Posts: 10680
Threads: 15
Joined: September 9, 2011
Reputation:
119
RE: Are the animals luckier than humans?
August 15, 2022 at 11:19 am
Pets may be lucky, but I wouldn't trade places with a wild animal. They almost universally suffer ugly deaths. Our awareness means that we usually try to be there for each other at the end, and make an effort to make death peaceful. We do that for our pets as well, when we're decent. And ignorance may be bliss, but it isn't inner peace.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
Posts: 8711
Threads: 128
Joined: March 1, 2012
Reputation:
54
RE: Are the animals luckier than humans?
August 15, 2022 at 10:18 pm
(August 12, 2022 at 2:49 pm)Angrboda Wrote: ...and I'm always reluctant to trust first-hand experience when used as a scaffolding for either metaphysics or such grand conclusions about either our consciousness or that of any other animal.
A reluctance no doubt based on your conscious delibration :-)
My guess is that lacking a reliable strategy to distinguish between intellectual and imaginary objects would leave one suspicious of privileging one's own perspective. Although ultimately part of the human condition is being truly aliened from the first person perspectives of others and alone in one's own experience.
<insert profound quote here>
Posts: 480
Threads: 94
Joined: August 24, 2016
Reputation:
11
RE: Are the animals luckier than humans?
August 19, 2022 at 11:37 am
Indeed being conscious adds a layer of suffering that other animals dont have. That is why it is said that "animals are immortal". Never worried about the past or future, nor conscious of their mortality. They are basically always alive.