Instead of a dead bear spread out in front of your fireplace, why not use the most prized of all hunters - the hunter himself. A hairy individual is preferable for rubbing your feat up and down on his back, and tattoos would of course be a bonus. He could be positioned so that he gazes longingly into the fire, dreaming perhaps of pursuing the very bear he may have just replaced. Shrunken versions could be used as computer mouse mats, whilst the stand alone head model would be useful as a convenient door stop, boot scraper, or mounted on a pole as a hat stand.-- xenzag, Nov 04 2005 Professor Gunther von Hagens http://www.studio-i...rts/body_worlds.htm*proceed to link with caution*, not sure I want this in my living room. um, not really sure this should exist anywhere. [Zuzu, Nov 04 2005] Mourning for Michael http://www.koko.org.../mourning_koko.html [Zuzu, Nov 06 2005] Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behaviour http://www.amazon.c...443#product-details [wagster, Nov 06 2005] school supports this initiative annually. http://www.jeansfor...om/1_home/index.php [po, Nov 07 2005] A line in the book "The Stand" went something along the lines of 'At some point you've got to stop watching the watchers, or the whole world becomes a listening post'. Similarly hunting the hunters will make the whole world apparently into rugs.-- hidden truths, Nov 04 2005 "A hairy individual" - phew, that lets me off the hook!
A couple of Roger Zelazny's books featured rugs that had the nerves of vanquished rivals woven into them. A fitting revenge, perhaps, on some people.-- DrCurry, Nov 04 2005 you'd have to squish him flat for a comfortable rug though
<trips over pith helmet> what fool left that there?-- po, Nov 04 2005 jsp: you are so, so wrong.-- DrCurry, Nov 04 2005 mice can sing :)-- po, Nov 04 2005 But not much chance of us making a mouseskin rug, methinks.-- DrCurry, Nov 04 2005 The way I see it, the only difference between a human and a beast experiencing pain is that the human is able to explain exactly what it's like to someone else in agonising detail.
The animal, while experiencing precisely the same feelings is just unable to tell anyone about them.
I'm not sure whether it's sensible to imagine animals on some kind of conciousness ladder with insects, worms, sponges and amoebas being near the bottom, and furry vertebrates being nearer the top.
That throws up some uncomfortable questions (that I've not managed to quite come to terms with yet) about how much I should be enjoying a tasty roast-beef or bacon sandwich, but we'll leave those unanswered for the moment.-- zen_tom, Nov 04 2005 I agree with zen_tom, but then there is also the added benefit of not being able to communicate--you are less likely to know of any impending doom.-- Zuzu, Nov 04 2005 Zuzu: cows, for example, are clearly capable of understanding impending doom - they make abatoir pen corridors curved so the poor things can't see what's about to hit them between the ears. And you don't need speech to communicate. jscottpete: there's really not much to explain about a mouseskin rug.-- DrCurry, Nov 04 2005 Agreed. But it is my last lingering excuse for my carnivorous behavior...upsetting.
[glances around, fiddles with wine glass]
"Why yes, it has been unreasonably warm this season."-- Zuzu, Nov 04 2005 oh dear, I really really should be a vegetarian. I worry that someone will tell me that carrots have feelings and then what do I do?
someone told me that if I die alone in the house - my cat would eat me before my dog. these animals have no morals...-- po, Nov 04 2005 You just have to accept that everything (and everyone) dies, and do your best to ensure that everything that died in order to keep you alive, did so in the best and most dignified manner possible. That's not what I do, but it's what I think I *should* do - and it's what I try to do.-- zen_tom, Nov 04 2005 We share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees*. I would be really, really surprised if intimations of mortality were something that came from that 2% difference. Certainly, elephants have been documented showing the kinds of emotion around old bones of relatives that we would surely associate with mourning in humans.
I have also seen the feeling of impending doom in my own cat, when she has done something "wrong," like missing the litter box or flooding the kitchen. And we don't even punish her. Clearly even a cat is capable of understanding wrong, if not right, and anticipation of future events.
There is nothing magical or special about the human race, except that we happen to be members of it.
* We men also share 98% of our genes with women (and vice versa); makes you wonder, doesn't it?-- DrCurry, Nov 06 2005 I disagree, DrC, I would like my views to rhyme, but I simply haven't time, So I'll use prose.
Animal understand consequences, not morality. Morality is surely a human construct - would right and wrong exist without us? I think not (I know that many will disagree here, especially those who believe in a god). Cruelty to animals is wrong, but only in our eyes, as far as the animal is concerned it's just unpleasant.
As to whether animals can experience suffering (as opposed to pain), I believe that suffering is a product of self-awareness, and like self-awareness is situated in the frontal lobes, and so animals generally feel it to a much lesser degree than we do.
If anyone's interested in this stuff they could do worse than read "Animals in Translation", by Temple Grandin (link).-- wagster, Nov 06 2005 //We share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees// ...an interesting defence for people who masturbate in public.
We seem to discover more and more things that animals can do that once were thought to be the preserve of humans alone - tool-using crows, singing mice, etc. At the same time, things which were once taken for granted as being intrinsically human (the ability to interpret perspective, for example) turn out to be learned abilities. In years to come, I suspect people will look back and wonder why we thought the (current) pinnacle of the evolutionary pyramid was so far away from the rest of it... it's just a metaphor, but pyramids don't work very well if you try and put the capstone 300ft above the next one down.
[wags] Morality - human construct - \\those who believe\\ - must... make... point... can't... seem to reach.... keyboard...-- moomintroll, Nov 06 2005 I don't share my genes with anybody.-- po, Nov 06 2005 I've been renting mine out at weekends.-- moomintroll, Nov 06 2005 for how much?-- po, Nov 06 2005 Moom?-- wagster, Nov 06 2005 po: I was rather under the impression you'd been there, done that with the whole gene sharing thing. wagster: you're absolutely wrong. Anyone with an iota of wit who has owned a cat or a dog or a horse should be able to tell you they can experience shame, which requires a sense of right and wrong, or be mischievous, ditto.-- DrCurry, Nov 07 2005 The only dog that now calls me her human was an orphaned pup that our family took in as a companion to our Rottweiler/Black lab. Her companion, a larger dog and several years older couldn’t get out of the fenced yard but Echo, a not quite year old Border Collie/Golden retriever discovered that with enough speed, she could ricochette off of the inside corner of our fence to get on top, then tightrope walk the four inch top of the fence and get to the front yard where she would push open the gravity shutting gate that had no latch. It took a week for the radio proximity collars to arrive in the mail and I kick myself in the ass now, hindsight being twenty twenty, but I never latched it during that week and the Rottie/Lab...Cinder was hit by a car and died.This event was witnessed by my Border Collie Echo and her entire demeanor changed that day.There is no way that I can be convinced that animals have no concept of their impending death and I believe that pain level probably has a direct proportion to the amount of receptors an organism contains if not an inverse proportion, (less receptors= more pain).
The only thing we have on critters is the ability to keep notes.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 07 2005 Sort of [jsp]. She's an autistic animal behaviorist who works mainly with cattle and horses. She works with the US FDA to ensure humane treatment of livestock and has looked at the workings of most US slaughterhouses (of which there are very few). She usually starts by processing herself along with the cattle to see what it's like...-- wagster, Nov 07 2005 This is cool, but I'm sure there was a Far Side cartoon where Larson baked this. A deer sitting in a rocking chair with a hunter's head on the wall and a hunter rug.-- DocBrown, Nov 07 2005 // I still believe humans experience pain and please to a degree that other animals do not // Can't help thinking this is an approach which will persist until a cow turns round and says, "Hey, that *really* fucking hurt."
[po] actually I used to rent them out - now I keep 'em in a trust fund until I can find a suitable investment. (Can't decide whether that's some sort of Freudian metaphor or just my usual silliness. It's a terrible thing, being a complicated person.)-- moomintroll, Nov 07 2005 I empathise. moom.-- po, Nov 07 2005 Thanks, I think.-- moomintroll, Nov 07 2005 I'm a year late, but I have a few things to say:
[wagster], animals feel shame a Dr. Curry annoed. Even though we've never yelled at our Grandma's dog for passing gas while she's near us, she puts her tail between her legs and sulks away whenever she does.
[zen_tom], my views on eating meat are somewhat similar to my views on thievery.
If I have something stolen from me, I feel that I should have guarded it better. Regardless of whether or not the other person needs it or not, they have it now.
If the human race is subjugatd by ultra-cows, and I'm on the conveyor belt in the abatoir, I'd feel like I should have rebeled against my cow overlords harder, instead of getting angry at them for thinking I'm delicous on rye.-- notmarkflynn, May 15 2006 random, halfbakery