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If animals are sentient, what to do?

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    #31
    Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

    A while back when I lived in California we had a REAL mouser,this cat did the whole bit,bringing the "Kill" right to you(By "Kill"I mean almost dead mouse)
    MAGIC is MAGIC,black OR white or even blood RED

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      #32
      Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

      Further proof that cats are sentient: just caught the smart one attempting to steal an entire PACKAGE of cookies. Is your stripey butt for real right now?
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        #33
        Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

        Originally posted by habbalah View Post
        It's the people that try to make their dog or cat vegan that make me upset. Dogs and cats are carnivores--all you're doing is torturing them. If you don't want your pet to eat meat, get a hamster or fish.
        I've not heard of people doing this before. Not only would that be torturous, but wouldn't a cat die after a while on a vegan diet? They're obligate carnivores, they can't process veg the way we can. A vegan forcing that lifestyle on a carnivorous animal has either forgotten why they're vegan in the first place, fundamentally misunderstood how a cats body works, or has crossed over into bat-shit crazy territory.

        Originally posted by habbalah View Post
        Further proof that cats are sentient: just caught the smart one attempting to steal an entire PACKAGE of cookies. Is your stripey butt for real right now?
        I caught mine with her head stuck in a pack of biscuits once. Another time, I was eating a biscuit and she knocked it out of my hand, grabbed it in her mouth and ran off with it...
        Yikes, all that cultural appropriation that used to be here tho

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          #34
          Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

          Originally posted by Quetzal View Post
          I caught mine with her head stuck in a pack of biscuits once. Another time, I was eating a biscuit and she knocked it out of my hand, grabbed it in her mouth and ran off with it...
          The smart one stole a cookie out of my mom's friend's purse once. Hilarious.
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            #35
            Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

            I was talking with my coworker about this today at lunch time and she said "of course they're sentient", which is probably going to be the standard response from veterinary personnel!

            We were then talking about self awareness and she bought up a good point. If self awareness is a marker of sentience, at what point do we consider infant humans 'self aware'? No one questions whether a baby is sentient or not, but it doesn't have the same sense of self awareness or self actualization that a child or an adult does.

            Originally posted by Quetzal View Post
            I've not heard of people doing this before. Not only would that be torturous, but wouldn't a cat die after a while on a vegan diet? They're obligate carnivores, they can't process veg the way we can. A vegan forcing that lifestyle on a carnivorous animal has either forgotten why they're vegan in the first place, fundamentally misunderstood how a cats body works, or has crossed over into bat-shit crazy territory.
            Yes, cats will die on a vegan diet, and not quickly either.

            One of my vets once encountered a lady who was feeding her rabbit cat food. No particular reason... the rabbit was eating it so she figured she'd keep feeding it. Apparently they had a hard time convincing her that she needed to stop doing that.

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              #36
              Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

              I would imagine rabbits do not have a digestive system meant for meat..or bi products..
              MAGIC is MAGIC,black OR white or even blood RED

              all i ever wanted was a normal life and love.
              NO TERF EVER WE belong Too.
              don't stop the tears.let them flood your soul.




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              my new page here,let me know what you think.


              nothing but the shadow of what was

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                #37
                Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

                Originally posted by anunitu View Post
                I would imagine rabbits do not have a digestive system meant for meat..or bi products..
                Nope. Technically rabbits don't actually have the digestive system meant for the commercial rabbit pellets you buy at the pet store. It's just that malnutrition takes a long time to kill you.

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                  #38
                  Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

                  I imagine you deal with malnourished pets quite often? People so often don't bother doing any research in to the animals they buy and assume they already know how to care for them.
                  I worked in an exotic pet shop for a while, and the manager told me lots of stories of people bringing back the animals they'd bought, wondering why the poor thing was half-dead. It was almost always because of an awful diet.
                  Yikes, all that cultural appropriation that used to be here tho

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                    #39
                    Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

                    Originally posted by Quetzal View Post
                    I imagine you deal with malnourished pets quite often? People so often don't bother doing any research in to the animals they buy and assume they already know how to care for them.
                    I worked in an exotic pet shop for a while, and the manager told me lots of stories of people bringing back the animals they'd bought, wondering why the poor thing was half-dead. It was almost always because of an awful diet.
                    It's mostly exotics we see that are on really bad diets, but sometimes dogs and cats. It's actually really amazing what the body can survive on, and what people think is 'normal'. Even beloved pet dogs can be malnourished, because they're being fed human food and are obese and severely deficient in certain nutrients. With exotics it's hard because a lot of people don't realise that commercial rabbit, guinea pig and bird food is actually not well balanced. And seed based diets in a lot of cage birds allow selective feeding, which can lead to serious nutritional deficiencies. When people think it's normal for a rabbit to only live to 4 or 5, you know there's something seriously wrong with the information being given out by pet stores and backyard 'breeders'.

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                      #40
                      Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

                      A friend's Blue Fronted Amazon parrot recently died of heart disease at the age of 32. He ate far too much "people food", and I don't mean plain veggies. Now they got a new baby and are always posting pics of him with his beak covered in scrambled eggs (made with butter), etc. I've been keeping birds for 30+ years and have a cert. in Avian Bio, but nobody listens. Most people do what they think their pet enjoys, what they think makes them bond, and that's that. It's a rare person who really delves into the nutritional needs of whatever animal they're interested in.
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                        #41
                        Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

                        I don't exactly think we are using the word sentient correctly though.

                        Sentience is simply being able to have subjective perceptual experiences--pain, for example, is the perfect example.
                        Different animals of the same species can tolerate pain at different levels and express that they are in pain in different ways. As an anecdotal example, my first dog growing up vs my second dog growing up--the first never whined or cried and sort of toughed it out, we had to guess that she was in pain and if she was limping or made a noise or wouldn't jump up to sit in our laps, something was seriously wrong vs the second dog that could step on an unexpected rock and wimper and limp for a good 5 minutes.

                        All organisms respond to stimuli, and while I'm sure their perception of that ability depends a number of different things and ends up subjective, not all organisms are actually having feelings as a conscious thought. From observation, I'd easily agree that a huge chunk of mammals (if not all of them) are sentient, along with a good number of other animals. Members of Porifera, for example, probably not sentient. Or Cnideria. Or most of mollusks, except maybe octopi, cuttlefish, and squid. Probably not fish. Probably yes to birds, or most birds. Maybe some reptiles and amphibians, though they are hard to gauge.

                        I think what we are really talking about is consciousness...and while (unfortunately) the idea of consciousness lacks clarity of meaning and agreement of nuance, I think it comes closer to what we are actually talking about than sentience. Consciousness includes the experience of sentience, but it includes other stuff too...I think a good definition can be found here*, "The contents of consciousness consist of a narrow, dynamic stream of everything we are presently aware of—our perceptions of the external world and bodily sensations, together with our thoughts, actions, emotions, and memories."

                        I think significantly less organisms have consciousness (by this definition) than have sentience.
                        We were then talking about self awareness and she bought up a good point. If self awareness is a marker of sentience, at what point do we consider infant humans 'self aware'? No one questions whether a baby is sentient or not, but it doesn't have the same sense of self awareness or self actualization that a child or an adult does.
                        Babies are thought to be born with some level of body awareness**.

                        I think this is something else that depends on definition. This guy*** uses 5 different "levels' of self-awareness that start at birth and finalize around 4-5, though the first couple stages look like body awareness to me. But there are a number of different studies (and a really good documentary) addressing this subject if I can remember what it was, that talk about the development of the self as the self.

                        Self-actualization though...heck, there are adults that haven't managed that.



                        *http://www.theguardian.com/science/n...ond-psychology (my work browser hates me)
                        **http://www.livescience.com/41398-baby-awareness.html
                        ***http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cogn...fivelevels.pdf
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                          #42
                          Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

                          I've always thought the MSR (Mirror Self-Recognition) test was more a measure of intelligence than of self-recognition, but I guess the two go together once one is told that what they are seeing is themselves. Most humans grow up with mirrors/photos and can recognise ourselves easily. My parrot, at first, beak-tested the mirror, and when he saw both himself and me in it, and I talked/moved so he could see it was me, he said his own name.
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                            #43
                            Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

                            When Mirror's were first made,the craftsmen were restricted because mirrors were considered magic,and first used for Scrying,and people had issues with their reflection.

                            http://www.occultopedia.com/m/mirror.htm
                            MAGIC is MAGIC,black OR white or even blood RED

                            all i ever wanted was a normal life and love.
                            NO TERF EVER WE belong Too.
                            don't stop the tears.let them flood your soul.




                            sigpic

                            my new page here,let me know what you think.


                            nothing but the shadow of what was

                            witchvox
                            http://www.witchvox.com/vu/vxposts.html

                            Comment


                              #44
                              Re: If animals are sentient, what to do?

                              First off, most, if not all, animals have been proven to be sentient(and I've been around individuals of many species myself, so I can confirm this). Such things are nothing new, we've just forgotten to pay attention and listen over time. we wouldn't be animals if we weren't sentient, we'd be plants or rocks.

                              As for what to do, I think the best option would be a full-on paradigm shift, a mental and philosophic overhaul. We have to acknowledge them as equals(also nothing new, as many ancients our species has done so before) and of course we should cease the holocaust that we put them through(Many will probably be very cross with me for being so blunt. So, I will clarify, if billions of sentient beings being slaughtered every year for things that are unnecessary at the end of the day isn't a form of genocide or proof of the original holocaust, then what is? Also, I am sure you will probably be in denial of it, which is understandable and normal, for one this animal holocaust as been going on for so long that is become ingrained into our very culture, to the point that one could contribute to it without even being aware of it, which is disturbing to say the least, trust me, I've been there.) this means, ceasing the meat, dairy and egg industries, the fur and leather industries, circuses, rodeos and such(granted none would be a big loss).

                              I think we'd have to embrace morals and our own responsibility as animals ourselves, to do the best we can not to cause them harm, to respect the boundries that other species have set. And of course adopting a plant-based way of living also helps, humans actually can do it quite well.

                              I hope this answers your questions
                              "As long as humans continue to be the ruthless destroyer of other beings, we will never know health or peace. For as long as people massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, those who sow the seed of murder and pain will never reap joy or love." - Pythagoras


                              "I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me win noble renown." - Homer, The Iliad

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