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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 7 of 7. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by llrrrpp on June 11, 2006, at 20:20:08
Elephants do not belong in urban zoos or circuses with inadequate facilities. Their feet get sore and infected. Elephants get depressed. They die.
It just happened in Los Angeles. Poor Gita
And it happened in Chicago before that.
Poor things. They are not flowers that we display and then toss out when they wilt. They are sensitive, intelligent creatures, capable of forming social bonds that last their entire lives (50-70 years).
Return them to South and Southeast Asia. Give them sanctuary there, or put them to work pulling tree stumps in the forest. Their work is respected and treasured. They are worshipped in many cultures, and killed by ours.
(((((((Elephants))))))))
Posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 22:25:18
In reply to I don't want any more elephants to die, posted by llrrrpp on June 11, 2006, at 20:20:08
Posted by Declan on June 13, 2006, at 19:14:49
In reply to I don't want any more elephants to die, posted by llrrrpp on June 11, 2006, at 20:20:08
There was a David Attenborough show where elephants came across a dead elephant's bones. They picked them up, smelt them and looked at them, standing around together. Attenborough said that it was obvious to him that elephants are self aware.
Declan
Posted by llrrrpp on June 13, 2006, at 19:28:43
In reply to Re: I don't want any more elephants to die, posted by Declan on June 13, 2006, at 19:14:49
> There was a David Attenborough show where elephants came across a dead elephant's bones. They picked them up, smelt them and looked at them, standing around together. Attenborough said that it was obvious to him that elephants are self aware.
> Declanyes, elephants have mourning rituals when their peers pass on. even bones, huh? I'm not sure if they are self-aware, but they are certainly more empathetic than we give them credit for. They are not merely a beast-of-burden. they are not merely eye candy for children to oogle in zoos. they are very sensitive animals with long memories and complicated systems of communication (very low frequencies, which can travel for miles in the right weather conditions -- I don't know about Asian elephants' vocalizations).
-ll
Posted by Declan on June 13, 2006, at 20:34:34
In reply to Re: I don't want any more elephants to die » Declan, posted by llrrrpp on June 13, 2006, at 19:28:43
What does it mean to say you are self aware? Is that about mortality, or (psychological)seperateness, or being aware that you are aware, or what? We repeat things like 'only humans have self awareness', and I realise I don't know what that means. (I feel sure that we grossly underestimate other creatures; just look how we do it to each other.)
Declan
Posted by llrrrpp on June 13, 2006, at 20:51:10
In reply to Re: I don't want any more elephants to die, posted by Declan on June 13, 2006, at 20:34:34
> What does it mean to say you are self aware? Is that about mortality, or (psychological)seperateness, or being aware that you are aware, or what? We repeat things like 'only humans have self awareness', and I realise I don't know what that means. (I feel sure that we grossly underestimate other creatures; just look how we do it to each other.)
> DeclanWell, being self-aware is very difficult to define. One interesting test that I've seen is the ability to represent one's self symbolically. i.e. put a spot of paint on a kids' nose while they're asleep. When they wake up, if they look in the mirror, will they realize that the face in the mirror is their own? will they rub their nose to get the paint off? at some ages they will, at younger ages they won't. I can't remember about non-human primates. I think there might be a finding that chimps do this (Michael Tomasello?)
Another related cognitive/social phenomenon is called Theory of Mind ToM for short. Cognitive and Social Psychologists and others (I wish estella were here!!) developed this idea to characterize the belief that when we interact with our conspecifics (i.e. when I write to Declan) I believe that Declan has a mind that operates according to the same principles as mine. Declan has (his?) own thoughts, his own feelings, his own beliefs, his own experiences. Furthermore, I believe that Declan also knows that I am a separable entity with my own thoughts etc. So, sometime in the first year of life Dev. Psychologist Amanda Woodward has shown that infants understand the rudiments of intentionality. That is, that infants understand that hands that move objects are connected to people with intentions. If a robot hand moves the object, the infant does not attribute intentionality to the motion, rather treats it as a set of causes and effects (paired stimulus-responses) rather than as a movement with a goal of putting an object in a specific place.
Later on, toddlers learn that individuals may not all share the same knowledge. For instance, imagine that a crayon is hidden in a can in front of the teacher. The teacher leaves the room and a naughty kid switches the crayon for a snake. the teacher comes back in and opens the can and is NOT surprised to see a snake. Well, this is consistent with the world-view of a 2 year-old. The cans contents changed. Of course the teacher knows that. Everyone knows that, right? but the 3 year old expects the teacher to freak out upon discovering the snake.
Anyway Tomasello (working at Max Planck Institute in Germany) has done some analagous work with chimps. I don't remember the specifics of it, but I think he has shown that chimps operate under the assumption that different chimps know different things. So, chimps have some kind of rudimentary ToM.
I wonder about elephants?
I wonder about some people sometimes too...
Posted by Declan on June 13, 2006, at 23:50:16
In reply to Re: I don't want any more elephants to die ToM » Declan, posted by llrrrpp on June 13, 2006, at 20:51:10
Those elegant experiments to determine the theory of mind thing were done on autistic kids and described in Uta Frith's "Autism: Explaining the Enigma". And then Buddhists/someoneorother say that the sense of self and seperateness is an illusion. I've spent a lot of time thinking about engulfment (is that term used anymore?) because I've been there so much. On a trip once a friend looked at me and said "egos are just fictional entities" and I felt awestruck. Can you can get a diagnosis for Asperger's if you are too empathic?
I hope these thoughts hang at least loosely together.
Declan
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