Friday, December 08, 2023

Maybe I would rather not know?

This is the heading for an article in Science magazine:

What are farm animals thinking?

New research is revealing surprising complexity in the minds of goats, pigs, and other livestock

It's pretty interesting, even if the implications for eating meat are not so encouraging...

2 comments:

John said...

Steve I have probably mentioned this before. The Age of Empathy by Frans de Waal, changed my understanding of animal consciousness and cognition. Just the other day there was a news report that mice pass the Gallup Test.
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-mice-mirror-classic-indicator-self-recognition.html

It is disturbing to think about. These types of findings are a direct challenge to the Abrahamic religions which argue consciousness and abstraction are unique to human beings; I regard the two as inextricably linked. There is even evidence some animals are aware of death and its consequences but that is impossible to conclusively prove. The gap for God is becoming very small. Buddhists though probably don't have a problem with these findings.

Steve said...

I see that the book is available via Anna's Archive. I will have a look.