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Empathy with Animals

L2R

L2R

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As fellow living creatures we naturally share some empathy with other species. This experience people have commonly with pets, in zoos or in the wilderness.
Twice, that i can think of, I've experienced a sudden heightening of this empathic connection, making it feel very emotional and even somewhat personal.

1- A couple of years ago, I was staying at my parents place and i saw a cockroach scurry across the floor. They make my skin crawl and i reacted by picking up a shoe. At this threatening gesture, it scurried under another shoe. This flight instinct struck a chord with me very vividly and for a moment i understood it's plight. My fear of insects overrided this sensation and i stepped on the other shoe killing it. Only as i did so, i felt the horror of my action. For a moment I actually felt my body compress and the pressure build up beneath my skin. I felt fear and hopelessness which suddenly stopped, along with the other physical sensations. This act has haunted me ever since, and now I rather gently removing insects with paper or tissue paper.

2- Yesterday, as i walked home through darling harbour, i saw an Ibis bird standing between two benches and near a wall. These birds are very common to the area, and the palm trees above where this one was standing are generally full of them feeding their young, who make a constant shrill of a sound. As i walked past, this bird struck me as odd. It was standing there on it's own and only staring straight ahead. I thought i detected a slight shiver in it. I got a very strong sensation of fear from it. The strong fear and despair of a child being left alone for the first time with no idea what to do or where to go. It dawned on me that it may have prematurely fallen from the tree top and it's parents haven't figured it out yet. As i was walking past i had an incredibly strong urge to comfort it, but I kept on walking since i'd probably only scare it even more if i had approached it. It was VERY difficult to walk away.

These things could very well be simply responces from an overacting imagination. I grant this possibility, yet the experiences have felt very real to me.

Can anyone relate?
 
Utterly and completely. I feel ya.
A mark of true compassion,
one empathizing even with insects.

Last week I saved a praying mantis from being squashed in my door, but I thought it was sick and i put it outside my window. I thought it died, and a hail storm came at sunset and I forgot about the mantis.

The next day I opened by Zack Morris type window,
and the mantis corpse was still there in the same place, motionless.

I felt bad, failing to save its life,
even though it wasn't squashed by a metal door.

So I poked it gently, and i almost freaked out because...
Theb, the mantis jumped at my touch and bolted away out of sight.
It must have been sleeping really deeply!

and yes, i know the females eat the males after mating
and no, I can't read minds
and yes, I am bullemic

We are techno-monkeys. We are techno sapiens.
We have compassion. It's a good thing. Rock on L2R!

Still, fuck mosquitos and cockroaches :)
 
I used to have a dog who had definite opinions of different people. There were two people in particular whom she liked and she would sit up by their feet.

There was another person who she couldn't stand. On one paticular occasion she gave a derisory snort, and walked away in a huff as if to say, 'I don't want to get mucked up in this.'

She could be quite a haughty madam at times!!
 
Can anyone relate?
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Absolutely. I never kill spiders (yes, even the huge ones), certain bugs, mosquitoes that come wandering into my domain...I just let them out the window or place them in the garden lol. I just feel for them. I have tremendous empathy for creepy crawlies lol.....just as I do with all other kinds of animals,big and small, I come across.

On the OTHER HAND, I have no remorse for cockroaches (which is so fucking abundant in the tropics, even flying ones) and mice. But that's just me. Hey, I aint an all or nothing kind of girl anyway. If you lived in my part of the world you'd see how annoying (roach + vermin) can get.
 
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i experience this kind of thing sometimes -- i think all humans naturally have some degree of empathy for emotions or qualities we recognize in ourselves or in those we love, and when an animal expresses them without going through the complex thought processes humans undergo to define or rationalize our feelings we can be struck by the contrast between our thought processes and theirs, and amazed that they can come to the same conclusions we do.
 
I relate to this as well.
I remember once when I was really young, about 4 or 5, I saw a caterpillar crawling along the driveway. I picked up a small stick and poked it right through it's back.
The caterpillar bent it's head around and placed it on the hole in its back. I was so struck by this motion, and felt absolutely terrible. I suppose I'd never really given it any thought before that moment, but they way it touched the sore spot reminded me of a person doing exactly the same thing. It really made me feel bad, and has stuck in my head ever since. I've never killed an animal or insect intentionally since then, daddy long legs always get stuck in my bath and I always take them out.
I don't think I have the right to kill anything, especially when it's so easy just to take insects outside, or avoid stepping on them.
 
tango said:
I don't think I have the right to kill anything, especially when it's so easy just to take insects outside, or avoid stepping on them.
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I feel the same way. After all, who am I to end the life of another living creature without provocation? I'm not god (or who/whatever you believe in). I am merely another creature inhabiting the planet Earth.
 
id much rather spend my time with animals than humans for the most part. far more intelligent.

they need a voice, zero tolerance for cruelty.

if that means being militant, so be it.
 
I'm not sure on this one. I've never really had pets in the past so when I see other people's they fascinate me. I can see very human like traits in most animals I've come across, and I've had more time looking at "run of the mill" pets like cats and dogs. They have expressions that are very similar to a human I find. On the other hand it could be me projecting what I am used to seeing on a human onto an animal. I'm pretty sure it's the first thing though as we've all got the same basic instincts I'd say.
 
PsyGhost said:
definitely. militant environmental activism is the way to go
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Glad to see how biased your brain is to automatically correlate a philosophy with a radical mode of action.
 
^^ to harmonize the way you act with the way you think is being biased?

how about telling those who fight against poverty that they are being biased for putting their ideals in practice rather than staying at home to congratulate themselves for their generous thoughts?
 
I've noticed that my cat and dogs are capable of empathy as well.Whenever I'm strung out they just look at me and can tell if its the right time to approach or not.If im in pain they'll often come and try to comfort me out of compassion.Once during mushroom trip from hell I was lying in emotional agony and my cat came over and lied on my chest facing me and just purred.This has never happened before and I'm surprised she even approched me in the state I was in.This act of compassion raised my morale instantly.
 
L2R, your experiences with the roach and the bird get at the very core of life. We are all based on DNA, and we have to remind ourselves that the emotions we experience are based on these fundamental traits of self-replicating beings. Thankfully, insects, and other animals to varying degrees, do not share the same self-reflective capacity as humans. The actual experience of "fear" or "pain" is just not at the same level as ours. This is what allows me to justify certain actions that end life. Of course you should always try to minimize the pain caused as much as you can, that's something worth fighting for. These militant groups go way overboard in trying to make humans and animals equal. It hinders necessary research, which has two rather ironic effects. It directly harms the researchers/whoever happens to be in the building they blow up, and it causes suffering in HUMANS who could be helped by the type of research conducted on animals. So basically, I think empathy with other life forms is a very noble trait, but at the same time, we need to keep things in perspective.
 
^^ there are threads on the subject
but i've stated my opinion before
as long as white guys with blue eyes come out winners, i don't care about torturing the rest
 
yes, my strongly militant ways are what attracted me to this thread, PsyGhost. "empathy with animals"...?





i had actually written a good paragraph on this subject and before posting it i had to login again; the whole thing was lost. so instead i posted a graphic summation of my feelings.. i think perhaps the intent of the image was misunderstood... call me lazy, not militant. whether what you said was intended as a positive or a negative remark i don't consider my own beliefs and actions to be militant in nature..
 
vegan, you're arrows indicate that you're reffering to my post, but your response tells me that you obviously didn't read it. Not everyone who doesn't follow a vegan lifestyle is a racist with sadist tendencies...
 
co1, i've and many i know have also experienced animals nurturing them in our times of need. it's quite wonderful isn't it.

ele, you know i reckon we are all based on more than just DNA, but i do agree that these experiences do get closer to whatever core of life there is.

tango said:
I relate to this as well.
I remember once when I was really young, about 4 or 5, I saw a caterpillar crawling along the driveway. I picked up a small stick and poked it right through it's back.
The caterpillar bent it's head around and placed it on the hole in its back. I was so struck by this motion, and felt absolutely terrible. I suppose I'd never really given it any thought before that moment, but they way it touched the sore spot reminded me of a person doing exactly the same thing. It really made me feel bad, and has stuck in my head ever since. I've never killed an animal or insect intentionally since then, daddy long legs always get stuck in my bath and I always take them out.
I don't think I have the right to kill anything, especially when it's so easy just to take insects outside, or avoid stepping on them.
Click to expand...

Could you feel the damage in your back, and/or the confusion related to it?

The reason i raised these two stories in my OP, is the surreal sensations of literally feeling what seems to be the position of these creatures.
 
elemenohpee said:
Thankfully, insects, and other animals to varying degrees, do not share the same self-reflective capacity as humans. The actual experience of "fear" or "pain" is just not at the same level as ours. This is what allows me to justify certain actions that end life.
Click to expand...

I'll go ahead and agree with you that your first sentence is true. The second sentence, I'm not so sure about. In fact, it seems like an assertion that would be impossible to test. It's not as if we have a fear/pain "level" measuring device that we could verify our "level" against the animals'. Also, even if both sentences one and two are true, three doesn't follow from them. Its definitely not analytic that:

If 1) an organism has a different self-reflective capacity as humans and 2) Its experience of "fear" or "pain" is at a different "level" than humans then 3) a human is justified to end that organisms life.

Possible counter example: There are aliens who have a completely different "self-reflective capacity." These aliens also happen to experience fear/pain at different "levels" than we do (suppose we invented a fear/pain level measuring device I guess). Even though they meet your two criteria it doesn't seem like it would then be just to go ahead and kill them without further qualification.
 
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