Sentient Animals - Fact or Myth?

[Astaroth]

Only time wild animals wuld eat anything crappy, is vhen they are literaly starving and need something in theyr stomach to sustain them a litle longer.

This is just patently inaccurate.

While it is definitely not HEALTHY for animals to eat junk food, many do even when they are well-fed. A study showed a certain species of ants in Manhattan was eating enough junk food off the sidewalk to change their chemical makeup. Deer and many birds- sparrows, gulls, ducks, pigeons, among others- love bread, especially sweet bread, and birds in particular will approach humans or flock near restaurants and grocery stores just to beg for/steal scraps. The deer often die when the grain swells up and clogs their digestive tract. Land fills and garbage dumps are feeding grounds for many wild animals. Raccoons, foxes, coyotes, rats, and opossums steal from trash bins that aren't properly sealed and get obese off of food scraps.

And if you had clicked the link in my previous post, you would have seen that it was about farmers feeding shit like gummy worms to cows to fatten them up. Which was more the point: that humans feed their livestock sugary junk.

I've also seen domestic cats eat potato chips and domestic dogs eat... just about anything, including things most humans wouldn't put in their mouth. Feral and wild animals will eat corpses. Actually even domestic animals will eat their deceased owners after a couple of days, sometimes even when other food is available.

Picky eating is the learned behavior here. That comes from being able to choose your meals. Basically, that means your cat doesn't worry about missing a few meals because she knows you'll cave and give her what she wants before she ever starves to death.

Also: A preference for fish and meat over dried, processed cat food probably has more to do with how it tastes than anything else.

 

[Marchosias]

This is just patently inaccurate.

While it is definitely not HEALTHY for animals to eat junk food, many do even when they are well-fed. A study showed a certain species of ants in Manhattan was eating enough junk food off the sidewalk to change their chemical makeup. Deer and many birds- sparrows, gulls, ducks, pigeons, among others- love bread, especially sweet bread, and birds in particular will approach humans or flock near restaurants and grocery stores just to beg for/steal scraps. The deer often die when the grain swells up and clogs their digestive tract. Land fills and garbage dumps are feeding grounds for many wild animals. Raccoons, foxes, coyotes, rats, and opossums steal from trash bins that aren't properly sealed and get obese off of food scraps.

And if you had clicked the link in my previous post, you would have seen that it was about farmers feeding shit like gummy worms to cows to fatten them up. Which was more the point: that humans feed their livestock sugary junk.

I've also seen domestic cats eat potato chips and domestic dogs eat... just about anything, including things most humans wouldn't put in their mouth. Feral and wild animals will eat corpses. Actually even domestic animals will eat their deceased owners after a couple of days, sometimes even when other food is available.

Picky eating is the learned behavior here. That comes from being able to choose your meals. Basically, that means your cat doesn't worry about missing a few meals because she knows you'll cave and give her what she wants before she ever starves to death.

Also: A preference for fish and meat over dried, processed cat food probably has more to do with how it tastes than anything else.

Lol you just defeated your own argument. I refered to WILD animals. As in living in the wilderness. None of the examples you list meet that criteria. Ants in the city? Birds living near humans? Same for deer. Thats vhy in many zoo's, it is forbidden for visitors to feed the animals, because they take too easyli to vhat we offer them, no mater vhat it is. And cows arent even wild animals at all.

Maybe my cat's pickyness is learned. If so, I'm glad I have imparted high standards to her, like those wild animals have. Because the last thing I'd want is to see her eat crap. One time, I seen a neighbor try to give her some left-over salami gone BAD (!!!), as in, it had fungus growing on it, I almost lost it. She vas too smart to even touch that shit, she just snifed it then walked off, but I had a long and barely civilized talk vith said neighbor after that.

And as for dried pre-procesed foods and my cat's dislike for it, not realy. She can sense that that shit is basicaly striped of all valuable vitamins and minerals vhen they processed it, leaving behind nothing but a glorifyed cracker. She likes fresh, juicy meat, rich in nutritional value.

 

[Dervish]

I was going to say, tiger sharks are particularly notorious for eating pretty much whatever fits in their mouths. I would hesitate to call anything that's been known to turn up with licence plates and boots in its belly a picky eater.

But it's also important to note that wild animals in cities are still wild, despite behavioural adaptation to human activity. Many animals simply go for the easiest source of food, which is us, because our trash is an easy and reliable food source without a lot of competition. I'm sure something like a pidgeon has ample access to traditional food sources, but they absolutely thrive off of human activity. Same with raccoons; ask anyone in a semi-rural subdivision how adorable they are when they routinely knock over trashcans and infest attics when there's a nice healthy bit of woodlands with all the raccoon dietary staples sitting right there.

A more hilarious example is in some places in Africa, for whatever crazy reason, the elephants had acquired a taste for beer and have been known to steal it to get drunk. I am so happy to say I am not making that up because holy shit, drunk elephants.

 

[Brovo]

A more hilarious example is in some places in Africa, for whatever crazy reason, the elephants had acquired a taste for beer and have been known to steal it to get drunk. I am so happy to say I am not making that up because holy shit, drunk elephants.

Really puts this into context, doesn't it.

 

[Dervish]

Really puts this into context, doesn't it.

Dumbo: the original hard-hitting documentary.

 

[Marchosias]

I was going to say, tiger sharks are particularly notorious for eating pretty much whatever fits in their mouths. I would hesitate to call anything that's been known to turn up with licence plates and boots in its belly a picky eater.

But it's also important to note that wild animals in cities are still wild, despite behavioural adaptation to human activity. Many animals simply go for the easiest source of food, which is us, because our trash is an easy and reliable food source without a lot of competition. I'm sure something like a pidgeon has ample access to traditional food sources, but they absolutely thrive off of human activity. Same with raccoons; ask anyone in a semi-rural subdivision how adorable they are when they routinely knock over trashcans and infest attics when there's a nice healthy bit of woodlands with all the raccoon dietary staples sitting right there.

A more hilarious example is in some places in Africa, for whatever crazy reason, the elephants had acquired a taste for beer and have been known to steal it to get drunk. I am so happy to say I am not making that up because holy shit, drunk elephants.

All that just proves that animals lack true sapience. They wil alvays go for the easyest way of aquiring food, even if its bad for them. That amounts to instinct, not inteligence and a sense of vhats good or bad for them. But on-topic, the reason they even have acces to that "easy" food, is because of us. So it is stil the result of our influence. A wild animal vhos never had contact with any humans, or come across human-make objects that may look and smel like food. In the case of tiger-sharks and their propenzity for eating un-edible shit, I atribute that more to curiosity then hunger. After all, its not so diferent from how smal children like to put all kinds of stuff in ther mouths and even swalow it, if they can.

And yea... elephants drinking beer thats just ROFL! :c :P

 

[Dervish]

All that just proves that animals lack true sapience. They wil alvays go for the easyest way of aquiring food, even if its bad for them. That amounts to instinct, not inteligence and a sense of vhats good or bad for them. But on-topic, the reason they even have acces to that "easy" food, is because of us. So it is stil the result of our influence. A wild animal vhos never had contact with any humans, or come across human-make objects that may look and smel like food. In the case of tiger-sharks and their propenzity for eating un-edible shit, I atribute that more to curiosity then hunger. After all, its not so diferent from how smal children like to put all kinds of stuff in ther mouths and even swalow it, if they can.

And yea... elephants drinking beer thats just ROFL! :c :P

But it also contradicts what you were saying here:

Only those humans who lack self-discipline. Dont get me vrong, I like a good chocolate cake on ocasion too (even thogh I know its not good for me but I just cant resist it), but not at the expense of my overal health and fitness. Eating sweets every day is out of the question. 1-2 times a week, at most.

Hell, thats one of the few things that animals actualy have alot to teach us. EAT RIGHT!!! You wont see a cat eating crap, thats for sure. My cat - she is VERY picky about vhat she eats. She dont even like cat food, not those dried-up cracker things aniway. Just fresh meat, and especialy fish.

Out in the wilderness, of course animals aren't going to eat our garbage because they have no access to it. What I was saying is there's numerous examples of animals thriving off of our activity and eating our scraps (also worth noting that's how we domesticated wolves) over their natural food sources, even if that isn't in short supply. Keep in mind, if this wasn't beneficial for these animals that live in the city, they wouldn't have continued to live in the city and would only be found in the wilderness like most wildlife. Life adapts and if it sees an easier way of doing things, you can bet it'll take it.

I won't touch upon whether or not there's sapience involved because all those arguments have been made in this thread already, but I did feel it worth countering the claim animals being paragons of good dietary habits. By your original claim, animals wouldn't touch junk food because they know it's not good for them, but there's quite a few examples of that exact same thing happening all across the animal kingdom.

Let's put it this way, if there's a plate of Doritos ten feet from a raccoon and a plate of grubs and mushrooms 50 meters away, that fuzzy little bastard is going right for the Doritos. We don't call them Trash Pandas for nothing.

 

[Astaroth]

@Dervish explained they're still wild so I don't have to. Thank God.


@Marchosias

Lol, I knew you were going to turn this around into that.

All I'm gonna say is that humans take easy street just as much as animals when it comes to food. Thus the success of the fast food industry. Thus why diets and personal nutritionists are more common among the wealthy and upper middle-class. Again, the pickiness comes from being incredibly flush with plentiful food. As to the mold, our systems can't handle it so we instinctively avoided it long enough to pass that knowledge along to our descendants. Even with those instincts, have you ever seen what homeless humans who don't get regular meals will eat?

 

[Marchosias]

All I'm gonna say is that humans take easy street just as much as animals when it comes to food. Thus the success of the fast food industry. Thus why diets and personal nutritionists are more common among the wealthy and upper middle-class. Again, the pickiness comes from being incredibly flush with plentiful food.

I guess you didnt catch the part I sayed about self-discipline? If you'r lacking in resolve, sure you take the easy street. If your not, you wont. Oh and... no. To eat healthy, you dont need a diet, or a "personal nutritionist", you just need a modicum of common-sense, vhich boils down to one simple premise: buy your own ingredients to make meals, make sure they'r fresh, and learn to cook your own meals. Simple as that. And best of all, it actualy turns-out cheaper then ordering take-out from some fast food joint, vhile being infinitely more healthy. But it does rekuire you to do some work yorself, and not just have evrything broght to you, and that is often too much for lazy ppl, thats true.

No exotic ingredients, no fancy diets, nothing of the sort. I never used any of that. Besydes, 90% of that is crap designed to leech out money from the gulible (even if some of it is legit, but you can eat just as healthy for 10% the price, if you just do some research yorself, instead of falling for some big-advertized "popular" diet vith vegan ingredients).

 

[Astaroth]

@Marchosias

I didn't say that you need those things to eat healthy. I was citing anthropological statistics related to how plentiful food sources give humans the option to have "resolve" about what they eat.

I'm done now.

 

[Marchosias]

Geting back on-topic of the thread... I guess animal sapience/inteligence stays in that "gray area" thats just open to subjective interpretation. But one thing that is non-subjective, is the fact that animals lack our capacity for self-realyzation. There-fore, they can never be considered truly sapient, in human terms.

 

[Kagayours]

Hell, thats one of the few things that animals actualy have alot to teach us. EAT RIGHT!!! You wont see a cat eating crap, thats for sure.

Wel yes, domestic animals do tend to adopt some of our bad habits, since they form conections with us, thats true. Only time wild animals wuld eat anything crappy, is vhen they are literaly starving and need something in theyr stomach to sustain them a litle longer.

I refered to WILD animals. As in living in the wilderness.

They wil alvays go for the easyest way of aquiring food, even if its bad for them. That amounts to instinct, not inteligence and a sense of vhats good or bad for them.

Are... are you aware that you've been continuously changing your argument throughout the course of this debate, to the point where you wound up arguing exactly the opposite of what you started with?

First claiming that animals have a lot to each us about eating right, then saying that it's only wild animals that do this, then changing the definition of "wild" animal, and then going against your original point entirely by saying that animals just go for the easiest food they can find and aren't intelligent enough to know what's good for them... all while phrasing it as if that's what you were trying to prove all along.

I was going to link you to this video, but, I'm not even sure this counts as that anymore.

Just... just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[Marchosias]

Are... are you aware that you've been continuously changing your argument throughout the course of this debate, to the point where you wound up arguing exactly the opposite of what you started with?

First claiming that animals have a lot to each us about eating right, then saying that it's only wild animals that do this, then changing the definition of "wild" animal, and then going against your original point entirely by saying that animals just go for the easiest food they can find and aren't intelligent enough to know what's good for them... all while phrasing it as if that's what you were trying to prove all along.

I was going to link you to this video, but, I'm not even sure this counts as that anymore.

Just... just wanted to throw that out there.

I dont see the contradiction. Animals, all animals, do eat right, if they arent exposed to human influence that wuld tempt them not to eat right. But nobody is immune to temptation, so thats a ideal-case scenario. Because in that case, all animals wuld be wild ones, haveing no contact vith humans. And by themselvs, animals wuld never have any reason not to eat right, since they dont have the compulsion to aspire to be beyond vhat they are, and beyond theyr natural habits, for beter OR worse.

So yes, I vas arguing a ideal-case scenario, vhich is basicly impossible in a real vorld as it exists now. That IS the logical flaw I maked, as far as that goes.

 

[Kagayours]

I dont see the contradiction. Animals, all animals, do eat right, if they arent exposed to human influence that wuld tempt them not to eat right. But nobody is immune to temptation, so thats a ideal-case scenario. Because in that case, all animals wuld be wild ones, haveing no contact vith humans. And by themselvs, animals wuld never have any reason not to eat right, since they dont have the compulsion to aspire to be beyond vhat they are, and beyond theyr natural habits, for beter OR worse.

So yes, I vas arguing a ideal-case scenario, vhich is basicly impossible in a real vorld as it exists now. That IS the logical flaw I maked, as far as that goes.

Well, from the start, you certainly seemed to be arguing that animals knew not to eat anything bad for them (like your example with your cat, and your neighbor's cat), even going so far as to say "you won't see a cat eating crap", even though, yeah, you will -- and you'll also see it in wild animals, regardless of your definition of "wild", if they're at all exposed to 'human' food.

If you want to argue that it's an ideal-case scenario and that animals can still be tempted by human food then that's fine by me -- so long as you stick to that as your argument. :P

 

[Marchosias]

Well, from the start, you certainly seemed to be arguing that animals knew not to eat anything bad for them (like your example with your cat, and your neighbor's cat), even going so far as to say "you won't see a cat eating crap", even though, yeah, you will -- and you'll also see it in wild animals, regardless of your definition of "wild", if they're at all exposed to 'human' food.

If you want to argue that it's an ideal-case scenario and that animals can still be tempted by human food then that's fine by me -- so long as you stick to that as your argument. :P

I never sayed my neighbor had a cat, I sayed he tried to feed crap to MY cat, and I fliped-out because of it. And I sayed I dont want to see MY cat eating crap. Not if I can help it.

And yes, sure, I supose thats my argument. But in it-self, it also helps reinforce my original point in this thread, that animals are less-then-sapient. Because they cant decide for themselvs if a food is healthy or not, thats evidence in favor of non-sapience. Humans can be tempted but can - some of them aniway :P - resist temptation. Animals can not. So yes, my logical flaw actualy helped my original argument that animals are non-sapient. Not a bad trade-off. :)

 

[Astaroth]

"I'm right, but it's impossible to prove I'm right because the world that would prove it doesn't exist."

@Marchosias That's a really slippery slope for making arguments. Just sayin'.

You're basing your definition of "eating right" off of whether or not animals eat the junk food created by humans. Then saying that animals don't eat it. Then when shown that they do, you say that they only do that when exposed to human influence, even indirectly- which of course is true when the definition is that the food is man-made junk. You've created a scenario where it is impossible for you to be proven wrong.


As to humans being able to decide what is healthy versus animals, a large part of that is due to education. They make those decisions based on what they were taught is healthy- or weren't taught. Animals haven't exactly been given lessons on the food pyramid, and anyway their health needs are different than ours. Your cat is almost certainly too dumb to understand a food pyramid, but you can't prove that species who've shown signs of sapience and complex thought can't be educated about healthy eating. Although if they were, I'm guessing you would probably just claim it was conditioning and not their own idea anyway if they did indeed choose to eat more selectively.

 

[Dervish]

I never sayed my neighbor had a cat, I sayed he tried to feed crap to MY cat, and I fliped-out because of it. And I sayed I dont want to see MY cat eating crap. Not if I can help it.

And yes, sure, I supose thats my argument. But in it-self, it also helps reinforce my original point in this thread, that animals are less-then-sapient. Because they cant decide for themselvs if a food is healthy or not, thats evidence in favor of non-sapience. Humans can be tempted but can - some of them aniway :P - resist temptation. Animals can not. So yes, my logical flaw actualy helped my original argument that animals are non-sapient. Not a bad trade-off. :)

I don't think you can fault any animal for not having access to nutritional information. All they know is it is food, and especially if other food sources are scarce, they'll eat it even if it doesn't agree with them. Like Ozzy said, humans will eat some truly awful things if they're starving. Proper diet comes from an abundance of food and choice. If anyone is hungry, you'd be amazed at what you will eat.

Just because we have access to information about nutritional values of food doesn't mean that some animals don't have sapience because they do not have that same information. If you had a bunch of human children and laid out a bunch of food on a table and told them they can eat whatever, most will go for whatever tastes best, and that's usually junk food. The kids probably aren't aware of healthy eating past their parents forcing them to eat vegetables and they're smart enough to know eating too much junk is bad, but even then, they're only as aware as they've been educated.

However, if those same kids had no instruction for healthy eating, they'll almost certainly not eat a carrot over a bag of chips or a slice of pizza. It doesn't mean the kids are dumb or lacking sapience, it's simply that they don't know any different. We take our education and vast wealth of knowledge for granted, but we should not assume that because we have thousands of years of civilization and scientific method behind us animals are discounted from sapience because they don't follow our footsteps.

In the grand scheme of things, our ancestors were living in caves not that long ago, and they almost certainly ate whatever was available to survive. Life takes a different perspective when you don't have a grocery store to support your wants and needs. If any of us were stuck on an island, we would eat whatever we could obtain to survive, just like any other animal.

 

[Marchosias]

More fascinating to me in this debate, then the mundane issue of animal sapience, is obzerving how much are you guys hell-bent against the notion of human exceptionalism over animals, basicly thinking people are no better then animals. I'm no psychologist, but I get the feeling that view somehow relates to a diminishd sense of self-vorth. Might do some research on it in fact, vhen I have time.

Now to just single out 2 points, then I'm done vith this debate.

Proper diet comes from an abundance of food and choice. If anyone is hungry, you'd be amazed at what you will eat.

Yes. Humans wuld eat anything, IF they are starving. But from your own argument, animals wuld eat anything even if they have other, healthyer options. That says enogh about human power of decision, over animals, vho can not decide for them-selvs in abstract terms. Big point in favor of non-sapience in animals.

I don't think you can fault any animal for not having access to nutritional information.

Even if you'd put a monkey in front of a computer screen vith a text on healthy nutrition for monkeys, and even if that monkey vas trained to recognize letters and read... I'l bet you 1000$ it wuldnt mean anything to it, because it lacks our power of self-determination, and lacks even the atention-span to get thru the text at all.

I rest my case.

 

[Astaroth]

@Marchosias

I could just as easily argue that your being hell-bent on human exceptionalism is evidence that you're a narcissist with an over-inflated sense of self-worth.

Seriously, that is the second time you've made demeaning "insights" into the mentality of people presenting cold, hard fact that contradicts your own unsubstantiated opinions. Cut that shit out. It just makes you seem petty and undermines your credibility further. That is NOT how to conduct a civilized discourse.

 

[Marchosias]

@Marchosias

I could just as easily argue that your being hell-bent on human exceptionalism is evidence that you're a narcissist with an over-inflated sense of self-worth.

Seriously, that is the second time you've made demeaning "insights" into the mentality of people presenting cold, hard fact that contradicts your own unsubstantiated opinions. Cut that shit out. It just makes you seem petty and undermines your credibility further. That is NOT how to conduct a civilized discourse.

Your "cold, hard facts" are just as unsubstantiated opinions as you seem to think mine are. So we'r even. And fyi, I stoped caring vhat ppl think about me about... 13 years ago. Give or take a couple months. So, your statement that I'm a "narcissist vith a over-inflated sense of self-worth"... thanx, I guess. :)

BTW I do apoligize if my remarks on ppls mentality came-acros as demeaning, but I vas just stating how it looks to me, to see so many opinions in favor of devaluation of humanity.