And, I thought this was interesting, my Gram once pointed out how we can't understand them but they can understand us. They learn a name, they learn commands, they learn routines...but no matter how much time we spend around them, we still can't understand exactly what they're saying.

-------
"Under the hardness of her facade a woman's heart is still beating."

---

Because humans are specieists. It's like programmed in our brains.

Personally, I feel more sympathetic to animals than humans. I hate people.

---

I have to say that I completely, and 100% agree with this. I think people are selfish, low life creatures, while animals are innocent creatures who only do what they need to do and what they are told to do to live. If you hit an animal they will still love you and be loyal to you. It's your job to feed them, their lives are in YOUR hands. I utterly despise people who abuse animals, and I regard animals in higher esteem than people. By far.

No, I'm not saying we should kill them, I was merely proving a point, just so you know.

Technically, humans are animals. I don't think we should separate ourselves so far as to suggest that we are a different class of "being" than an animal. Really, the only thing that makes me think of myself as human apart from beast is the illusion of society that has been impressed on my mind from my experiences and what I've conjured up to fill in the imaginative gaps that spoken language often leaves.

Now, I know the brain capabilities of a healthy human and a healthy dog are different, but the situation is the same when comparing a dog to, say, a mouse. If humans didn't exist, there'd be another "most intelligent" animal. Also, I would bargain that if you gave dolphins limbs with opposable thumbs and lungs, they could be capable of developing a civilization very similar to mankind's.

-------
Spicy Pidgeon

The are, however, the only animal with currency that I know of.

There is a gorilla which I have seen that changed my entire perspective on this subject, she could perform American Sign, she could develop her own signs which she hadn't been taught (just like a human), she had a pet cat, she mourned when she discovered the pet cat got out of the compound and was hit by a car, those who took care of her were very morally upset by the fact that she was so incredibly "human" that they worried about the implications of her situation, the fact that while Koko the Gorilla was by all standards "human" other than the fact that she's a Gorilla that they thought it was wrong to habitat her, because it was like keeping a prisoner who'd committed no crime.

In fact, her primary caregiver and the woman who taught her sign decided to never do it again because it ended so tragically, with Koko being so far removed from the Gorillas that she preferred a butchy male janitor as a mate to an actual male Gorilla.

If I ever encounter someone doing anything to one of these Gorillas, I will treat that someone as though he is doing whatever he's doing to an actual person, and act accordingly.

-------
O` tru apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die.

what would you do

Post edited at 9:47 pm on June 28, 2008 by Apotheosis