlebitofhope1489 I am not sure what you mean justification? I’m not trying to justify anything, simply stating that’s my story. I have a different perspective on life as a whole and understand that not everyone has the same perspective.
@@armysapper12b Just chiming in to say thank you for your service and sacrifices, and thank you for sharing your story.,....and that the commentor above is some form of twit.
Nature takes life to sustain other lives. That's simply how it all works. All we can really do is make sure those lives we take to sustain ours are as full and happy as we can, and minimize any and all suffering as we can. I'm an old hunter myself ( physically unable anymore) who didn't do trophies; but every animal I took I assured went as quick and clean as possible, so hopefully one second they were happy and the next they were simply gone. Do what's best for yourself and others (including non-humans)
@@timneedham8267 most of the people I know don’t really hunt for trophies, but a economic way of providing food. As for humane, I’ve seen these massive cattle businesses, that’s inhumane. I also understand that it’s somewhat hypocritical to simply drive to the supermarket and buy a package of meat, I’m just paying someone else to do the killing for me. Even the livestock we raised had a pretty good life compared to their wild cousins; food, water, medical care and open ranges or fields to roam freely. When we would lose calf’s to a mountain lion, my family didn’t try to hunt it down, they understood that’s the risk you take free ranging cattle.
7 of the most important people in my life are 2 labradors, 2 cats and 3 parrots. The hardest days i have ever lived through was having to put previous dogs and cats to sleep. Most because of age related issues, but one for cancer. They are all, alive or dead part of my family.
To be fair, our lives are more complex than most, if not all creatures. It makes sense that we would have more value in our own species, we are them after all. But yeah, it is pretty clear most animals have emotion.
@@Gandhi_Physique Yes, even as a non-religious person, I do take animal life for granted, sometimes. I think it's only a natural part of survival as a tribe; we care more about our own community than other communities. But at least I'm capable of recognizing I've been doing it.
@Gandhi_Physique For sure, we are VERY special animals. Easily one of if not the smartest one on the planet. But as is stated in spiderman "With great power comes great responsibility" we owe it to the other animals to try to understand them as we impact our planet so heavily. But conversely we wouldn't be here without them.
I truly love you sir. Please keep preaching the good word , all the good words. We're on the precipice of truly evolving if only we can let go of our religiosity and ancient ignorance.
I would've loved to see what Nicaraguan sign language looked like during that early synthesis - Gutsick Gibbon did a video a little while back about how apes (including us) use a repertoire of gestures that seem to be deep-rooted in our evolutionary history, so I wonder how many commonalities those kids had, both with each other and with that shared pool of hand movements we all tap into.
A few years ago I suddenly had an epiphany. I out of the blue realized that was thinking in my non-native language. I've been thinking in swedish all my life but now from to time I also think in english. The thing is that half if the time I don't even notice what language I think in. It was a very clear revelation in how the abstract thought comes before the the inner monologue. It's like the words are just placed in my head afterwards to make substance for the thoughts that I have.
I've heard similar things like this and also that multilingualism is like opening one drawer while closing another, seamlessly and without effort or awareness.
Many years ago when I was trying to be a believer (Christian) I was at church and the priest swapped over from English into Latin. I know a bit of Latin. The thing was, I didn't even notice the change over for a few sentences and that weirded me out when I did realise it. Nor can I always remember what language I've been told something in. (These days I'm living in a fairly monolingual situation but when I was younger I was using Spanish quite a lot.)
There are some books for language learners with opposing pages in the two languages (for example left page in English, right in Slovak, same content). Turns out I can forget about this and then spend a chapter wondering why the story keeps looping back on itself.
When I was learning French, this would happen to me! All of a sudden, the words were interchangeable, as if the French words were just new English vocabulary words, and it was using them in turn.
Strange how we are able to compartmentalize our feelings towards animals, which allows us to love our dogs, cats, snakes, etc., while also loving to eat steak, ribs, and other kinds of meat with a wilful indifference to the death and suffering of other thinking/feeling beings involved in the process.
I can't eat beef products anymore after seeing many videos on Utube showing how much Cows totally love music ! One video almost killed me laughing after seeing dozens of videos with different types of music with the Cows always loving a live performance of musicians, where in one video, a polka band starts to play, and the Cows run away, lol
Not really, I don't think that way and I'm sure others don't too. I absolutely understand what they gave up to feed me. I don't think any less of them for it, and to the contrary respect the value of lives of all animals. Farming has its ugly truths but they are necessary in this system. Besides isn't it a bit perverse to take the thing some people say is wrong and try to copy it perfectly. Why try to copy meat if it's "wrong"?
Recognizing animal consciousness is a big part of why I'm vegan. Animals don't deserve to suffer and die by the billions just because we want to eat their flesh. Animal agriculture is one of the most prevalent evils of the modern world and people need to change their behavior and advocate for the basic rights of other animals
You don't need to be a vegan to understand animals having consciousness. You guys don't have a monopoly on respecting animals. I like meat I'm going to keep eating it, and you best believe even though you think it's wrong other animals don't. They'd eat you to survive if it came down to brass tacks. Being vegan doesn't mean you care more either. Stop white knighting...😒 I have the utmost respect for the deer I stalked as a kid to hunt. They were very smart and worthy opponents, had I not needed the food I wouldn't have hunted them. Animal agriculture isn't evil, in fact that is merely a subjective opinion you have. Animal cruelty is wrong, I don't think any animal should be abused or treated poorly but cows and chickens will keep dying every day. Doesn't lessen their lives or the sacrifice they made to feed me and countless others. They matter greatly, yeah we need better animal cruelty laws but farming isn't cruelty. If you knew what living on a farm was like you'd know that.
we share our house with 2 cats & they undoubtedly have a detailed mind-map of the entire house - they also have a huge an extensive knowledge of all familiar sounds so that for instance, if one of them is upstairs & they hear even the hint of a packet of cat biscuits being opened they will suddenly appear as if out of nowhere.
Domestic cats are much more vocal than their wild cousins. I've definitely had a cat that sounded as if she were trying to talk English. "No" was one of her favourite words, as in, I would say something like, "Come on, Elf, get down from there," and she would say, "No!" There was also something that sounded rather like "Hello".
As someone who has kept both dogs and cats, I have observed them having vivid dreams, and experienced their friendship and love. It is not hard to accept the probability that all mammals are capable of most of the feelings we encounter.
We lost our 16 year old dog just yesterday, so this video is especially meaningful to me today. He was never anything less than a beloved part of our family.
I do not know it otherwise, my older brother was 6 1/2 when I was born. And he was as chosen child, my mom picked him from the litter. He educated me, bit me in the face when I came too near to his food. I lay in the arms of my mother, and he was curled up in the bend of her knees so that he did not get jealous. He got 18 1/2 years old. 16 is really decent. When I look up here, I look at a drawing of him and one of the first of my later 3 sisters - all three real bitches. My mother had a saying "When you want to do a real compliment to your dog, get another one. That shows he made your life so much better that you do not want to be without that" Maybe not attempt to get a clone - to avoid to constantly make comparisons. My mother switched to another breed and to a bitch - his maleness had been problematic from time to time (smaller males could be ignored, but all bigger ones one had to prove ones machismo). Leave your time, but don't have a bad conscience. Imagine, your dog would want to see his pack members happy, that was what he lived for.
Some non-human animals have more personality and empathy than some humans. I grew up with dogs and cats. They all had their own personality. They weren't just "programmed" to behave like that. They could think and feel. They cared for eachother.
9:29 I’m one of those (20% of the population or so) who think without inner monologue. The only occasions I speak inside my head is when I actually want to compose text or speech, like when writing this, or think about what I should have said in some situation, and so on. 😏 When I don’t do inner speech, my thoughts are finished concepts, pictures, feelings, three dimensional models and the like. People around me say they notice I think faster than they do. And when I hear therapists tell patients to “change the words of their thoughts” to handle PTSD or something, I roll my eyes. There are no words in the flashbacks. 🙄 I imagine that people like me are a good model for how other animals think without words. It would kind of explain why chimpanzees can do the tasks in experiments so much faster than _H sapiens_ subjects ever could.
I think it's an animal feature (to think without internal monologue), and as humans are animals, it's a human feature. It's part of the 'hard-wired' basic brain, moderated by waking consciousness and higher intellectual functions (that latter being rather unknown in all cases). It has a moral code and habits evolved from the superior evolutionary performance of co-operation. Tesla's Optimus Robot software needs this structure/feature in its coding, and will probably get it soon (if it hasn't already received it). PS in Christian terms this feature would be called a *_soul._* 😎
Lol, I learned today that we are supposed to put thoughts into words in order to be able to think. 😅 From the description seems my brain works like the OP’s. I’ll add that, being fluent in three languages, not infrequently I have a concept in my head and can’t remember in which language I read/heard it, which requires me to put it into words from scratch.
Really? 50 years ago? Where was this, anywhere I have been I find this highly improbable. The only logical explanation I can think of that there may be examples where it would be dangerous to use anesthesia.
Just lost my best friend a few months ago. My 13 year old cat Munky. He was with me every second that I spent at home. He had suddenly become ill like he'd been poisoned, but he was an indoors cat and we have always been VERY careful with what we leave laying around, so... we have no idea what happened. But, overnight he got to where he couldn't move at all. He was just laying there crying. We got him to the vet already knowing he was done for. When the wife and I were sitting next to him as they gave him the shot, my boy was just staring us in the eyes and I could almost feel him saying "goodbye". Maybe I'm crazy or that's just what I wanted to think. Man... probably the hardest moment of my life right there. That boy wasn't just my pet, he was my best buddy ever. I thought of him just like I would a person.
This was exactly what led me from Christianity as a kid, it also led me to seek further knowledge to vindicate my doubt against the revolting thoughts that animals are incapable of any thought. I'm happy to say I was right, and all those filthy people who insisted against the cognitive presence of animals were wrong. The only issue is that those people are still wrong, and still filth.
When I see a human train a different species to perform some human activity, I think it's awfully strange how that human never succeeded in learning any of the other species' behavior patterns, and at times I unironically suspect that the human isn't the more intelligent one between the two.
@@titanomachy2217we can neither prove that it’s just chemicals nor that it isn’t. Also their anger is just a chemical process too by that logic. Either way, it’s not unjustified.
@@titanomachy2217 No it’s not. They (unless they have a medical condition) have the cognitive ability to CHOOSE rational thinking and judgment. They are CHOOSING to refuse science, facts, and reality. I’m a former Christian. I was born and raised in it. But, because as I grew older , and was exposed to proper education and information, I CHOSE to react with my own will by deconverting from a cult, and stopped being a bigoted POS. These are complex psychological problems, that require more than chemical reactions to control the outcome.
Aron, you may find the video "1. Before Music" on the channel Diacoustics interesting, it's on my Music History playlist also. He goes into pointing out (with some audio, that a whale "song" sped up is strangely similar to a bird "song" and some bird "song" slowed down is strangely similar to whale "song".
Heck, even the Bible, in Ecclesiastes, says that animals have souls and that it's only human arrogance that makes us think we're better than them. Funny how quickly Christians are to ignore or dismiss the few correct things that can be found in that book.
@cynicalsayonara7169 "Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" - Ecclesiastes 3:21 That passage implies that animals do indeed have souls. The uncertainty is regarding whether any souls, human or animal, go to heaven. Obviously, I see this discussion as moot since I don't believe in souls but I don't think that undermines my original point, which is that you have to ignore that section of the Bible to make the claim that animals are souless.
You made me cry with this talk.. I started thinking about all the cats that I've ever owned and the ones that I own now and how wonderful they all were and are. Complete madness to think that animals don't feel and that we're not animals ourselves.
Had a cat back then when I was 16. Because of circumstances, he was fixated on me. Always sleep near me, let hold him, pet him. Then I brought a girlfriend home. And of course, we cuddled. He would just look at it disapproving, and after some time we notice he pissed on my bed. Never done something like that before. Dude was jealous as hell.
I know I can't understand my dogs, but I can tell what they want just based on their actions and what they're doing with their bodies. And they're smart too. One of them will watch where squirrels dig then go and dig up the nuts that the squirrels burry.
They know that they can't understand their guy, but can tell what he wants just based on his actions and what he's doing with his body. They often understand what we think and how we feel, understand our character better than we underdand ourselves They understand whether you are TRULY confident, resting in yourself, or whether you just PLAY the tough guy. I am always looking somewhat suspiciously when a slim guy turns up with a bullterrier or a Mastino Neapolitano or so. Whether they bought that fighting dog not primarily as crutch for their own feeble ego. I have no problem with dogs, also with "dangerous" ones, but you should have the confidence to be in charge, and quasi ooze it out of your pores. Otherwise it can happen that at one point the dog says "No, why should I draw back", and then it can get dangerous. My opinion is the most important thing you have to demonstrate is (BEFORE anything happens) that when push comes to shove, you WANT more than the animal. Not with constant power demonstrations, just with you being you, being consequential, making the rules and sticking to them.
Therefore Trump hates dogs, because they see under his bronzer and see that he is weak, insecure, mean, a wimpy little ankle-biter (german "feiger Wadlbeisser" (Wadl being bavarian for little ankle)). Is all nice and friendly, and when you turn round and don't look, comes running from behind, bites you in the ankle and runs away. Is ankle-biter usual in english?
@@inyobill Not really. Also meaning, IE: associated with hand and body signals. Even names and quite complex concepts. Mine are Australian, stock working and hunting blue cattle dogs.
I had a fox terrier/cattle dog mix a few decades ago. Really smart. She would escape the house and refuse to come back in, no matter how cold it was. She'd just stand there and look at me. I had a revelation one day. I would get upset at her for escaping and not coming back. Turns out she thought I was mad because she came back, not because she got out. I gave her a cookie for coming in when I called her. Just once. Never happened again. She HATED having her nails trimmed. We made a game out of it. She would steal the trimmers and make me trade them for a cookie. I miss that dog. My vet injected her with that hideous Heartguard Six. Ruined her liver and she died. They pulled it from the market after 5000 deaths. It's back, supposedly reformulated.
I remember my cats that have come and gone. Pablo was a cunning hunter, Watson always came to me because I was there to comfort him due to him losing his leg. He purred loudly every time he was petted. I remember Lily a siamese kitten who was very playful and would come to me if I scratch the floor. I miss them all.
One of my most treasured possessions is the last box my dad ever made. He was a woodworker for decades, and he was working on a box for my counter (for tea or coffee or whatever) when his health prevented him from finishing. He was also losing his ability to form words, and he attempted to sign the bottom of the box, but could no longer spell his own name. He was still in there.
Thank you, Aron, for saying so well, what I've tried many times to explain to religious people, and even to some atheists. It is relatively easy to see that other mammals have similar feelings and worldview to ours. Birds, though their brain structure is quite different from ours (they have very little "gray matter", and think with the "white matter"), also seem to think in ways similar to how we do. Dr Irene Pepperberg's experiences with Alex the African Gray Parrot show his ability to understand many abstract concepts. And, of course, many parrots and corvids can imitate our speech, helping us understand their minds. Reptiles and fish seem even more alien than mammals and birds, but even there people have developed relationships with them. Some snakes become very friendly, as do some lizards. Fish will learn surprisingly complex things. Tiger sharks can become emotionally attached to humans who remove hooks from their mouths, and they seem to communicate among themselves, because soon, more sharks will present themselves to have their hooks removed. Small elephant fish that live in the muddy waters of East Africa are a kind of electric fish. They sense their surroundings by emitting an electric field so that they "see" in all directions at once. Interpreting this information requires a very complex brain so they have a surprisingly large brain for their body size, and are, I've been told, very intelligent and able to be easily taught. What about invertebrates? People who feel they can't have feelings or a complex view of the world run into problems with the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. (I don't know much about the nautilus's brain.) These cephalopods are undeniably extremely smart, and have been observed to communicate with each other and, to some degree, with humans. But most people would draw the line at arthropods. Surely they're too small, too primitive, too alien to have minds comparable to ours. Well, the brain-body ratio is our best guide to intelligence (though not for birds). On that basis, honeybees score significantly better than humans. And why shouldn't they have complex brains? They are able to communicate complex abstract concepts to each other, such as distance to a food source, quantity, and value. They are also the only animals other than humans that understand the difference between odd and even numbers. Some ants, too, have a higher brain-body ratio than humans. When you see them defending aphids from predators and moving them to fresh plants, especially when they move aphids down into their nests to avoid snow, and place them on the roots of plants there. Some other arthropods are surprising too. When you watch a centipede guard her nest of eggs, carefully picking each egg up in turn and licking it clean of spores, you realise there is more going on than what people disparagingly call "instinct". Sure instinct is operating, but is pre-wired understanding of something. I'm not saying the centipede is thinking about what she is doing, but the actions are too complex to be merely robotic. When you see jumping spiders stalk and ambush their prey, they often appear to think ahead and strategise. If you walk past a paper wasp nest, the wasps will carefully watch you. If you pass many times and offer no threat they become used to you. But if a different person walks past they become alert again. They recognise different people as different threat levels. I could rattle on about this for hours. Thank you again, for your wonderful monologue.
In my experience, people with no empathy for their pets are the same people with no empathy for other humans. People that kick their dogs are more likely to hit their kids. Every time you mention your dad's comment about "they don't feel", it breaks my heart. And reminds me of my father talking about drowning kittens without the slightest hesitation or regret. I can't fathom that thought process; it's so discordant with reality. The empathy shown by my household pets and other apes, the ingenuity of corvids, how could anyone witness these and then deny their existence? I've had many pets over the years, that were dropped into my life by circumstance (I never bought a pet, they were abandoned near me so I took them in) and every one of them was more like a person with special needs than "a dumb animal." They couldn't speak and sometimes had impulse control problems, but every one of them demonstrated distinct personalities and more empathy that I've come to expect from homo sapiens. Even the moodier cats showed more concern for me than some of my past roommates. For example: Booper was my roommate's cat, before she abandoned him. So I took care of him, and he become very attached and affectionate (it was impossible to stop him from climbing onto my lap and nuzzling into my chest). A few years ago, a stray kitten got stuck in my air vent. After we coaxed her out, Booper pretty much instantly adopted Adora. He guided her towards his food bowl and sat back watching as she ate with perfect calm. Adora was always skittish, having lived for at least a few months in the wild, but she was also clearly not "programmed" to behave that way. It was a huge change when she went from running away at the sight of me and only very cautiously coming back to running up to me every time I entered the room while purring louder than my computer fan on a summer day. Then came Chatterbox, Adora's son after she slipped out one day before I could get a vet appointment scheduled. Booper was also really attached to him, and Chat was really attached back. They'd always sleep curled up together and Chat took it even harder than Adora did when Booper died. Adora spent a month and a half searching every corner of every room, mewing for him (despite being a very non-vocal cat). Chat spent three months making a mournful yowl everywhere. The same yowl he started making every time he woke up while I was asleep and my current roommate had already gone to work. I had to move and the new place didn't allow pets. Putting Chat and Adora up for adoption (through a no-kill shelter, mercifully) still hurts, four months later. They showed me so much love and the only consolation I have is that they can find families that can provide for them better than I can. ...This turned into far more of a blog post than my initially intended two paragraphs. What can I say, except that I'm sentimental and disappointed in people who aren't.
Yes, that sounds like psychopathy. I never knew anyone that had that attitude, even if they hunted. It never occurred to me that animals did not feel. We did fish, but we were taught to do things quickly to keep suffering to a minimum. Even with that, I found that I couldn't do it.
My family has a history of pets with longetivety, dogs and cats that live into their 20's. In that amount of time with an animal, you learn that they definitely have feelings and are aware!
I used to have a Samoyed dog who was extremely expressive, not loud, but he used his body and sounds to communcate as well as he could. He was very good at talking, and I encouraged him to show what he wanted, be it food, play or cuddles (mostly). At the time I took a religious studies course at uni and one lecture was about religous theory about animals. Elephants visiting their dead, monkeys mourning a doll and suchlike. It was almost as interesting as this video. After the lecture, the lecturer held a discussion, and he said something that still makes my blood boil. That animals only have access to the basic emotions (fear, aggression, happiness and a few more), but the complex ones were unavailable to them, like shame. If an animal does something that lookes like shame, it's just a learned behaviour - a response to being yelled at, he said. Only days before, my dog had had an accident in the house while I was away. As I came home, he didn't rush to meet me as he usually did, he was in his bed, sulking. When I called he came, his head and tail low, looking as if he wanted to fall through the floor. Even as I pet him, he didn't meet my eyes, and pulled away from my hand, but he didn't flee. I got worried and started to look around for something to explain his strange behaviour. Then I saw the accident. It clearly wasn't his fault, so I started cheering him up while I fixed the mess and he perked right up, getting as overly happy as I was used to. I told the lecturer this, and his response was simply that the dog obviously thought he was going to get yelled at and acted in this was to try and get out of it. I didn't push it further. The guy clearly didn't know me or my dog well enough to say things like that, and this ignorance was on full display.
Too many people have the flaw that they act out their bad mood (that they have achieved somewhere else) on someone that has nothing to do with the cause. Not only bad against dogs, also against kids. I say that happened to your dog, he knows that makes you sad, and you being sad makes him sad. And a little bit of "I am home alone, now I have the responsibility, I must guard the territory." So he failed his task. And regarding character flaw and handling it, look at these christians: Their relation to their God is that of a slave to their master (NOT to a father). They are nothing without their master, he created them all they have is provided by him and can take it away anytime, all the rules he dictates he is not bound to. They are NOTHING without their master. They have to be grateful to him for anything. The Bible is one long demonstration for that dependence. Out of sheer capriciousness, he tortures Job. He overrides Pharaoh's Free Will to punish the egyptians by killing all firstborn (including firstborn animals), but christian-hunter Saul gets a personal performance to convert him to Paul. Many of the sins are punished especially viciously: Not (only) the sinner is punished, but also innocent ones, over generations, his children, his family, his friends. Our INSTINCTUAL feeling of compassion for others, of injustice, is mercilessly played here. As God is not acting, not speaking, not visible, the Bible has the goal to scare you so horribly that you dare not resist, and then baits with infinite reward (unless you want 72 virgins) All meant to control people. Therefore the Seven Deadly Sins. Normal emotions, that ALL have, that are natural, even necessary, no problem as long as they are kept under control, are declared as evil. For the simple reason to make ANYone a sinner, a sinner that needs assistance, again and again, by the clergy, that affirms him that God forgives them these sins, but for the next time they have to come (and donate) again. It somehow also fulfills this purpose of stabilizing a society, but on the cost of creating a core group, literally sacrificing the outsiders. Imagine the catastrophe: When animals can act morally, all on their own, instinctively, whereas us humans are absolute monsters, amoral, only the DICTATE of the moral rules by God can keep humans (that are made in the image of God - lol) under check, turn them into good beings. Humans need the divine psychoterror to be controlled. You must be brought to be totally persuaded that without God, you would not find your ass to wipe it - each time, A horror when one would demonstrate that the natural, instinctive, mammalian Golden Rule of Empathy, treat others like you want to be treated, when trained how to apply it intelligently, functions at least as efficient as the mind control techniques of religion. Granted you have to train empathy, train to get a feeling for what others might think, especially what others think about what you do and whether you would want that to be done to you and whether you would want that they think of you this way. The empathy of your dog (and of you) is poison... love it ;))
Uh. RUclips. Stop deleting my fucking innocent comments. Now that I was way more explicit in this comment, watch it stay. But yeah, basically what my original comment said was that if it were actually fear.. then why would the dog even come up to you. That's clearly shame.
A beautiful, powerful and much needed video; again you knock it out of the park Aron. That grieving husky broke my heart. I've seen a dog cry. It's heart-breaking.
I only own wolfdogs. They're pretty different from normal dogs, but I've never had an animal love me more intensely than them. Their intelligence is unmatched (they even outsmart humans regularly) and so is their emotions and love. I communicate with them in plain English/German (sometimes baby talk) and they know exactly what I want. Doesn't mean they'll do it, because they're stubborn😅 but they know. They're so special. I love dogs and all other animals.
When I picked up my girl from the pound, she was clearly afraid and depressed. The moment we walked out the doors, she had the biggest smile and she hasn't stopped smiling since. I've had her about 7 years now. Edit: She was there for 3 months and overlooked because she had a yellow piece of paper, saying she was free of distemper but given medication anyway cause the pound had a distemper outbreak. She just had to finish the medication.
there was a time not too long ago that human babies were not considered to feel pain, merely programmed to respond as if they do, consequently, many older doctors will still do surgeries on babies without even basic pain killing medications, and many parents consider it completely normal.
In the excellent and underrated manga _Ryushika Ryushika_ by Abe Yoshitoshi, there's a chapter where Kimika, the little girl protagonist, discusses a square watermelon with her family, and when they find out that square watermelons are made by restricting the growth of normal watermelons, she despairs because she thinks humans may potentially be restricted in a similar way. Then her brother tells her that all humans grow restricted in a way, because society forces them to conform and become "square watermelons". When she replies that maybe some humans can escape the norms so they can remain "round watermelons" her brother tells her that the restrictions start with language, and that natural humans should be the ones without language. After that, Kimika spends the rest of the day trying to think without using Japanese words in order to "become like a monkey" because she thinks "the monkey me is the real me". But she's unable to, and so that night she has a dream about people with watermelon heads, which she tries to save from becoming squares, in a visually surreal and amusing sequence. It's seriously a good comic. A lot of artists have made modern versions of _Alice in Wonderland,_ but to my knowledge Abe Yoshitoshi is the only one that has made a modern version of _Alice Through the Looking Glass._ In the very first chapter we see Kimika wondering how can music be trapped inside a CD, then dancing to the music in her head, then dancing in her head. One would think a visual medium like comics wouldn't be ideal for such stories as a person thinking about music and thinking about dancing, or thinking about thinking, or trying to think without words, but Abe Yoshitoshi managed.
What I found fascinating was the pet tortoise owned by a friend of mine. He used to scratch it on the back of its shell with a medium stiff brush and the tortoise used to come to him specifically for this attention. I didn't know such animals had any sensation at all in their "shell". I just assumed it was a numb covering for the part of them that did feel. Nope. A tortoise's shell has sensation. It gave me a completely new view of every living thing around me. Try to keep it in mind next time you don't think someone is being hurt by what you're doing.
I recently saw a video of a crow. There was a glass with some water in it but it wasn’t full enough for the crow to reach it with its beak. The crow began picking up stones and dropping them in the glass until the water level rose enough so it could drink. There was some kind of reasoning involved in the process that surprised me.
More fool you. Without tricks, Life would not exist. Even plants are strategic, and they have no brains at all. Life has more wonders within it than anyone can cope with.
This video reminds me of the time our little west highland terrier got into my step mothers white russian she left on the nightstand. Needless to say Sadie (sweetest little dog in the world) got horribly drunk. We called the vet and they said, after confirming the amount of alcohol that was consumed, she should be fine, but to monitor her throughout the night. I was the one to do it, I checked on her all throughout the night, it was scary at times as she was so drunk she was as limp as a wet noodle and very difficult to wake when she passed out. Eventually she pulled through and that little dog refused to ever leave my side again.
I was in the hospital for 2 weeks years ago and when my beagle heard me she yelped out a cry I had never heard before. My lap wasn't big enough. All animals have emotions. They especially feel loss.
My uncle had a small dog (Yorkshire mix I think) who was touchy. If my uncle seriously scolded her she got offended and she went to the neighbor’s and stayed there until he went and made his peace with her. Ofc she loved him to bits and was overjoyed to go back home but not before him apologizing. 😂 I have always found that particularly remarkable because it’s not what you would expect from dogs which usually are considered blindly loyal to their owners.
Good stuff...my Father, ex-marine Korea veteran taught my brother and I the opposite of your families influence... I remember once we fished all day at a lake without a bite, and at the end of the day we managed to hook a huge catfish from restocking... Everyone was hauling in huge fish and killing and catching more and more but when we caught one, we took it away and let it go free... He asked us if we really wanted to kill, because it's a heavy burden to take a life, and if needed make it quick and painless but it's a greater joy to feel what another's plight is, see the struggle and help... That fish was grateful and we felt good ourselves...
This is very interesting. Aron you've really said all you need to say on Creationism, I really enjoy your biology, taxonomy, palaeontology etc. videos. I suppose Creationism can be easily summarised as "Yeah, that's bollocks" move on. I still want you to do an Octopus evolution video... even though I know it'll be really tricky 'cos the fossil record is so thin.... I wonder what an Octo-sapiens geologist will think about the depositional environment of a 250 million year old Anthropocene deposit... Maybe "what a bunch of clowns".
Being raised Catholic, we were told that animals do not have souls, but I didn't realize how insidious this belief could be, thus producing such horrifying consequences. I am an animal Communicator. Animals do have a silent language, and my hypothesis is that, once we developed spoken language, we abandoned the use of this silent language. However, some of us, for whatever reason, still have this ability switched on. And animals know if you're if you're able to tap in or not. It's almost as though there's some sort of carrier wave that alerts them. I cannot even begin to guess how this works. You would be amazed at how many wild animals come up to me. It truly is wild. I first became aware of this when I was 3 and 4 years old as there was a bunny that I kept trying to approach. I got within three feet of this bunny before it would take off. I thought I was a failure. But the next year, I thought I saw my bunny. But this bunny wouldn't let me get within 15 feet of him. I realized that this wasn't the same bunny. And I realized that I wasn't a failure at all. I was actually quite successful in approaching that bunny. My brain takes the thoughts that they are communicating and translates them into English words for me. I can occasionally see pictures as other animal communicators claim to to do. However, the only time I see pictures is when there is trauma or abuse to the animal. 🐦 One of the funnier examples happened last year when I what's standing near my raspberry bushes. A mockingbird landed about 4 feet away from me and asked if she could have a berry. I said "yes". But she asked again, "Can I have a berry? " " yes. I said yes." "Can I have a berry?" At this point,I became quite animated pointing to the raspberry bushes saying, "Yes, yes. I said yes. Go have a berry". But she just continue to stand there 4 feet away from me. So I was thinking, "What is wrong with you? Why are you not having your berry?" And I hear, "I'll wait till you leave". 🤣 "Okay, okay. I'll leave so you can have your berry." I then left the area, so the dear thing could have her raspberry in peace.
Every pet I've ever known has it's own personality, and a unique way of communicating with me. They absolutely can comprehend the world around them and have thoughts about it.
If you pay attention in life, and observe how the animals sorrounding us observe us back, it becomes clear that they already regard us humans as thinking, complex beings. Never mind even your pets, just follow how the crows consider you as you pass them by, how their behaviour changes if they notice you staring them. We should give them the same consideration they are already giving us.
An interesting tidbit about Koko is that not only was she very good at communicating through sign language, but she also had the capacity to lie. One time when she accidentally broke a sink, she blamed it on her cat.
adopted our husky/shepherd mix 6 months prior to my stroke. After getting home after a month in the hospital she quickly realized something happened and essentially became my caretaker; and went on to become my service companion so I could get back out into the world. Non humans are often more empathetic and loving and self-responsible than most humans.
Not sure if I've shared this before, but a friend of mine has cats & once broke her ankle. While recovering, she once woke up to find one of her cats draped over that ankle & purring for all he was worth. I believe scientists have found that the frequency at which cats purr promotes, among other things, bone growth. So the cat not only understood that her ankle was hurt & that purring would help it, so topically applied purrs to help with the healing process. She also had a lot of chronic pain, & her cats would often purr on her & try to specifically purr on the parts which hurt, even if she couldn't stand them to actually touch those parts.
I have no idea but this struck a cord with me. I am teary as I realize it is far too uncommon for people to have such an appreciation of non-human animal intelligence. I feel saddened by the lack of respect for our animal friends. Beautiful speech Aaron.
There's an extremely rare graphic novel called Duncan the Wonder Dog. The story's premise is that all humans are perfectly capable of talking to animals, but it has very little effect on how they are treated. How the animals respond, however, is not unlike Hamas, PLO or the IRA.
My dad was/is also a hunter with similar excuses of how animals don't feel pain like we do, nm that we too are animals. I got a lot of contradicting explanations of things from my parents throughout my childhood, and that led to a habit of me contradicting myself without noticing and when it was pointed out, not caring. Thankfully I've come a long way since then, as even back then, I wanted the truth and to be correct. It's just my emotional mind wasn't always on board with my skeptical, rational mind
@tonyduncan9852 Perhaps, but you learn to consciously stop and take a critical approach instead of being guided by the emotional mind. There are times when emotions get the best of all of us, but it was just ridiculous for me in my younger years 😅
@@dj_tika No, I didn't misread. No matter what you do with them, emotional responses are always involuntary and instinctive, and always have the initiative wrt how they are dealt with. They come first, lower brain structures. They preceded higher brain functions generally, over evolutionary time..
Humans have an obsession with their own sense of superiority, that's all it is. Animals absolutely do think and feel and we're finding more and more of them do, that we previously thought were too simple for it. But they still do have instincts that they can't ignore as easily as we can.
The lakota people call animals with the word "oyáte", meaning "people/tribe/nation". For example, "bison" is "tatanka", and "tatanka oyáte" is literally "the bison people" or "the bison nation".
I have an internal dialogue but i also have a brain condition (not diagnosed) that stops it working sometimes and i just don't know exactly what's going on for a few minutes
It's nice to know that other people do this, and the respect they have for animals. I remember a news story long ago, about an emu that broke out of its yard and followed the kid to school. I know you used to have one. The odds are it was yours. 😂
Lost my boy 4 months ago, I love him so, so much, it's devastating. I've always thought people underestimate animals, humans can be very arrogant at times.😓
Развлечения
Some people refuse to believe that humans are one of the animals.
Ask my wife, she'll confirm that I'm an animal.
lol @@inyobill
Yea, just because we are able to kill or worse pretty much everything doesn't mean we are special.
Which is crazy, because if you say you are not an animal you're denying taxonomy, there is no "figurative" terms here, we talking about biology and reality.
So when you deny you are animal, you're automatically denying that you are part of all the subsets that fall below the animal kingdom (Animalia/Metazoa), that is, for example the Mammalia class, you can't say "im a mammal but not an animal", a mammal that is not part of the animal kingdom simply does not exist, if you are a mammal you must be an animal, same for vertebrates, all vertebrates are animals but not all animals are vertebrates.
Very few people (especially the most indoctrinated religious literalists) directly states "im not even a mammal/vertebrate" for example, but this statement sounds extremely idiotic to most.
Yup. So desperate to believe they're special for magical reasons and not any of the reasons they're special to others.
Every time I come home and my black lab Luna does this little full body wag with an obvious smile and starts barking with pure joy, my neglected, calloused, black orphan heart is melted with appreciation to have never felt such affection from my own species.
My black lab Lola does that full body wag too, it's very obvious when she's happy to see you... Or food...
If only the members of the human race loved each other the way dogs love us.
Well just seems like you are around shitty humans if a dog is the only thing thats been nice to you....or maybe you're just the shitty person , whos to say lol
The best friends I've ever had have been dogs. Aren't they fucking awesome?!
I am glad you have each other.
Being part of others lifes, whether it be animals or humans, in a way that makes their life better..
Those are the best relationships we can only hope to experience.
Anyone who's ever had a pet knows they have consciousness...
I have partnered with service dogs for 15 years. I cannot explain how they work out what’s best for me, outside of accepting that they do have some theory of mind.
When I first started working with service dogs, the law in the US allowed other animals as well. People reported the same thing about a wide range of species: from reptiles to birds to all sorts of mammals, and even amphibians and frickin’ _arthropods_ - eek!
Anyone that claims animals do not think or feel emotions do not want to admit they feel and think because it is clear they do.
I've interacted with animals that had more "soul" than many humans I know.
I wish that were true
Unfortunately not everyone. My mother has recently said that her cats don't have a single thought in their heads. She's had cats all her life.
It is difficult to understand how anyone can think that.
I think people have to pretend that animals are less than us because otherwise a lot of the stuff we do to them has some frightful implications about humans.
Indeed.
Being the offspring of a predatory and omnivorous (and therefore carnivorous) ape isn't our fault. We are clever enough to be able to predate without causing suffering - but we don't. That denial has set back the quality of life for everything alive at an increasing rate. Foolish, because we will be the first to pay..
Yep!!!
That is why you are either vegan or you support animal abuse.
@@JerryGossettjr You don’t have “the word of God”. All you have are the lies of men.
This is the type of conversation I love to have about animals. Wonderful video Aron! Thank you!
My inner monologue says this was a cool video. Thanks Aron.
Excellent
I feel like only your dumbass family and third world countries think that animals don’t have feelings or even empathy
My inner monolog agrees.
Wish I had one of those, I think of course but I think being able to play sounds in my head would be fun. Also it would be nice to be able to understand my thoughts easier without talking outload or writing them. Even when trying to think in my head its really hard and I have to still move my throat to correspond to syllables or I just cant properly understand.
Aphantasia isnt a help either since I cant imagine anything in my head, not voices, not images, not smells, not tastes, and not even emotions. Cant look into my own head at all, not even dark and silence can be found there because I cant imagine those in my head either.
Years ago I had two Alaskan Malamute. When my male died, the female was howling for days. The neighbors found this very annoying, and rightly so. But there was no way to make her stop.
Don't tell me that animals have no character and feelings?
I had a dog that was like that when his older brother(not actually related, but they knew each other for years) died. He was sad for almost a year.
jfc... i have 2 as well... one 6 one 3. this will happen eventually for me, too. brought me to tears thinking about it.
When our last dog was in his last days, he went missing, either in the house or garden (he was a Bichon). I figured that he might have gone where our middle dog had gone when she was dying, but panicked a bit, and rushed down to the bottom of the garden, beneath the trees, barefoot through the thistles, thorns and nettles and, sure enough, he was in the same spot.
He loved her so much, so I wasn't surprised to find him there. Sadly, he died the next day.
A couple of years ago, one of my three alpacas died suddenly and unexpectedly. His two besties wouldn't let me move the body for three days; they quite literally lay across the corpse so I couldn't move it. Eventually the old ram came and shooed them away for me so I could dispose of the body. While the alpacas were purchased years before as protection animals for lambs and birds, they all deferred to the old ram who kept the whole flock under control and made sure everyone behaved nicely.
@@anserbauer309 Sorry about your alpaca, but it's good to know that the old ram was sensible.
Lost my dog when I was 12. I still miss him decades later.
Understandable. Losing a pet is like losing a member of our family, because that's what they are.
There will be a sad retinue in your future. Pain and joy are inseparable partners in Life. No worries . . .
@@MortenSjgrenThat's true. Me and my wife had to put our cat down yesterday. He had mouth cancer,and died in my wife's arms. It's going to hurt as long as I'm alive.
@@johngavin1175
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I did, decades ago, and it does still hurt.
@@johngavin1175I had to ask the vet to put my 10-year old, best friend german shepherd-labrador mix Rex last December, he got cancer in the jaw. On his 10th birthday we went on a 5 hour hike and he played like a puppy. 4 weeks later he couldn't even stand up much less get in and out of his bed. I stayed awake for days at night to comfort him when the bleeding would start, and it tore me up so much I think I developed some sort of PTSD because I can break down into uncontrollable crying if I think about one or two particular moments during those last weeks. I am crying right now.
Conclusion from video: Humans don't have souls...dogs do!
Humans don't develop one straight away. Some don't develop one at all. 🤔
Both have one. But humans sometimes destroy theirs. It isn't their fault if they do. They may not have had any alternative. This can happen to dogs too.
Animals have heart ❤️ humans don’t
Conclusion is that souls don't exist and humans r animals,period!!🤓
@@JerryGossettjr the 22 part rly goes for theists,as in"they claim to be wise,but they r fools!!!"😂🤣😂
When my late fiance died our cats mourned her missing. One of them always played a game when I went shopping. As I put things away he would always crawl into one of the fabric shopping bags. I would pick up the bag and bring him to wherever my fiance was sitting and put him down next to her. After she died when he crawled into the bag I carried him into the living room and put him on the couch. He mewed at me distressed that I didn't bring him to her. He tried this three time after she died. After that he never wanted to play that game again.
Wow, that made me tear up.
Just like me.
Whelp, I'm a puddle. So sorry for your loss.
@@kimsland999 ditto
Oh, that's heartbreaking. 😢
After my dad became born again, we started going to church regularly. One Sunday the preacher gave a sermon on man's dominion over the "stupid" animals. While not the reason i became atheist, it was sad and eye opening.
Yeah. We are obviously special in some of our abilities, but we aren't special in regard to our place in the world. We are all animals, the need plants (whether we eat or our feed eats it), bacteria help us process our food and such, and fungi help restore resources back to the environment. We are all needed to varying degrees.
Yo, ain't there in the bible that we are of beasts and to think otherwise is vanity?
@@KlavierMenn wouldn't know, I don't use the Bible to justify my position, just to embarrass christians
That preacher forgot about the talking donkey? 😅
@@JerryGossettjr thanks so much Mel Gibson
I had to bury my dog Monday. It has been a rough week, dealing with that loss. This video was beautiful. It really helps.
I am so sorry for your loss.
I'm so sorry. I had to do that 4 years ago and it still hurts sometimes, but time will heal the pain. I'm still not ready to get another dog, yet because I'm hesitant to want to go through that end experience again. I will eventually, though because all the days of joy they bring is worth the pain you have to suffer when they're gone.
I'm sorry for your loss. Dogs are not "just pets", they're family. It is quite easy to see from comments how impactful dogs/cats and many other support animals are to people.
So sorry for you.
I had a Border Collie that lived with my family for 15 years, best dog ever. We could leave for a whole day and she would never leave the property, never go in the road, never bother anyone, just hang out and do whatever a doggy does.
When she would fuck up, all I had to do was talk to her and she would never do it again. A truly kind and gentle and damn smart dog. When she got to where she couldn’t walk anymore I put her down and it truly broke me. She was my best friend and a member of the family. 8 years later and I still refuse to get another dog because it will never measure up to our Bitty. I’m tearing up as I write this thinking of my good, good friend, Bitty.
In the book Shiloh (a story of a boy saving a dog from an abusive owner), one of the other characters says something like "Animals don't go to heaven because they don't have souls". The hero's immediate thought was, "If my dog isn't in heaven, I'm not going!"
Honestly, the most real response possible. I'd imagine if I was in a similar situation, I'd be the same. But I was lucky to have a religious grandmother who would never think that way. She was the type of person that believed animals did have souls, and they got their own heaven altogether called Rainbow Bridge. She's seen more animal personalities and thoughts then most people and she actively showed me just how human they really are.
Cool.
Holy cow. You just unlocked one of my deepest memories. I remember reading that book back in elementary school.
Afghan vet here, I have a full time Service dog for PTSD and I can say without a doubt dogs feel love as we do, but rather then go into my personal experience I'll just say there is now overwhelming scientific evidence that dogs genuinely experience love and deep emotional bonds like we do, brain scans of owners and their dogs show identical brain activity especially when physically interacting while looking into each other's eyes. People have known this for a long time but up until recently there wasn't a definitive way to prove the obvious, but with the tools we have particularly with MRI machines and other brain imaging tools there's no doubt about other mammals capacity to experience love and deep emotional connection. I mean elephants will return to sites where their loved ones have passed away, even traveling vast distances to reach these sites and marking them with branches and other items similar to head stones. Orcas have been documented taking mercy on seal pups when not hungry and returning them to beaches so they won't be eaten by others, bottle nose dolphins in captivity have committed the self delete s word after being separated from their handlers. The list goes on and on, the evidence is overwhelming at this point.
That was beautiful Aron. Thank you.
I still see all the cats I’ve had that died. Sometimes in dreams I see them playing in a field. I know they had consciousness. After my best friend fell through ice and was drowning, he was saved by his German shepherd Kyle.
I mourn every animal that has shared their life with me.
My cats definitely have consciousness ❤
No cat I ever knew could jump up to a chair under a table without bumping his/her head on the underside of the table, catastrophically, for the cat's dignity. The number of times . . ..
Sure looks like imagination, empathy, curiosity, learning and understanding to me. We may be dialed up to 11, but that doesn't take away from the fact that (other) animals do learn and communicate and they show signs of what we'd recognize as emotions and empathy in humans.
Clearly his dog couldn't have shown this empathy without the influence of the dog reading the bible. After all, all morality originally comes from the bible.
@@kappasphere lol, clearly
One thing that always bothered me about the Christians around me growing up was the complete lack of empathy for animals. Whether it was animal cruelty or endangered species, they just couldn't care less. Thankfully, those attitudes seem to be changing now, I think.
I don't trust anyone without that empathy. No-one.
Every church goer seems to have an old dog chained to a tree. I know exactly what you mean.
A lot of my family were hunters and fishers. They said that when you kill an animal, it should be quick and clean because that animal is feeling pain and you should not make it suffer more than you have to.
Yep, that's how good hunters do it. You respect what you are taking and why.
My large family, most of whom are hunters, say exactly the same thing. We were taught to follow any deer or pheasant that was wounded to make sure the animals suffered as little as possible. Woe betide the kid who walked away from anything they bagged because they were too lazy to track the animal. The adult present would consider that cause to cut a switch.
@@TheWhimsicalMimzy Same in my family. I'm not a hunter myself but I have cousins and so on that hunt or have hunted. They also genuinely count on it for their grocery budget - mostly deer which then means they have to buy less meat. Apparently it works out to their advantage? I have no idea how much the things associated with hunting cost.
Yes, I used to fish for food. (This isn't the only recession the UK has gone through).
Any fish I was keeping I dispatched quickly, before it was off the hook even with a sharp rap in between the eyes using a lead weight on a stick stunned it, severing the spine immediately behind the head stopped it waking up. I couldn't leave it to suffocate in obvious distress and panic!
I have seen a video of a crow, lying on its back, screaming, mauled by a dog.
Heart braking, the cries of panic and terror.
And then the dog gets bored, turns round and trots away.
And the crow, still on its back, looks around itself, "Hey, what is going on?", jumps up, hops after the dog, "Hey? How can you? Let's keep on playing!"
Somewhere in the jungle, crows rip of strips from fibrous leaves, then cut in near the end, and partly pull off a bit, so that they make a perfect little hood. And that hook they use to pull out maggots from under the bark of trees. A self-made tool, DELIBERATELY made.
All on their own, they have understood the problem getting at the maggots,
They must have understood about what the properties of a solution could be.
They have understood the principle of a hook.
Then they have searched where to get a hook. A twig with a branch or so.
And have found "from that we can MAKE a hook - in several construction steps.
That is high class intellectuality.
And when crows have something that they want to keep, not eat immediately, and know that the others of her swarm watch her, then she watches that the others see her how she is looking for a hiding place, and how she hides it so that all are focused on that spot.
So that then they do not notice that she takes her trophy along when she flies away The others dive down on the hiding place, and she has time to REALLY hide it.
Behaviorists say that requires a "theory of mind", the ability to think what others might think. That takes years for kids to learn.
Yep, birds are smart. The magic is in their light weight. What brain size? When we extinguish ourselves, and our high mammals, the birds will take over.
I have a wild crow that has become used to me and comes to hang out when I am outside, sits on my shoulder, and talks crow chirps. He or she is my familiar. Freaks out my religious in-laws.
A few months ago I found a hole dug under my fence, lined with a piece of glossy magazine paper. I realized that the raccoons had lined their access hole to make it easier and cleaner to crawl through.
@@ironsausage808Some years ago I started feeding birds on my balcony. The standard blackbirds, tits, nuthatches, but also two coloured woodpeckers and up to 3 jaybirds. The latter have mainly moved down the road.
But as for the jays I started to feed tiny pellets (ca. 2 gram, 2 at a time) of frozen minced meat, 2 crows also came. In principle just a couple.
2 years they had a child, last year another one. so now they are sometimes all 4 and who is the boldest gets it.
But they do not get really tame, even though they know me now for years. Usually they do not like me on the balcony. If it works, I have to stay at a distance of 2-3 meters.
Funny is that when I talk with them, they trust me more. Probably "When he is loud, he does not try to prey on me".
In between I put the pellets in a transparent box where they had to pull up a drawer on a string. But then they stole the drawer, ripped it out, I am sure that was intentional, they wanted to have it on an open tray.
Then I thought I give the tits some of these fatty food, in a 300 gram tray I placed on the feeding platform. But the crows quickly pulled it around, and one time, a brand new one instantly disappeared. And it did not lie down on the ground. I have the impression they really carried it away.
@feedingravins. I help the local birds out also. I live in the country and feed all winter. I have had the Chickadees and nuthatches eat from my hand but so far no luck from the Jays. It seems corvids are smarter than most other birds.
But I will say that chickadees are smart, tough, and brave. I love to feel their little feet grab hold of my hand. They are just so
sweet.
As a dog owner (who has a dog that jumps into my arms every time i come home from uni and wags its tail so hard it almost breaks it) i can say that people who say animals don't have feelings are inferior to any animal.
А еще, я не знал, что ты понимаешь русский, это так круто!
Огромное спасибо за твой контент и успехов в борьбе с псевдонауками)
Ty google for translating this. I too wish Aaron gl in fighting pseudoscience.
He is one of the coolest content creators, you can find out there, both in style and knowledge.
Whatever the last parts, I agree.
@@tomwanders6022
I didn't understand what you meant by the first sentence, but if you say that I translated the text with google translator, then you are wrong, I am half Russian and Russian is actually my native language)
@@Viktor_GitThey were referring to RUclips giving us the option to translate comments. It allowed us non-Russian speakers to understand that part of your message.
Also, I agree with you. Long live Aron.
Growing up I had a beagle who would eat the dry cat food. And when he did we'd warn him away and point to his bowl. One day I saw him take a mouthful of the cat food and take it back to his bowl to chew it. That's when I accepted him as one of the family. That was devious.
He did it with the best understanding he had. Eat the cat food over there.
Devious? No, practical. Honest. All dogs are honest, just as they all speak French.
lol I think rather he thought the issue you had was that he was eating the food in the wrong place
I was raised being told by my hyper-religious mother that animals don't have emotions. She said that even though they seemed to, they didn't. I will never forget a trip to the vet with our dog, and the vet was pointing out that humans ARE animals, which made perfect sense to me, as he pointed out the fact that all the same structures are present in human and nonhuman animals. My mother was grousing all the way home about how she didn't believe that. She was wrong.
Doctors don't mince words up. They state facts. I feel this is the needed approach to theists.
_I'm sorry Miss, you are WRONG_ :)
You were badly brought up. But so is everyone. Acceptance heals.
Makes you wonder why God would create Westworld androids. Just to satisfy our own sadistic depravity? It's really confusing.
@@kellywalker1664 _"sadistic depravity"_ - Hollywood. The depravity is in the ignorance. BTW, to believe in God (an evidence-less made-belief) is also sadistically-depraved, so it's no wonder you're confused..
I never understood that perspective. If you look inside a dog or a cat or any other mammal, it's not full of mystery organs. It has the exact same ones we do, used for the same purpose. Some medications can be used by people and dogs. I remember the first time a doctor prescribed me Tramadol, I asked "Isn't that dog medicine?" And it is, but it's equally effective for humans, as is diphenhydramine. This would not make any sense at all if we weren't essentially the same thing.
Being a veteran of numerous tours to the Middle East and other countries, I have seen every way possible a human can suffer and be killed. The reason I shared this is because I now truly understand humanity and its capacity. I grew up in a very small farming community in Utah, we raised livestock, and I helped our neighbors do the same. You inadvertently develop an understanding that killing animals is how we live, as horrible as that sounds it’s a reality to survive in a lot of places. Every spring brought life and death. Calves were born and cows were brought to the auctions to be sold for meat. I never thought how did the animals feel. Hunting and fishing was part of the culture and even celebrated, as we would have a deer hunters ball every season. After I retired from the military about 8 years ago, I was excited to go hunting with family. About a year after that, I took a deer with a bow, not an easy task. I truly struggled with that feeling, as the feelings of my military experiences flooded my mind. Like I did once with religion, I now go through the motions. My family still hunts and I still purchase a license and even go out into the mountains and look as if I’m hunting. I’m really not, I’m just taking advantage of the few times my family gets together. I will admit I’m an avid fisherman, and even then it’s therapeutic more than anything. I don’t even care if I catch anything. I have had dogs and cats since I was a kid, they are amazing animals and a lot of times they are more civilized than man.
That may be the way you live, but you cannot accurately say it "has" to be that way. That sounds like justification.
@@littlebitofhope1489 I am not sure what you mean justification? I’m not trying to justify anything, simply stating that’s my story. I have a different perspective on life as a whole and understand that not everyone has the same perspective.
@@armysapper12b Just chiming in to say thank you for your service and sacrifices, and thank you for sharing your story.,....and that the commentor above is some form of twit.
Nature takes life to sustain other lives. That's simply how it all works. All we can really do is make sure those lives we take to sustain ours are as full and happy as we can, and minimize any and all suffering as we can. I'm an old hunter myself ( physically unable anymore) who didn't do trophies; but every animal I took I assured went as quick and clean as possible, so hopefully one second they were happy and the next they were simply gone. Do what's best for yourself and others (including non-humans)
@@timneedham8267 most of the people I know don’t really hunt for trophies, but a economic way of providing food. As for humane, I’ve seen these massive cattle businesses, that’s inhumane. I also understand that it’s somewhat hypocritical to simply drive to the supermarket and buy a package of meat, I’m just paying someone else to do the killing for me. Even the livestock we raised had a pretty good life compared to their wild cousins; food, water, medical care and open ranges or fields to roam freely. When we would lose calf’s to a mountain lion, my family didn’t try to hunt it down, they understood that’s the risk you take free ranging cattle.
7 of the most important people in my life are 2 labradors, 2 cats and 3 parrots. The hardest days i have ever lived through was having to put previous dogs and cats to sleep. Most because of age related issues, but one for cancer. They are all, alive or dead part of my family.
People who reject this have a species version of "main character syndrome" in my opinion.
To be fair, our lives are more complex than most, if not all creatures. It makes sense that we would have more value in our own species, we are them after all. But yeah, it is pretty clear most animals have emotion.
@@Gandhi_Physique Yes, even as a non-religious person, I do take animal life for granted, sometimes. I think it's only a natural part of survival as a tribe; we care more about our own community than other communities.
But at least I'm capable of recognizing I've been doing it.
@Gandhi_Physique For sure, we are VERY special animals. Easily one of if not the smartest one on the planet. But as is stated in spiderman "With great power comes great responsibility" we owe it to the other animals to try to understand them as we impact our planet so heavily. But conversely we wouldn't be here without them.
Dogs are my favorite people.
I truly love you sir. Please keep preaching the good word , all the good words. We're on the precipice of truly evolving if only we can let go of our religiosity and ancient ignorance.
I would've loved to see what Nicaraguan sign language looked like during that early synthesis - Gutsick Gibbon did a video a little while back about how apes (including us) use a repertoire of gestures that seem to be deep-rooted in our evolutionary history, so I wonder how many commonalities those kids had, both with each other and with that shared pool of hand movements we all tap into.
A few years ago I suddenly had an epiphany. I out of the blue realized that was thinking in my non-native language. I've been thinking in swedish all my life but now from to time I also think in english. The thing is that half if the time I don't even notice what language I think in. It was a very clear revelation in how the abstract thought comes before the the inner monologue. It's like the words are just placed in my head afterwards to make substance for the thoughts that I have.
I've heard similar things like this and also that multilingualism is like opening one drawer while closing another, seamlessly and without effort or awareness.
Many years ago when I was trying to be a believer (Christian) I was at church and the priest swapped over from English into Latin. I know a bit of Latin. The thing was, I didn't even notice the change over for a few sentences and that weirded me out when I did realise it.
Nor can I always remember what language I've been told something in. (These days I'm living in a fairly monolingual situation but when I was younger I was using Spanish quite a lot.)
Other than English, I only know computer language. So you can imagine my imagination as I have the entire Web of data plus English! LOL
There are some books for language learners with opposing pages in the two languages (for example left page in English, right in Slovak, same content). Turns out I can forget about this and then spend a chapter wondering why the story keeps looping back on itself.
When I was learning French, this would happen to me! All of a sudden, the words were interchangeable, as if the French words were just new English vocabulary words, and it was using them in turn.
Strange how we are able to compartmentalize our feelings towards animals, which allows us to love our dogs, cats, snakes, etc., while also loving to eat steak, ribs, and other kinds of meat with a wilful indifference to the death and suffering of other thinking/feeling beings involved in the process.
I can't eat beef products anymore after seeing many videos on Utube showing how much Cows totally love music !
One video almost killed me laughing after seeing dozens of videos with different types of music with the Cows always loving a live performance of musicians, where in one video, a polka band starts to play, and the Cows run away, lol
It is a dilemma.
It's a pretty challenging issue to address due to a number of other issues, mainly cost of substitutes
Not really, I don't think that way and I'm sure others don't too. I absolutely understand what they gave up to feed me. I don't think any less of them for it, and to the contrary respect the value of lives of all animals. Farming has its ugly truths but they are necessary in this system. Besides isn't it a bit perverse to take the thing some people say is wrong and try to copy it perfectly. Why try to copy meat if it's "wrong"?
@@Aliyah_666It is a sad fact that we have to eat, and that without technology, it would be impossible for us not to eat animals.
You can learn a lot about people by how they look at animals.
Recognizing animal consciousness is a big part of why I'm vegan. Animals don't deserve to suffer and die by the billions just because we want to eat their flesh. Animal agriculture is one of the most prevalent evils of the modern world and people need to change their behavior and advocate for the basic rights of other animals
I wish that its gonna end up better that it did for me
You don't need to be a vegan to understand animals having consciousness. You guys don't have a monopoly on respecting animals. I like meat I'm going to keep eating it, and you best believe even though you think it's wrong other animals don't. They'd eat you to survive if it came down to brass tacks. Being vegan doesn't mean you care more either. Stop white knighting...😒 I have the utmost respect for the deer I stalked as a kid to hunt. They were very smart and worthy opponents, had I not needed the food I wouldn't have hunted them. Animal agriculture isn't evil, in fact that is merely a subjective opinion you have. Animal cruelty is wrong, I don't think any animal should be abused or treated poorly but cows and chickens will keep dying every day. Doesn't lessen their lives or the sacrifice they made to feed me and countless others. They matter greatly, yeah we need better animal cruelty laws but farming isn't cruelty. If you knew what living on a farm was like you'd know that.
we share our house with 2 cats & they undoubtedly have a detailed mind-map of the entire house - they also have a huge an extensive knowledge of all familiar sounds so that for instance, if one of them is upstairs & they hear even the hint of a packet of cat biscuits being opened they will suddenly appear as if out of nowhere.
Domestic cats are much more vocal than their wild cousins. I've definitely had a cat that sounded as if she were trying to talk English. "No" was one of her favourite words, as in, I would say something like, "Come on, Elf, get down from there," and she would say, "No!" There was also something that sounded rather like "Hello".
It's their job.
Blind cats are very good a mental maps. The memoir Homer's Odyssey may not be very scientific, but is a great descriptive example.
9:14 I knew that dogs a and other animals are sentient because the can dream.
As someone who has kept both dogs and cats, I have observed them having vivid dreams, and experienced their friendship and love. It is not hard to accept the probability that all mammals are capable of most of the feelings we encounter.
We lost our 16 year old dog just yesterday, so this video is especially meaningful to me today. He was never anything less than a beloved part of our family.
RIP
I do not know it otherwise, my older brother was 6 1/2 when I was born. And he was as chosen child, my mom picked him from the litter. He educated me, bit me in the face when I came too near to his food. I lay in the arms of my mother, and he was curled up in the bend of her knees so that he did not get jealous. He got 18 1/2 years old.
16 is really decent.
When I look up here, I look at a drawing of him and one of the first of my later 3 sisters - all three real bitches.
My mother had a saying "When you want to do a real compliment to your dog, get another one. That shows he made your life so much better that you do not want to be without that"
Maybe not attempt to get a clone - to avoid to constantly make comparisons.
My mother switched to another breed and to a bitch - his maleness had been problematic from time to time (smaller males could be ignored, but all bigger ones one had to prove ones machismo).
Leave your time, but don't have a bad conscience. Imagine, your dog would want to see his pack members happy, that was what he lived for.
I am so so sorry. ❤
My condolences
LOVE this.
Animals are a wonderful people's
Some non-human animals have more personality and empathy than some humans.
I grew up with dogs and cats. They all had their own personality. They weren't just "programmed" to behave like that. They could think and feel. They cared for eachother.
9:29 I’m one of those (20% of the population or so) who think without inner monologue. The only occasions I speak inside my head is when I actually want to compose text or speech, like when writing this, or think about what I should have said in some situation, and so on. 😏
When I don’t do inner speech, my thoughts are finished concepts, pictures, feelings, three dimensional models and the like. People around me say they notice I think faster than they do. And when I hear therapists tell patients to “change the words of their thoughts” to handle PTSD or something, I roll my eyes. There are no words in the flashbacks. 🙄
I imagine that people like me are a good model for how other animals think without words. It would kind of explain why chimpanzees can do the tasks in experiments so much faster than _H sapiens_ subjects ever could.
I don't even have one when reading or writing 😂
I think it's an animal feature (to think without internal monologue), and as humans are animals, it's a human feature. It's part of the 'hard-wired' basic brain, moderated by waking consciousness and higher intellectual functions (that latter being rather unknown in all cases). It has a moral code and habits evolved from the superior evolutionary performance of co-operation. Tesla's Optimus Robot software needs this structure/feature in its coding, and will probably get it soon (if it hasn't already received it).
PS in Christian terms this feature would be called a *_soul._* 😎
And to think people think lacking inner monologue means they're an NPC
Lol, I learned today that we are supposed to put thoughts into words in order to be able to think. 😅 From the description seems my brain works like the OP’s. I’ll add that, being fluent in three languages, not infrequently I have a concept in my head and can’t remember in which language I read/heard it, which requires me to put it into words from scratch.
I never understood the question "what language do you think in"
Heck less than 50 years ago surgery was performed on human infants without anesthesia! They don’t feel pain; they don’t remember it.
Really? 50 years ago? Where was this, anywhere I have been I find this highly improbable. The only logical explanation I can think of that there may be examples where it would be dangerous to use anesthesia.
Just lost my best friend a few months ago. My 13 year old cat Munky. He was with me every second that I spent at home. He had suddenly become ill like he'd been poisoned, but he was an indoors cat and we have always been VERY careful with what we leave laying around, so... we have no idea what happened. But, overnight he got to where he couldn't move at all. He was just laying there crying. We got him to the vet already knowing he was done for. When the wife and I were sitting next to him as they gave him the shot, my boy was just staring us in the eyes and I could almost feel him saying "goodbye". Maybe I'm crazy or that's just what I wanted to think. Man... probably the hardest moment of my life right there. That boy wasn't just my pet, he was my best buddy ever. I thought of him just like I would a person.
It always hurts real bad. Congratulations. Start again.
This was exactly what led me from Christianity as a kid, it also led me to seek further knowledge to vindicate my doubt against the revolting thoughts that animals are incapable of any thought. I'm happy to say I was right, and all those filthy people who insisted against the cognitive presence of animals were wrong. The only issue is that those people are still wrong, and still filth.
...and still carnivores
You needn't hold it against them. They are just animals, after all. You're getting angry at chemical processes.
When I see a human train a different species to perform some human activity, I think it's awfully strange how that human never succeeded in learning any of the other species' behavior patterns, and at times I unironically suspect that the human isn't the more intelligent one between the two.
@@titanomachy2217we can neither prove that it’s just chemicals nor that it isn’t.
Also their anger is just a chemical process too by that logic. Either way, it’s not unjustified.
@@titanomachy2217
No it’s not. They (unless they have a medical condition) have the cognitive ability to CHOOSE rational thinking and judgment.
They are CHOOSING to refuse science, facts, and reality.
I’m a former Christian. I was born and raised in it. But, because as I grew older , and was exposed to proper education and information, I CHOSE to react with my own will by deconverting from a cult, and stopped being a bigoted POS.
These are complex psychological problems, that require more than chemical reactions to control the outcome.
Aron, you may find the video "1. Before Music" on the channel Diacoustics interesting, it's on my Music History playlist also. He goes into pointing out (with some audio, that a whale "song" sped up is strangely similar to a bird "song" and some bird "song" slowed down is strangely similar to whale "song".
Interesting.
Heck, even the Bible, in Ecclesiastes, says that animals have souls and that it's only human arrogance that makes us think we're better than them. Funny how quickly Christians are to ignore or dismiss the few correct things that can be found in that book.
I agree with your reasoning, but Ecclesiastes says "Who knows?" in regards to the question of animals, or humans for that matter, having souls.
@cynicalsayonara7169 "Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" - Ecclesiastes 3:21
That passage implies that animals do indeed have souls. The uncertainty is regarding whether any souls, human or animal, go to heaven.
Obviously, I see this discussion as moot since I don't believe in souls but I don't think that undermines my original point, which is that you have to ignore that section of the Bible to make the claim that animals are souless.
@@snbalmung You're right. I was working off of memory. I see what you're saying.
@@cynicalsayonara7169
If only you were an elephant. . . Memory
You made me cry with this talk.. I started thinking about all the cats that I've ever owned and the ones that I own now and how wonderful they all were and are. Complete madness to think that animals don't feel and that we're not animals ourselves.
Had a cat back then when I was 16. Because of circumstances, he was fixated on me. Always sleep near me, let hold him, pet him.
Then I brought a girlfriend home. And of course, we cuddled. He would just look at it disapproving, and after some time we notice he pissed on my bed. Never done something like that before.
Dude was jealous as hell.
Cats are the worst. I have loved a few.
Pussy jealous of another .
I know I can't understand my dogs, but I can tell what they want just based on their actions and what they're doing with their bodies. And they're smart too. One of them will watch where squirrels dig then go and dig up the nuts that the squirrels burry.
They know that they can't understand their guy, but can tell what he wants just based on his actions and what he's doing with his body.
They often understand what we think and how we feel, understand our character better than we underdand ourselves
They understand whether you are TRULY confident, resting in yourself, or whether you just PLAY the tough guy.
I am always looking somewhat suspiciously when a slim guy turns up with a bullterrier or a Mastino Neapolitano or so. Whether they bought that fighting dog not primarily as crutch for their own feeble ego.
I have no problem with dogs, also with "dangerous" ones, but you should have the confidence to be in charge, and quasi ooze it out of your pores.
Otherwise it can happen that at one point the dog says "No, why should I draw back", and then it can get dangerous.
My opinion is the most important thing you have to demonstrate is (BEFORE anything happens) that when push comes to shove, you WANT more than the animal. Not with constant power demonstrations, just with you being you, being consequential, making the rules and sticking to them.
Therefore Trump hates dogs, because they see under his bronzer and see that he is weak, insecure, mean, a wimpy little ankle-biter (german "feiger Wadlbeisser" (Wadl being bavarian for little ankle)). Is all nice and friendly, and when you turn round and don't look, comes running from behind, bites you in the ankle and runs away.
Is ankle-biter usual in english?
@feedingravens it is, but it's usually meant as a reference to unruly little kids. Not inappropriate in this context admittedly
Predators know everything about consequences. Otherwise they would never eat.
Even with non verbal communication, my dogs respond to emotion, tone of voice, many varied and complex words and concepts and facial expressions.
Dogs absolutely respond to speech, tone and to a lesser extent meaning
@@inyobill
Not really.
Also meaning, IE: associated with hand and body signals.
Even names and quite complex concepts.
Mine are Australian, stock working and hunting blue cattle dogs.
I had a fox terrier/cattle dog mix a few decades ago. Really smart. She would escape the house and refuse to come back in, no matter how cold it was. She'd just stand there and look at me. I had a revelation one day. I would get upset at her for escaping and not coming back. Turns out she thought I was mad because she came back, not because she got out. I gave her a cookie for coming in when I called her. Just once. Never happened again. She HATED having her nails trimmed. We made a game out of it. She would steal the trimmers and make me trade them for a cookie. I miss that dog. My vet injected her with that hideous Heartguard Six. Ruined her liver and she died. They pulled it from the market after 5000 deaths. It's back, supposedly reformulated.
I remember my cats that have come and gone. Pablo was a cunning hunter, Watson always came to me because I was there to comfort him due to him losing his leg. He purred loudly every time he was petted. I remember Lily a siamese kitten who was very playful and would come to me if I scratch the floor. I miss them all.
One of my most treasured possessions is the last box my dad ever made. He was a woodworker for decades, and he was working on a box for my counter (for tea or coffee or whatever) when his health prevented him from finishing. He was also losing his ability to form words, and he attempted to sign the bottom of the box, but could no longer spell his own name. He was still in there.
Thank you, Aron, for saying so well, what I've tried many times to explain to religious people, and even to some atheists.
It is relatively easy to see that other mammals have similar feelings and worldview to ours. Birds, though their brain structure is quite different from ours (they have very little "gray matter", and think with the "white matter"), also seem to think in ways similar to how we do. Dr Irene Pepperberg's experiences with Alex the African Gray Parrot show his ability to understand many abstract concepts. And, of course, many parrots and corvids can imitate our speech, helping us understand their minds.
Reptiles and fish seem even more alien than mammals and birds, but even there people have developed relationships with them. Some snakes become very friendly, as do some lizards. Fish will learn surprisingly complex things. Tiger sharks can become emotionally attached to humans who remove hooks from their mouths, and they seem to communicate among themselves, because soon, more sharks will present themselves to have their hooks removed. Small elephant fish that live in the muddy waters of East Africa are a kind of electric fish. They sense their surroundings by emitting an electric field so that they "see" in all directions at once. Interpreting this information requires a very complex brain so they have a surprisingly large brain for their body size, and are, I've been told, very intelligent and able to be easily taught.
What about invertebrates? People who feel they can't have feelings or a complex view of the world run into problems with the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. (I don't know much about the nautilus's brain.) These cephalopods are undeniably extremely smart, and have been observed to communicate with each other and, to some degree, with humans.
But most people would draw the line at arthropods. Surely they're too small, too primitive, too alien to have minds comparable to ours. Well, the brain-body ratio is our best guide to intelligence (though not for birds). On that basis, honeybees score significantly better than humans. And why shouldn't they have complex brains? They are able to communicate complex abstract concepts to each other, such as distance to a food source, quantity, and value. They are also the only animals other than humans that understand the difference between odd and even numbers.
Some ants, too, have a higher brain-body ratio than humans. When you see them defending aphids from predators and moving them to fresh plants, especially when they move aphids down into their nests to avoid snow, and place them on the roots of plants there.
Some other arthropods are surprising too. When you watch a centipede guard her nest of eggs, carefully picking each egg up in turn and licking it clean of spores, you realise there is more going on than what people disparagingly call "instinct". Sure instinct is operating, but is pre-wired understanding of something. I'm not saying the centipede is thinking about what she is doing, but the actions are too complex to be merely robotic.
When you see jumping spiders stalk and ambush their prey, they often appear to think ahead and strategise.
If you walk past a paper wasp nest, the wasps will carefully watch you. If you pass many times and offer no threat they become used to you. But if a different person walks past they become alert again. They recognise different people as different threat levels.
I could rattle on about this for hours.
Thank you again, for your wonderful monologue.
In my experience, people with no empathy for their pets are the same people with no empathy for other humans. People that kick their dogs are more likely to hit their kids.
Every time you mention your dad's comment about "they don't feel", it breaks my heart. And reminds me of my father talking about drowning kittens without the slightest hesitation or regret. I can't fathom that thought process; it's so discordant with reality. The empathy shown by my household pets and other apes, the ingenuity of corvids, how could anyone witness these and then deny their existence?
I've had many pets over the years, that were dropped into my life by circumstance (I never bought a pet, they were abandoned near me so I took them in) and every one of them was more like a person with special needs than "a dumb animal." They couldn't speak and sometimes had impulse control problems, but every one of them demonstrated distinct personalities and more empathy that I've come to expect from homo sapiens. Even the moodier cats showed more concern for me than some of my past roommates.
For example: Booper was my roommate's cat, before she abandoned him. So I took care of him, and he become very attached and affectionate (it was impossible to stop him from climbing onto my lap and nuzzling into my chest). A few years ago, a stray kitten got stuck in my air vent. After we coaxed her out, Booper pretty much instantly adopted Adora. He guided her towards his food bowl and sat back watching as she ate with perfect calm.
Adora was always skittish, having lived for at least a few months in the wild, but she was also clearly not "programmed" to behave that way. It was a huge change when she went from running away at the sight of me and only very cautiously coming back to running up to me every time I entered the room while purring louder than my computer fan on a summer day.
Then came Chatterbox, Adora's son after she slipped out one day before I could get a vet appointment scheduled. Booper was also really attached to him, and Chat was really attached back. They'd always sleep curled up together and Chat took it even harder than Adora did when Booper died. Adora spent a month and a half searching every corner of every room, mewing for him (despite being a very non-vocal cat). Chat spent three months making a mournful yowl everywhere. The same yowl he started making every time he woke up while I was asleep and my current roommate had already gone to work.
I had to move and the new place didn't allow pets. Putting Chat and Adora up for adoption (through a no-kill shelter, mercifully) still hurts, four months later. They showed me so much love and the only consolation I have is that they can find families that can provide for them better than I can.
...This turned into far more of a blog post than my initially intended two paragraphs. What can I say, except that I'm sentimental and disappointed in people who aren't.
Yes, that sounds like psychopathy. I never knew anyone that had that attitude, even if they hunted. It never occurred to me that animals did not feel. We did fish, but we were taught to do things quickly to keep suffering to a minimum. Even with that, I found that I couldn't do it.
Love the insights in this video also that it put words on how I perceive living beings.
My family has a history of pets with longetivety, dogs and cats that live into their 20's. In that amount of time with an animal, you learn that they definitely have feelings and are aware!
I used to have a Samoyed dog who was extremely expressive, not loud, but he used his body and sounds to communcate as well as he could. He was very good at talking, and I encouraged him to show what he wanted, be it food, play or cuddles (mostly). At the time I took a religious studies course at uni and one lecture was about religous theory about animals. Elephants visiting their dead, monkeys mourning a doll and suchlike. It was almost as interesting as this video. After the lecture, the lecturer held a discussion, and he said something that still makes my blood boil. That animals only have access to the basic emotions (fear, aggression, happiness and a few more), but the complex ones were unavailable to them, like shame. If an animal does something that lookes like shame, it's just a learned behaviour - a response to being yelled at, he said.
Only days before, my dog had had an accident in the house while I was away. As I came home, he didn't rush to meet me as he usually did, he was in his bed, sulking. When I called he came, his head and tail low, looking as if he wanted to fall through the floor. Even as I pet him, he didn't meet my eyes, and pulled away from my hand, but he didn't flee. I got worried and started to look around for something to explain his strange behaviour. Then I saw the accident. It clearly wasn't his fault, so I started cheering him up while I fixed the mess and he perked right up, getting as overly happy as I was used to.
I told the lecturer this, and his response was simply that the dog obviously thought he was going to get yelled at and acted in this was to try and get out of it. I didn't push it further. The guy clearly didn't know me or my dog well enough to say things like that, and this ignorance was on full display.
Too many people have the flaw that they act out their bad mood (that they have achieved somewhere else) on someone that has nothing to do with the cause.
Not only bad against dogs, also against kids.
I say that happened to your dog, he knows that makes you sad, and you being sad makes him sad.
And a little bit of "I am home alone, now I have the responsibility, I must guard the territory." So he failed his task.
And regarding character flaw and handling it, look at these christians:
Their relation to their God is that of a slave to their master (NOT to a father).
They are nothing without their master, he created them all they have is provided by him and can take it away anytime, all the rules he dictates he is not bound to. They are NOTHING without their master. They have to be grateful to him for anything.
The Bible is one long demonstration for that dependence. Out of sheer capriciousness, he tortures Job. He overrides Pharaoh's Free Will to punish the egyptians by killing all firstborn (including firstborn animals), but christian-hunter Saul gets a personal performance to convert him to Paul.
Many of the sins are punished especially viciously: Not (only) the sinner is punished, but also innocent ones, over generations, his children, his family, his friends.
Our INSTINCTUAL feeling of compassion for others, of injustice, is mercilessly played here.
As God is not acting, not speaking, not visible, the Bible has the goal to scare you so horribly that you dare not resist, and then baits with infinite reward (unless you want 72 virgins)
All meant to control people. Therefore the Seven Deadly Sins. Normal emotions, that ALL have, that are natural, even necessary, no problem as long as they are kept under control, are declared as evil.
For the simple reason to make ANYone a sinner, a sinner that needs assistance, again and again, by the clergy, that affirms him that God forgives them these sins, but for the next time they have to come (and donate) again.
It somehow also fulfills this purpose of stabilizing a society, but on the cost of creating a core group, literally sacrificing the outsiders.
Imagine the catastrophe:
When animals can act morally, all on their own, instinctively,
whereas us humans are absolute monsters, amoral, only the DICTATE of the moral rules by God can keep humans (that are made in the image of God - lol) under check, turn them into good beings.
Humans need the divine psychoterror to be controlled.
You must be brought to be totally persuaded that without God, you would not find your ass to wipe it - each time,
A horror when one would demonstrate that the natural, instinctive, mammalian Golden Rule of Empathy, treat others like you want to be treated, when trained how to apply it intelligently, functions at least as efficient as the mind control techniques of religion.
Granted you have to train empathy, train to get a feeling for what others might think, especially what others think about what you do and whether you would want that to be done to you and whether you would want that they think of you this way.
The empathy of your dog (and of you) is poison... love it ;))
Yeah, sounds like a bias they hold. That is clearly shame rather than fear. Would a fearful dog approach? I doubt it.
Sounds like your “professor” doesn’t have access to higher emotions…
Uh. RUclips. Stop deleting my fucking innocent comments.
Now that I was way more explicit in this comment, watch it stay.
But yeah, basically what my original comment said was that if it were actually fear.. then why would the dog even come up to you. That's clearly shame.
Makes you realize how repulsive god is for making animals kill each other in the wild lol
A beautiful, powerful and much needed video; again you knock it out of the park Aron. That grieving husky broke my heart. I've seen a dog cry. It's heart-breaking.
I only own wolfdogs. They're pretty different from normal dogs, but I've never had an animal love me more intensely than them. Their intelligence is unmatched (they even outsmart humans regularly) and so is their emotions and love.
I communicate with them in plain English/German (sometimes baby talk) and they know exactly what I want.
Doesn't mean they'll do it, because they're stubborn😅 but they know. They're so special. I love dogs and all other animals.
Everything said about animals in this video applies to farm animals aswell. How can we do the things we do to them?
When I picked up my girl from the pound, she was clearly afraid and depressed. The moment we walked out the doors, she had the biggest smile and she hasn't stopped smiling since. I've had her about 7 years now.
Edit: She was there for 3 months and overlooked because she had a yellow piece of paper, saying she was free of distemper but given medication anyway cause the pound had a distemper outbreak. She just had to finish the medication.
That happened with my Elsa.
Thank you Aron for all you do.
Appreciate your wisdom on this
there was a time not too long ago that human babies were not considered to feel pain, merely programmed to respond as if they do, consequently, many older doctors will still do surgeries on babies without even basic pain killing medications, and many parents consider it completely normal.
This is a very interesting topic.
Great video
that story of the labrador at the dam was heartwarming. I hope you gave that good pup some love afterwards
In the excellent and underrated manga _Ryushika Ryushika_ by Abe Yoshitoshi, there's a chapter where Kimika, the little girl protagonist, discusses a square watermelon with her family, and when they find out that square watermelons are made by restricting the growth of normal watermelons, she despairs because she thinks humans may potentially be restricted in a similar way. Then her brother tells her that all humans grow restricted in a way, because society forces them to conform and become "square watermelons". When she replies that maybe some humans can escape the norms so they can remain "round watermelons" her brother tells her that the restrictions start with language, and that natural humans should be the ones without language. After that, Kimika spends the rest of the day trying to think without using Japanese words in order to "become like a monkey" because she thinks "the monkey me is the real me".
But she's unable to, and so that night she has a dream about people with watermelon heads, which she tries to save from becoming squares, in a visually surreal and amusing sequence.
It's seriously a good comic. A lot of artists have made modern versions of _Alice in Wonderland,_ but to my knowledge Abe Yoshitoshi is the only one that has made a modern version of _Alice Through the Looking Glass._ In the very first chapter we see Kimika wondering how can music be trapped inside a CD, then dancing to the music in her head, then dancing in her head.
One would think a visual medium like comics wouldn't be ideal for such stories as a person thinking about music and thinking about dancing, or thinking about thinking, or trying to think without words, but Abe Yoshitoshi managed.
What I found fascinating was the pet tortoise owned by a friend of mine. He used to scratch it on the back of its shell with a medium stiff brush and the tortoise used to come to him specifically for this attention. I didn't know such animals had any sensation at all in their "shell". I just assumed it was a numb covering for the part of them that did feel. Nope. A tortoise's shell has sensation. It gave me a completely new view of every living thing around me. Try to keep it in mind next time you don't think someone is being hurt by what you're doing.
I recently saw a video of a crow. There was a glass with some water in it but it wasn’t full enough for the crow to reach it with its beak. The crow began picking up stones and dropping them in the glass until the water level rose enough so it could drink. There was some kind of reasoning involved in the process that surprised me.
I have heard that crows are very intelligent. Among the most intelligent non human animals.
Crows are scary smart, I love seeing videos of them problem solving.
Wasn't that an Australian magpie? They are said to be one of the smartest birds in the world.
More fool you. Without tricks, Life would not exist. Even plants are strategic, and they have no brains at all. Life has more wonders within it than anyone can cope with.
Take that, Archimedes!
This video reminds me of the time our little west highland terrier got into my step mothers white russian she left on the nightstand. Needless to say Sadie (sweetest little dog in the world) got horribly drunk. We called the vet and they said, after confirming the amount of alcohol that was consumed, she should be fine, but to monitor her throughout the night. I was the one to do it, I checked on her all throughout the night, it was scary at times as she was so drunk she was as limp as a wet noodle and very difficult to wake when she passed out.
Eventually she pulled through and that little dog refused to ever leave my side again.
Extend this understanding to other animals. Is why me vegan.
I was in the hospital for 2 weeks years ago and when my beagle heard me she yelped out a cry I had never heard before. My lap wasn't big enough. All animals have emotions. They especially feel loss.
Been training dogs 20 years. Dogs feel, think, have empathy , compassion, and many 'human' attributes. Demonstrably so.
My uncle had a small dog (Yorkshire mix I think) who was touchy. If my uncle seriously scolded her she got offended and she went to the neighbor’s and stayed there until he went and made his peace with her. Ofc she loved him to bits and was overjoyed to go back home but not before him apologizing. 😂
I have always found that particularly remarkable because it’s not what you would expect from dogs which usually are considered blindly loyal to their owners.
Good stuff...my Father, ex-marine Korea veteran taught my brother and I the opposite of your families influence... I remember once we fished all day at a lake without a bite, and at the end of the day we managed to hook a huge catfish from restocking... Everyone was hauling in huge fish and killing and catching more and more but when we caught one, we took it away and let it go free... He asked us if we really wanted to kill, because it's a heavy burden to take a life, and if needed make it quick and painless but it's a greater joy to feel what another's plight is, see the struggle and help... That fish was grateful and we felt good ourselves...
This is very interesting. Aron you've really said all you need to say on Creationism, I really enjoy your biology, taxonomy, palaeontology etc. videos. I suppose Creationism can be easily summarised as "Yeah, that's bollocks" move on. I still want you to do an Octopus evolution video... even though I know it'll be really tricky 'cos the fossil record is so thin.... I wonder what an Octo-sapiens geologist will think about the depositional environment of a 250 million year old Anthropocene deposit... Maybe "what a bunch of clowns".
Oh, yes. Octopus evolution would be a great Aron-series. Would five videos suffice? 😊
Being raised Catholic, we were told that animals do not have souls, but I didn't realize how insidious this belief could be, thus producing such horrifying consequences.
I am an animal Communicator.
Animals do have a silent language, and my hypothesis is that, once we developed spoken language, we abandoned the use of this silent language. However, some of us, for whatever reason, still have this ability switched on. And animals know if you're if you're able to tap in or not. It's almost as though there's some sort of carrier wave that alerts them. I cannot even begin to guess how this works.
You would be amazed at how many wild animals come up to me. It truly is wild.
I first became aware of this when I was 3 and 4 years old as there was a bunny that I kept trying to approach. I got within three feet of this bunny before it would take off. I thought I was a failure. But the next year, I thought I saw my bunny. But this bunny wouldn't let me get within 15 feet of him. I realized that this wasn't the same bunny. And I realized that I wasn't a failure at all. I was actually quite successful in approaching that bunny.
My brain takes the thoughts that they are communicating and translates them into English words for me. I can occasionally see pictures as other animal communicators claim to to do. However, the only time I see pictures is when there is trauma or abuse to the animal.
🐦
One of the funnier examples happened last year when I what's standing near my raspberry bushes. A mockingbird landed about 4 feet away from me and asked if she could have a berry.
I said "yes".
But she asked again, "Can I have a berry? "
" yes. I said yes."
"Can I have a berry?"
At this point,I became quite animated pointing to the raspberry bushes saying, "Yes, yes. I said yes. Go have a berry".
But she just continue to stand there 4 feet away from me.
So I was thinking, "What is wrong with you? Why are you not having your berry?" And I hear, "I'll wait till you leave". 🤣
"Okay, okay. I'll leave so you can have your berry."
I then left the area, so the dear thing could have her raspberry in peace.
Thank you.
This is one of your best videos. Thanks.
Every pet I've ever known has it's own personality, and a unique way of communicating with me. They absolutely can comprehend the world around them and have thoughts about it.
Check out Koko the gorilla and her kitten. Then tell me that if something like a soul exists, animals don't have it.
If you pay attention in life, and observe how the animals sorrounding us observe us back, it becomes clear that they already regard us humans as thinking, complex beings. Never mind even your pets, just follow how the crows consider you as you pass them by, how their behaviour changes if they notice you staring them. We should give them the same consideration they are already giving us.
An interesting tidbit about Koko is that not only was she very good at communicating through sign language, but she also had the capacity to lie. One time when she accidentally broke a sink, she blamed it on her cat.
That mourning dog hit hard...😢
Seeing that dog at the gravesite chocked me up. Love this video and all the other great work you do. Thank you, Aron!
adopted our husky/shepherd mix 6 months prior to my stroke. After getting home after a month in the hospital she quickly realized something happened and essentially became my caretaker; and went on to become my service companion so I could get back out into the world. Non humans are often more empathetic and loving and self-responsible than most humans.
It is a problem of a culture which isn't evolving as quickly as individual intellect. It's just the breaks . . .
@@tonyduncan9852 pretty much
Not sure if I've shared this before, but a friend of mine has cats & once broke her ankle. While recovering, she once woke up to find one of her cats draped over that ankle & purring for all he was worth.
I believe scientists have found that the frequency at which cats purr promotes, among other things, bone growth.
So the cat not only understood that her ankle was hurt & that purring would help it, so topically applied purrs to help with the healing process.
She also had a lot of chronic pain, & her cats would often purr on her & try to specifically purr on the parts which hurt, even if she couldn't stand them to actually touch those parts.
I have no idea but this struck a cord with me. I am teary as I realize it is far too uncommon for people to have such an appreciation of non-human animal intelligence. I feel saddened by the lack of respect for our animal friends. Beautiful speech Aaron.
There's an extremely rare graphic novel called Duncan the Wonder Dog. The story's premise is that all humans are perfectly capable of talking to animals, but it has very little effect on how they are treated. How the animals respond, however, is not unlike Hamas, PLO or the IRA.
But are you vegan? Do you cry for the animals on your plate?
Aron, I just want to thank you for proving to me, and everyone who watches you, that empathetic, intelligent, compassionate men do exist.
My dad was/is also a hunter with similar excuses of how animals don't feel pain like we do, nm that we too are animals. I got a lot of contradicting explanations of things from my parents throughout my childhood, and that led to a habit of me contradicting myself without noticing and when it was pointed out, not caring. Thankfully I've come a long way since then, as even back then, I wanted the truth and to be correct. It's just my emotional mind wasn't always on board with my skeptical, rational mind
I'm not sure it ever is for anyone. The emotional always has the temporal initiative over the rational..
@tonyduncan9852 Perhaps, but you learn to consciously stop and take a critical approach instead of being guided by the emotional mind. There are times when emotions get the best of all of us, but it was just ridiculous for me in my younger years 😅
No perhaps. Emotions are instinctive and come first. Always. @@dj_tika
@tonyduncan9852 doesn't matter, hence the reason I mentioned stopping and taking a critical approach instead, I think maybe you misread my reply 🤔
@@dj_tika No, I didn't misread. No matter what you do with them, emotional responses are always involuntary and instinctive, and always have the initiative wrt how they are dealt with. They come first, lower brain structures. They preceded higher brain functions generally, over evolutionary time..
I don't get how someone could spend any length of time around a common pet like a cat or a dog and think they don't actually feel things.
Humans have an obsession with their own sense of superiority, that's all it is. Animals absolutely do think and feel and we're finding more and more of them do, that we previously thought were too simple for it. But they still do have instincts that they can't ignore as easily as we can.
I was taught that same stuff growning up, almost word for word
I'll trust my cat and dog long before I trust a human.
The lakota people call animals with the word "oyáte", meaning "people/tribe/nation". For example, "bison" is "tatanka", and "tatanka oyáte" is literally "the bison people" or "the bison nation".
May Dog be with you.
I have an internal dialogue but i also have a brain condition (not diagnosed) that stops it working sometimes and i just don't know exactly what's going on for a few minutes
It's nice to know that other people do this, and the respect they have for animals.
I remember a news story long ago, about an emu that broke out of its yard and followed the kid to school.
I know you used to have one. The odds are it was yours. 😂
Lost my boy 4 months ago, I love him so, so much, it's devastating. I've always thought people underestimate animals, humans can be very arrogant at times.😓
I had an East Texas woman ask me once, “Do hogs have brains?” 🙄
Delicious, unfortunately.
My son has chickens, and although they're probably the stupidest things alive, they sure know who's got food when you call 'em.
@rboland2173 Maybe she did; it just didn’t come out that way. It was difficult to make sense of her at times.
My dog got seriously depressed and wouldn't eat or drink when my pit bull died she was best friends with him 😢 💔