My mother was an avid animal lover. So we always had lots of pets, specifically dogs and cats. I have been observing dogs and cats all my life and it is uncanny. They are almost humanlike sometimes. Certainly (not surprisingly as members of the mammal family like us) their emotions are just like ours: love, hate, friendship, antagonism. But I sometimes wonder: what else do they think of?
I am talking about more than just human emotions. It may sound odd, but I sometimes wonder if animals suspect there is a Higher Authority. It makes sense. Humans sometimes assume there is a God when they can’t make sense of this crazy world. Why not lower orders of animals? Also, I recall hearing this experiment where pigeons were made to act in ways like humans do in religions. Sorry that is all I can recall. Does anyone know what I am talking about? Because I would like to have a link to a site that talks about this unusual experiment. The only other thing I remember about it is that it is often referred to by atheists (as I’ve already said for myself, I do still believe in God, but not much else). Also, does anyone else have any thoughts on animals and their possible religious beliefs?
Thank you in advance to all who reply
Note. On closer examination of my post, I suspect it might go better in GD. But I am still not sure. However, moderators please accept my sincerest apologies if I have put this in the wrong forum and feel free to move it:) .
I wonder whether my cats recognize their own behavior when I do it – like when I yawn, or stretch, or even sneeze. Do they know what I’m doing because they themselves do it? If they do, is this any kind of “intelligence”?
We make food from nowhere,
We provide shelter.
We provide love.
We take them on walks.
We play with them.
And we do all of the above with their acceptance, as in, they understand our language!
Are you hungry?
Bed time.
Do you want to go for a walk?
Where’s your ball?
I freakin’ love it that dogs understand us! That cracks me up. We once had a Yorkie that we figured understood something like 50 words! Our current Bichon is damned smart, but maybe only in the 20 word range. Scary!
My sister’s dog acts guilty when she comes home to find that he’s been in the trash (again). He skulks off and sits outside the kitchen door looking sadly into the house…like he’s in “time out” or something.
She shares her breakfast with him and one time showed him the empty bag of tortillas, saying “No more. They’re all gone.” Her dog went outside and brought back a moldy bag of tortillas he had stolen from her previously.
“Stalk stalk stalk kill kill kill kill kill kill - ooh, my butt needs licking, better do that… Wait, look, a bug! Stalk stalk kill kill kill kill…”
or
“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
Those are his only two mental states. Asleep, or in a hyperactive murderous mood that is only rarely broken for purposes of grooming.
Dogs do seem very devoted to making their masters happy, but I’m not sure that necessarily means they think we’re godlike. They’re just trained to please, like furry butlers. Whether they’re capable of abstractions, like thinking of a Higher Power, or understanding morality, who knows - I’m not even sure how we could test that.
I don’t know about the religious beliefs of my cats, but sometimes it is obivious what they are thinking.
Several years ago I brought home a litter of kittens whose mother had been hit by a car. I had them in a Rubbermaid storage container with vent holes in the lid and sides, and a heating pad. One of my adult cats put his paws on the edge of the container, looked at the kittens, looked at me, looked back at the kittens and back at me. I could hear him thinking “I can’t believe she had another litter, and at her age!”
I have a sort of romantic fantasy about Heaven. There are two gates. Saint Peter is guarding one and there’s a long line of people who must answer some difficult questions to determine whether they’re allowed to enter. Meanwhile, at the other gate, Saint Francis is welcoming the animals without any test at all: “Hi, Brother Max, welcome to Heaven. Want a biscuit? Hello, Sister Fluffy, welcome to Heaven. Make yourself at home. . . .”
For some reason, I have taken to singing Sunday School songs to my dog to calm her down. Those, and Mr. Rodgers songs.
So, I like to tell people I’m “raising Dolly to be Lutheran” (since I went to Lutheran Sunday School.) I tried to get her to bark every time I said “Jesus” but she wasn’t into it.
My brother, who is equally as weird as me and also a Lutheran, says he’s raising his dog to be Catholic like her mom (my brother’s wife is Catholic). So whenever the Pope is on TV, like Christmas or Easter Mass, he makes a point to watch it with the dog.
I can tell you exactly what my golden retriever is thinking:
::crickets::
We figure that since he only has one functioning brain cell, he really hasn’t managed to work out this “thought” thing. He’s the most lovable dog in the world, but dear great Og, if he was any dumber he wouldn’t be able to find the ground with his feet!
I realize this is MPSIMS, but to put a little GD spin on it (because it’s always been a damn interesting question), I don’t think most animals think about much. We humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize far too much. I truly do not think dogs and cats are self-aware. And self-awareness seems a pre-requisite for the complex and abstract ideas you’ve outlined here. To me, they seem like animals that always live in the now. They don’t have much concept of past and future.
For some thought on what it might be like to be another creature, check out this essay on What is it like to be a bat?, by Thomas Nagel.
I love pets as much as the next guy/girl, but to think that they feel the same, complex set of emotions and ideologies we have, I think is taking it too far. For one, I doubt they are conscious of the fact they will, one day, die. They have instincts, sure, but they don’t dwell on their own mortality like we do. So no, I don’t think they believe in a literal “dogie heaven.” I don’t think they have any particular beliefs as we understand them. They just are, and they don’t question their surroundings, their beings or anything else really.
I wondered after a family member died. Our little “puppy” came crawling into my bedroom in the house and started her usual greeting at my bedside. I petted her and realized… I just came home, this is the first time I’ve seen our family dog since a member of the family died. At that moment I did wonder what our dog was thinking.
Before we moved last year, we had a female mail carrier. She was a dog lover (she had several of her own), and she used to give my dog treats if she happened to be chained up outside. On days when the dog wasn’t outside, she would leave the treats on the porch. A very nice lady.
It got to the point that the dog would go nuts anytime she saw a truck from the USPS, thinking that the mail carrier was somewhere around. She would go out, sit down, and just stare at the truck without moving.
Of course, if she saw the mail lady across the street, she went bonkers.
I can just imagine her saying:
the mail lady, the mail lady, the mail lady, i have to go out, the mail lady is here, the mail lady is here, let me out, let me out, let me out!!!
I often wonder what my budgerigar is thinking. I’ve mentioned this before, but I do believe I have observed evidence suggestive of a genuine internal thought-life*
He’s an intelligent bird - as are most members of the parrot family - he does stuff that appears quite deliberate and consequence-aware - for example pulling shut the door to his cage when he doesn’t want to be pestered.
And he has moods and emotions, but the weird thing is, they’re alien - it’s possible to discern distinct patterns of behaviour and demeanour at different times - it’s just not at all easy to map them to any human equivalents such as ‘happy’, ‘sad’, ‘anxious’, or ‘angry’, etc.
-he clearly has something that looks like emotion, but it is just configured in a consistent, but different way to mine.
(*he mimics human speech - this itself isn’t necessarily cognitive, but the way he learns it could be - he will sometimes suddenly start repeating something I said to him weeks or months ago, and haven’t said since - but what’s particularly interesting is that the first time he says it, it is indistinct, then as he repeats it a few times, it becomes clearer and closer to the original sound - which I believe indicates he’s ‘replaying’ it in his head, and copying that).
