What's your favourite kind of pet, and why?

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Oh, too much thinking for someone who hasn't even slept yet (it's now 8 am here ) I hope I can think clearly enough...

Two of the most defining characteristics of humans IMO, that set us apart from animals, is the complexity in our lives, and our emotional/spiritual/perceptive depth. I find complexity is an indicator of the heightened sentience we have. Like us on computers, communicating right now. There is so much detail in what we're doing right now (computer, html, internet connection, keyboard. Why are we doing it? Because we want to understand the difference (if there is one) between what humans and animals feel, and we want to hear it from specific people groups (i.e. aspies all over the world). You don't see animals doing stuff like that. It's like, humans need to use abnatural means to answer abnatural questions and stuff...
Oh god, I am so tired right now. I think I am just going to confuse you once again.

I don't see what complexity has to do with emotion's, happy is happy, sad is sad, mad is mad, what dose being able to identify the degrees of those have to do with whether or not they are felt?

Also, it is 1:24AM here

But human emotions extend deeper than happy, sad, and mad. There are so many reasons for these feelings we have, that are unfathomable by animals. I was trying to say that the complexity we have in our lives is a sort of proof of this complexity in our minds.

Sorry, but staying up til 9 am makes you more tired.

I always think of emotions as just varying degrees and combinations of happy mad and sad. The complexaty of the mind makes it so we can, atleast try to sort out the combonations and reasons for the emotions, but dose it really effect the emotions?
True

Don't forget scared and horny. I don't think animals have the varying degrees and combinations that humans do in their emotions.
I don't know if it affects the emotions themselves. I am getting realllyy tired to comprehend. XD

Those to, lol. Maybe, maybe not, no way to really know. But if they have the basic one's, why can't they have the more complex combinations of them.

There's not yet a way to absolutely prove they can't have them. But there's no way to prove it either. And evidence suggests they don't. I believe they don't because they just act stupider than us, and aren't as... complex!! ! XD

Didn't say they where as smart, if i am not mistaken, emotion and intelligence are two different parts of the brain. And i say that they do, because my dogs are happy most of the time, they where sad when one of them died, they are mad when a raccoon steels dog food, they are scared when there is thunder/lightning.

But I think with intelligence comes a greater depth and understanding of emotion. Like what you were saying. I don't think the changes in human IQs would be enough to change these too drastically. I think the IQ of a human and a dog would see a difference in emotion.
Yeah, your dogs can feel the emotions. I definitely think they can. But they wouldn't feel mad, scared, and sad all in one emotion because their fellow dog died, and it left them feeling like the dead dog abandoned them, like they were cheated, and scared for being alone.

Dose understanding an emotion change the emotion?
Again, maybe they do, maybe they don't, only way to know is to ask them, and they aren't talking

Aww what a sad story! I'm so sorry!! I hope u get another Airedale Terrier soon!!

Then shooting a human versus a dog would induce indistinguishable physical agony.


You must have never had the pleasure of the company of the most common companion animals.

Yup. And just as it's silly to assert shooting a mentally-retarded individual is "more" right on the basis that he or she cannot and will not be able to understand the concept of a vein, such is likewise the case for any other animal one might name.

Interestingly enough,
a few centuries ago, this debate would be surrounding women and black people,
then understood to be justifiably-denied the most basic of rights and protections because the former was considered a non-rational being and the latter not a person at all.

This is of course bullsh*t- the dominant class's constant attempts to position itself as somehow magically special and "better" has time and time again proved to be irrational and resultant in gross suffering.

i am not sure how you derived that from what i said. it seems mildly hysterical, but i am not a good judge. i never mentioned shooting anything.

i consider the human race to be just another type of animal (and i am correct), but unlike all other animals, humans have stolen the earth. they believe that the earth belongs to them, and every part of the surface area (excepting the poles and whatever other snippets) is "owned" by some country or another.

humans believe that what happens in the world should be a result of their will, and so they try to control every aspect of it. i look at cities and i wonder at the fact that all that once peaceful and natural land is now lain over by human construction.

it is a wall to wall smothering of the landscape with human requirements like roads and highways and city blocks and factories etc. the places "set aside" for recreation are still controlled tightly. dogs must be leashed and all the trees and flowers are designed to be there by humans.

human development is a major imposition on other species' rights to share the world.
for example: if there was a mountain lion anywhere within the los angeles limits (an area of 87,500 km^2 ), it would be quickly dispatched. it would probably be tranquilized and relocated, but if it ran off down the "street", it would be shot dead. humans own the world and they say what life is welcome where, and they feel they deserve the earth because they are smarter. actually, most humans never give it a thought. they just "can" outwit animals for their own benefit so they do.

humans are a dangerous species to have arisen from the gene pool of evolution, and i am glad i will not be here in 1000 years. whatever wonderful advancements humanity makes, they will not counterbalance the explosion in population to a state of toxic compression.

as time goes by, more and more of mans natural "predators" (any agent that causes human death in this sense) will be eliminated, and the death rate will plummet. it will happen this way unless there is some "cold inhuman" decision to withhold salvation to certain types of people in times of their illness.

humans will cover the earth eventually because they will probably solve the gradually increasingly difficult problems that confront them as time unfolds, and they will be able to solve them because they will most likely evolve in intellect at a similar pace to the "complexification" of their environmental demands.

when i was a child, me and my parents used to go to our property (400 acres) in the country every second weekend. there was a 2 lane aggregate infused bitumen road for most of the distance, and the trip time was 5 hours. we wove "uphill and down dale" (as it were) as we drove past old farmsheds and homesteads, and we encountered much pristine forest where i usually told my father to stop so i could go to the toilet. i used to walk into the forest for about 150 meters, and there was no sound and the smell was delightful and there were birds and the whole thing made me feel like i was real and "alive".

time has passed and now, when i drive through that area, there are 3 storey office blocks and 5 storey apartment blocks, and there are large sections for shopping where there are carparks for 600 cars. they have sports complexes and all sorts of "coverage".



the roads are now "hotmix", and there are traffic lights and intersections and speed humps and speed camera's and the whole beautiful place was stomped into by humanity and destroyed.

i like simple animals because i trust them.

i like simple animals because i have no need to question what they communicate to me.

animals can not help but be truthful. they can not lie. they can deceive i know, but that is just a mechanism they instinctively follow (like the cuckoo and stalking lions etc). it is predictable.

humans are mysterious to me because many of them are completely an act. i can not imagine how they script in their heads what they say. they are too complicated and dishonest for me.

i like certain people who i trust, but my default preference is with the attention that animals pay to me.

i will never get it all said so i will choose here to stop.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue-_Vg9SX7M[/youtube]

Thank you! He's a great dog. When we first adopted him, he had a lot of trust issues, but he's been showered with good food & affection & has since learned that most people are going to be kind to him. No more living on the streets trying to survive for him!

B9, our American Oppossum or possum is also a marsupial, like yours, but much less handsome. She carries her young first in her pouch, & then on her back until they are old enough to live on their own. They get quite large. When I say giant rat, it's no joke (the babies (riding on their mother's back) are the size of normal adult rats). I had a young possum visit who weighed about 3 or 4 pounds. It was nearly the same size of my dog. The adults can get quite large. I have never weighed one, but have seen them grow to be probably 30+ pounds. Now, let me ask you how many people do you know who would not be freaked out by something that resembles a rat only 100 times a rats normal size? I was not aware that there was a slight difference in spelling of the species. My apologies. Ours are usually called opossums, but most people just call them possums. Google their image if you like.

They really do resemble rats, as they have long bare tails & a wedged shaped face with a pointy nose. Even their ears are a similar shape although, only at a glance. If you get a chance to get a good look there are obvious differences, but mainly size is what sets them apart. I think if our possums were as sweet looking as yours, they'd be less feared. I am not afraid of them, but know plenty of people who would be happy to see them permanently disappear from this country. Sad fact, but true.

I didn't say there's ANYTHING WRONG with rats. Merely that our possums are compared to them. I have nothing personal against rats or possums having been around both.