Non Human Animal Intelligence

This is a comment to the excellent Blog Post "News About Animal Cognition – Are They Too Smart for Honey Boo Boo?", written by Aline Kaplan in the Blog, "The Next Phase", the post itself a blog entry commenting on the NY Times Article " ", written by Frans De Waal and published on March 22, 2013

Great post.

I'm shocked that this is still news, I have seen research that hinted at much greater intelligence levels in non-human animals for decades. And there's been many developments over the years pointing to the depth and range of non-human animal emotional intelligence (which is perhaps even more important). Shocking to me is that human animals have emotionally bonded with non-human animals for centuries but have failed to consider that their non-human friends genuinely reciprocated.

Personally I blame religion/magical thinking - even Descartes postulated this soulless automaton ridiculousness based on a flawed delusional belief that human animals were somehow not only superior to others because of their position as apex predator but because a magic book written by Stone Age mental patients who heard voices and had hallucinations said their sky-daddy told them that humans are special and get to go to a wonderful place when they die but everything else just ceases to exist.

I recently recovered from Carnism myself so I know how insidious the psychosis can be, how it can affect a human and cause delusions. Having been raised to eat other sentient creatures, even though I was presented with the evidence of their cognitive abilities, and having been exposed to their emotional range, I failed to make the connection and even dismissed it when it was directly pointed out to me. I stopped eating animals because it became obvious that to eat animal meat, and consume the products of animals like their milk, is unhealthy for humans. I also realized that the amount of pollution and waste associated with consuming other animals was 7 to 10 times worse than eating plant based foods. It was only after a few years of not being a party to this terrible cycle that I was able to realize how deluded I was, to realize how I overlooked all the evidence that I was eating beings who could feel and think in ways that were similar to me.

Turns out there is a lot documented (not in rigorous lab setting perhaps but well recorded and documented nonetheless) data out there of non-human animals doing things that clearly show emotional intelligence and capacity to feel similar to human animals. Selfless acts of sacrifice for loved ones, depression, anxiety, fear, generosity, abstract planning, concepts of time, strategic planning, etc. Almost every rescue story you learn of in an non-human animal sanctuary illustrates a story of a brave and intelligent non-human animal doing everything it can to save its offspring, or to escape its torturous existence. They hide escape implements or loved ones from their captors, they capitalize upon spontaneous opportunity to flee, they can recognize a human willing to help from a human out to harm them.

For some reason (I blame this arrogance of superiority that religious thinking encouraged) humans feel they are special and they act as if they have the right to cause suffering and perpetuate torture that makes the concentration camps of the Nazi's look like vacation spots.

That's what gets me. We blanche at the notion of 6 million people tortured over the course of a few years, and we do this because we think this is morally reprehensible, because we empathize, because we can imagine the fear, pain, suffering of those victims. Yet 10 BILLION (yes, with a B) non-human animals are subjected to conditions as bad or worse than a Nazi camp every year in the USA alone. And all the evidence indicates they can suffer, they can feel pain, anxiety, depression, fear, empathy for their family suffering similarly, trepidation for the future, terror, etc... just like the humans in the Nazi camps.

Having been a part of that cycle for more years than I have not been, I'm as guilty as everyone else. I think this research is important but with the very real effects of the psychosis Carnism affecting most humans, plus the terrible influence of religion fostering not only Carnism but arrogant superiority and hubris, I don't know if facts alone will have much impact. Certainly in the USA it is clear that facts are not important to the average US Citizen.

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