Animal behaviour

[colmywaykurtz]

Armchair criticisms of life on earth are justified only if we can provide a feasible blueprint of a better one… and that has never been achieved by anyone…

I’m aware of only one hint of an attempt at such a thing (speaking of fiction here): in Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series, his futuristic, archetypal “Green man” is found, at the end, to be a synthesis of human intelligence and will with photosynthetic capability. In other words, a man who can photosynthesize, and thus need do no butchering or crop-raising either, with the inevitable violence to living things (whether large or small) that comes with both activities.

 

[tonyrey]

I’m aware of only one hint of an attempt at such a thing (speaking of fiction here): in Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series, his futuristic, archetypal “Green man” is found, at the end, to be a synthesis of human intelligence and will with photosynthetic capability. In other words, a man who can photosynthesize, and thus need do no butchering or crop-raising either, with the inevitable violence to living things (whether large or small) that comes with both activities.

I specified “feasible”!

 

[colmywaykurtz]

I specified “feasible”!

I am but reinforcing your point. In other words, this is the best anyone can do even in the “unfeasible” category, never mind the “feasible” category.

Your point stands.

 

[John21652]

Is there any evidence for this? Or is this just something you belief on faith?

Hokomai, there is plenty of evidence for this.
Tonyrey gave a good explanation about how the fight or flight syndrome works -

Endorphin and enkephalin are the body’s natural painkillers. When a person is injured, pain impulses travel up the spinal cord to the brain. The brain then releases endorphins and enkephalins. Enkephalins block pain signals in the spinal cord. Endorphins are thought to block pain principally at the brain stem. Both are morphine-like substances whose functions are similar to those of opium-based drugs.

discoveriesinmedicine.com/Com-En/Endorphin-and-Enkephalin.html

Just to enlarge on the information he so kindly gave us, check out these two links, which explain it in fairly simple terms -
What is a fight or flight reaction

and

What is the acute stress reaction.

The same reaction that protects animals from pain is what enables wounded soldiers to keep fighting, or injured football players to feel no pain until after the game and it’s why, as one of the articles explains, people seem to be fine after a car accident and then collapse afterwards. It’s why two animals can keep fighting even when badly injured and it’s why a horse can run and run and run until its lungs bleed. I have seen all these things up close and personal, so there is no ‘faith’ involved and as toneyrey has shown us, we have scientific explanations. If you hunt around the 'net, you will also find the videos of lions eating their prey alive and the prey animal is quite passive.

 

[tonyrey]

I am but reinforcing your point. In other words, this is the best anyone can do even in the “unfeasible” category, never mind the “feasible” category.

Your point stands.

Thanks. I mistakenly thought you were suggesting the opposite. Mea culpa!

 

[valentino]

Is love a cherished value in your life?Is not sacrifice an essential part of love?Is it nnot a fact the greater the sacrifice the greater the Love?Would u rather had God create us without the power to love?Without experiencing pain?What do you wish God created us to be?A flower or stone?

 

[Qoeleth]

I hadn’t read your post when I posted mine but we both pointed out the value of predation - yours with regard to starvation and mine to disease! We could add all the animals born weak, deformed or crippled by an accident or infirmity…

Yes, but the message of the Gospel is in defence of those born weak, deformed, crippled, poor. God wants the lion and the lamb to lie down together- not a sparrow falls to the sky without God knowing and caring. I am so suprised to find Christians defending the evil and unjust post-Fall order of the “God of this World”, the serpent. As the Apostles James says, “Whoever is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.”

We must NOT defend the evil of nature, which dictates that children starve to death. Jesus says “Now judgment is passed on this world. Now the Lord of this World is condemned.”

 

[John21652]

Yes, but the message of the Gospel is in defence of those born weak, deformed, crippled, poor. God wants the lion and the lamb to lie down together- not a sparrow falls to the sky without God knowing and caring. I am so suprised to find Christians defending the evil and unjust post-Fall order of the “God of this World”, the serpent. As the Apostles James says, “Whoever is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.”

We must NOT defend the evil of nature, which dictates that children starve to death. Jesus says “Now judgment is passed on this world. Now the Lord of this World is condemned.”

Nature is not evil. Nature was created by God and man given dominion over it.
Since when does nature dictate that children should starve to death?

I submit that when children starve to death, it is through the negligence of other people, not the fault of nature.

 

[tonyrey]

Yes, but the message of the Gospel is in defence of those born weak, deformed, crippled, poor. God wants the lion and the lamb to lie down together- not a sparrow falls to the sky without God knowing and caring. I am so surprised to find Christians defending the evil and unjust post-Fall order of the “God of this World”, the serpent. As the Apostles James says, “Whoever is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.”

We must NOT defend the evil of nature, which dictates that children starve to death. Jesus says “Now judgment is passed on this world. Now the Lord of this World is condemned.”

Nature is not evil because it is unaware of what occurs. Blind processes are not morally responsible for misfortunes and tragedies.

 

[Sair]

What exactly is wrong with pain? That’s a key assumption you’re not looking at.

It’s a key assumption because it’s self-evident that pain means badness. It’s an indication that harm is being done or that illness is occurring in the body. Now, it’s all very well when pain functions as a means of alerting us to danger, such as when we grasp a hot pan on the stove. People born without the ability to feel pain have been known to do some serious harm to themselves because they had no impulse to avoid danger. But what about pain that is enduring and inescapable? It takes some extreme trauma for the endorphins to kick in, and there’s plenty of pain that occurs prior to this point. I once watched a medical emergency reality program (quite closely, because I work as a teletext captioner) in which a woman had a dislocated hip joint which had to be put back into place without anaesthetic, because there was no time to prep it before the dislocation cut off the blood supply to her leg. It took a while, and it wasn’t pretty. I don’t think the endorphins came to her aid.

 

[tonyrey]

It’s a key assumption because it’s self-evident that pain means badness. It’s an indication that harm is being done or that illness is occurring in the body. Now, it’s all very well when pain functions as a means of alerting us to danger, such as when we grasp a hot pan on the stove. People born without the ability to feel pain have been known to do some serious harm to themselves because they had no impulse to avoid danger.

You have contradicted yourself because a self-defence mechanism cannot be intrinsically “bad”.

But what about pain that is enduring and inescapable? It takes some extreme trauma for the endorphins to kick in, and there’s plenty of pain that occurs prior to this point. I once watched a medical emergency reality program (quite closely, because I work as a teletext captioner) in which a woman had a dislocated hip joint which had to be put back into place without anaesthetic, because there was no time to prep it before the dislocation cut off the blood supply to her leg. It took a while, and it wasn’t pretty. I don’t think the endorphins came to her aid.

Pain can be enduring and inescapable but it is absurd to expect a natural self-defence mechanism to be perfectly adjusted for every contingency. How could the body know when pain is no longer required. What we do know is that endorphins act as natural anaesthetics and with higher levels we feel less pain and fewer negative effects of stress:

“Endorphins have been suggested as modulators of the so-called “runner’s high” that athletes achieve with prolonged exercise. While the role of endorphins and other compounds as potential triggers of this euphoric response has been debated extensively by doctors and scientists, it is at least known that the body does produce endorphins in response to prolonged, continuous exercise.”

medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=55001

In our modern, sheltered environment where people take insufficient exercise and painkillers at the slightest provocation they are bound to suffer more before they lapse into unconsciousness. Only a hedonist believes pain offsets the value of life and you should be delighted to know sex is a potent trigger for endorphin release.Your negative attitude to reality reveals itself once again…

 

[colmywaykurtz]

Nature is not evil because it is unaware of what occurs. Blind processes are not morally responsible for misfortunes and tragedies.

I would tend to agree. I don’t know that I believe that things will continue this way throughout eternity, but I believe that this way of things has been prevalent so far since the earliest Creation.

Being a zookeeper by occupation has given me some perspectives on this that many don’t get, I think.

At the establishment where I work, we have emus—the big flightless birds that originated in Australia (2nd only to the ostrich in size), and which have proven popular as a livestock animal in North America.

We had one weak male get killed by the most dominant male once. This dominant male, paradoxically enough, was one of only two individuals (out of a total population of seven) that would willingly let humans pet and groom him; indeed, he was amenable to human direction and non-aggressive toward humans even in the moments after he had slain the weak one, allowing himself to be led back to his own pen from which he had just escaped.

A couple of points here. One, I think this highlights the fact that animals aren’t being evil even when they kill. They’re just doing what nature/biology/instinct have programmed them to do.

Two, not trying to toot my own horn here, but obviously a human can understand this and not give way to visceral emotional reactions to such a situation that might otherwise have us feel anger or hatred toward an animal that’s just doing what nature programmed it to do. This highlights the fact that humans, when they rise to their full moral height, can rise above instinct and be the stewards of God’s creation in a moral and compassionate way. More is given to humans—a human soul and human understanding—and from humans God expects more.

 

[valentino]

In the first place no one knows exactly how much pain and animal feels when he is killed by another animal.We want to relate our feelings to them.For all we know they may feel no pain at all.They may appear to be in pain or scream out but we don’t know what is going on in their minds.Maybe God dulls their senses.Or maybe their minds are completely absorbed in something other than the physical.Since animals are happy by their nature maybe death shocks their system and they feel no pain.

 

[wanstronian]

I am and probably will always be a Catholic although it does not stop me questioning things that happen every now and then so here it is. I was watching a program recently on wolves and how they attack their prey and tear them apart. I made me wonder why God has made animals in such a way that they attack and kill each other. It seems certain animals were made just to be eaten by others, a bit strange. Why not just make the predatory animals eat food they do not have to kill?

It’s just how they’ve evolved. God had nothing to do with it.

 

[wanstronian]

In the first place no one knows exactly how much pain and animal feels when he is killed by another animal.We want to relate our feelings to them.For all we know they may feel no pain at all.They may appear to be in pain or scream out but we don’t know what is going on in their minds.Maybe God dulls their senses.Or maybe their minds are completely absorbed in something other than the physical.Since animals are happy by their nature maybe death shocks their system and they feel no pain.

Perhaps, but given the fact that human are animals too, it’s not unreasonable to ascribe to non-human animals the same feelings of pain and panic that we would feel in a similar situation. There are lots of “could bes” but no good reason to speculate that their physical and mental reactions are significantly different from ours.Certainly, to speculate that an animal screaming in agony is actually just “appearing” to do so makes no rational sense at all.

 

[valentino]

Perhaps, but given the fact that human are animals too, it’s not unreasonable to ascribe to non-human animals the same feelings of pain and panic that we would feel in a similar situation. There are lots of “could bes” but no good reason to speculate that their physical and mental reactions are significantly different from ours.Certainly, to speculate that an animal screaming in agony is actually just “appearing” to do so makes no rational sense at all.

To me there is.God didn’t create anything that isn’t good and he didn’t create anything to suffer.Man sinned and suffering came into this world.Animal behavior also changed(according to many).But Im not so sure that animals have to suffer because they changed.No body can actually no what an animal feels when he is dying.We can do all kinds of tests and research showing what happens in animals who are dying but we still can/t say for sure what they are feeling.

 

[valentino]

It’s just how they’ve evolved. God had nothing to do with it.

No one can prove that a lion evolved from a cat or anything else.Its just theory.Albeit a good one.

 

[wanstronian]

To me there is.God didn’t create anything that isn’t good and he didn’t create anything to suffer.Man sinned and suffering came into this world.Animal behavior also changed(according to many).But Im not so sure that animals have to suffer because they changed.No body can actually no what an animal feels when he is dying.We can do all kinds of tests and research showing what happens in animals who are dying but we still can/t say for sure what they are feeling.

No, we can’t say for sure, but we can have a good idea from looking at the reams of actual evidence. If you choose instead to deny all this evidence and instead believe that a supernatural deity made everything just the way it is; and further speculate arbitrarily that humans aren’t animals and that animals don’t feel pain, then I guess you’re not the sort of person who wants to actually learn anything.

No one can prove that a lion evolved from a cat or anything else.Its just theory.Albeit a good one.

OMG. Really? The “just a theory” line? Do you even understand what a scientific theory actually is?

Nobody can prove that a lion evolved from a domestic cat. But then, this is not what evolutionary theory claims. It’s clear you’ve made up your mind that “God did it,” and you’re not interested in even attempting to understand that which you summarily reject.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Wanstronian,

Denail of Science seems to be a big thing here. Not with all thankfully.

 

[severus68]

In the first place no one knows exactly how much pain and animal feels when he is killed by another animal.We want to relate our feelings to them.For all we know they may feel no pain at all.They may appear to be in pain or scream out but we don’t know what is going on in their minds.Maybe God dulls their senses.Or maybe their minds are completely absorbed in something other than the physical.Since animals are happy by their nature maybe death shocks their system and they feel no pain.

While I would like to think that, I know that is not true. Anyone who has ever kept a dog for instance, would know they do feel pain and suffer. Scientific studies have shown that even fish feel pain.

Not saying you are one but many/some ignore the fact that they cause pain and suffering by non needed use of animals.