I think so, but I could be convinced otherwise. I’m sure most will agree that the “higher” animals have emotions. It’s usually obvious when a dog or cat is happy, sad, angry, etc., I don’t think anyone will argue that. But self aware is another thing, for instance, my cat tripped over something the other day and I could have sworn he was embarassed. It’s entirely possible I projected embarassment onto him but I don’t think so. To be embarassed, one must be self aware. Emotions like happiness and sadness are all internal, e.g. my needs and wants have been met or they have not. To be embarassed, one must think “Gosh, that made me look silly to an outside observer.”
Blah blah, I’m rambling, you know what I’m trying to say. What do you guys think?
There have been some famous psychological experiments with chimps. When they were asleep, a streak of white paint was drawn over their noses. The chimps then woke up and didn’t notice the paint, untill, untill, they looked in a mirror. Then they showed exitement and wiped their **own ** nose (not the nose of the mirror-image, as a bird would do).
To the experimenters, that experiment showed the monkeys had a concept of self. Either that, or they got the concept of “mirror”.
When I had a cat, I could swear she would put on an “I meant to do that” attitude when she’d trip or do something embarassing. I could very well have been projecting human emotions onto her, but it was funny nonetheless.
My dogs, on the other hand, are either totally devoid of self awareness or devoid of shame. Does anything embarass dogs?
I get what you are saying. What immediately came to mind was a time when my cat overshot a box she was jumping upon. She slid off the back edge and fell, I didn’t make a sound yet she turned to look at me anyway. Then I asked , “What the hell was that?” – she bowed her back and came at me with that aggressive sideways shuffle that cats do. It really felt like her equivalent of “Hey, shut up, I’ve seen you do worse.” I’m sure it is us projective our feelings on them, but that is precisely why they are fun to have around.
Normally sea gulls seem dumb but if you’ve ever seen one soaring about in an updraft, you’ve got to wonder if they’re conscious of how fun it is. Why else would they do it? They’re not up there looking for food and they’re not trying to get somewhere, so what else could it be but that they enjoy spiraling about as they rise higher and higher?
I had an afghan hound as a child. At one point we had him shaved. He was mortified. You might think I’m projecting feelings on him, but he hid whenever anyone came over. For months, until his hair started growing back. When we had him shaved the next summer, we had the groomer leave the hair on his front paws and ears, so he could still see it. When he got home we told him how beautiful he was. The dog preened. So he was aware enough to be embarassed with his looks, and to be proud of them.
My former landlord had a dog that would not poop if you were watching him. He’d get into position, squat, and then look at you with nervous expectation. He would wait until you turned your back to him before he’d actually poop. If you turned back toward him before he was done, he’d look really miserable as if he’d been caught doing something most foul.
Penny, is our neighbors’ Golden Retriever. When the neighbors’ grandcxhildren come to visit, they play with the dog and eventually, Penny does her “I’m not as dumb as I look,” routine.
With a tennis ball in her mouth, she stands at the top of the stairs and drops it. The ball bounces down the steps, and the** kids** fetch it. Honest.
I am reminded of one day when I came home to my condo from my job. I was walking towards my mailbox and came upon a neighborhood cat that was stalking a bird. As I came near the scene I startled the bird and it flew away. I looked at the cat at that moment and it looked back at me with an extraordinary expression on it’s face that I instantly read as disgust.
When I was little, I used to dress up my cat, Fluffy, on occassion, in my old baby clothes (which my sister and I used for our dolls).
A couple of times, she got away before I could take them off of her. She’d sort of sit in a corner, sulking and giving me dirty looks as if to say, “Spare me some dignity, please.”
Heh, my parents have a gorgeous big golden retriever, you know, with the miles-thick fluffy, functionally absolutely useless bench coat?–one year PapaArmadillo DVM got the bright idea that he might be more comfy during the bloody hot summer if he was shaved. So he took him to the clinic and gave him a Vet Clip (translation: really horribly butchered buzz cut). We didn’t see him for four days, except the pathetic remains of his tail-fluff sticking out from behind the couch.
Poor Jack
We’re a few terms short of a definition for “self aware”, aren’t we?
The sense in which it’s least likely to be widely shared among the other animals is the awareness that other animals have a “self”, a “me” that they look out from, and that to one of these other animals “I’m a you” — i.e., to really visualize themselves as they would be experienced from the outside by another creature. There are plenty of humans who don’t entirely seem to get this far.
Far more common, I’d think, is the kind of self-awareness that causes an animal to carry an “a priori sense of who I am” against which momentary behavior or circumstance can be felt to be compatible or incompatible. From this, the embarrassed / indignant expression on the kitty cat’s face when he misses the jump he usually makes with ease.
Monkeys[sup]*[/sup] will use a mirror to groom themselves. They turn around and use the mirror to aid in grooming their own backs. (They normally cannot do this; grooming has evolved to be a shared, communal ritual because it takes two to do it properly.) This is conclusive proof of self-awareness.
So the next time your cat or dog gets something stuck on the back of its neck, and it goes to the mirror to check out what it is, then you can say your pet is self aware. Or even better, the next time a pet seems to be preening about being freshly groomed, bring out a mirror and see if it admires itself.
[sup]*[/sup] I use the term “monkey” generically. I don’t remember if it’s apes, chimps, monkeys, or all of them.
